Leo Li maintained the fragile equilibrium of his life through a series of precise, almost pathologically obsessive rituals.
The alarm went off at 7:15 AM. It was not the piercing shriek of a digital clock, but a soft, rhythmic "tick-tock" he had sourced from an online archive of antique mechanical clocks. Sharp noises made his heart race, a condition he'd had since he was a small boy.
At 7:30, he would be seated at the same table against the back wall of the Sun Wah Cafe. This spot afforded him a clear view of the entrance while shielding him from the direct flow of foot traffic. He ordered the Set B breakfast: instant noodles with satay beef, scrambled eggs on toast. His method of consumption never varied: he would finish all the savory beef first, then the noodles, which by then had begun to swell slightly, and only at the very end would he touch the golden mound of scrambled eggs. It was a "principle" his father had taught him during their one and only visit to a cafe together, a lifetime ago. "Leo," his father had said, a rare smile gracing his features, "in food, as in life, always save the best for last." He no longer remembered his father's expression, but the habit was etched into his muscle memory, a behavioral fossil.
As he ate, he habitually scanned his surroundings. His eyes fell upon the old man who was there almost every morning, occupying a booth diagonally across from him. The man, probably in his seventies, was spirited and dressed in simple but clean clothes. He never read the news or the horse racing section. His focus was always squarely on the crossword puzzle in the newspaper's lifestyle supplement. He held a well-worn, stubby pencil, diligently filling in the squares. Occasionally, stumped by a clue, he would frown, then lift his head, his gaze sweeping across the bustling cafe. Each time, his eyes would rest on Leo for a fleeting second. The look wasn't sharp, but it was appraising, as if confirming something, before he would lower his head again to his world of intersecting words.
At 8:10, he squeezed onto the MTR train bound for Central, standing in the second car, to the left of the fourth door. He had once calculated on a napkin that this was the precise point in the entire train that experienced the least amount of pressure from the chaotic surge of human traffic during the transfer at Admiralty station. He hated crowds. He hated the unavoidable, clammy touch of strangers, a sensation that made his skin crawl with a nameless dread.
At 9:00 AM sharp, he was seated in his small cubicle on the forty-second floor of the Cheung Kong Center, at Pan-Asia Logistics, ready to begin his day's work: reconciling the endless, cascading numbers on shipping manifests and letters of credit. He possessed a natural, almost unnerving sensitivity to numbers. This obsessive fear of "error" was a scar, etched into his psyche by a catastrophe eighteen years ago.
"Leo? Leo?"
His colleague Pat's voice pulled him from the momentary trance. He blinked, realizing he had been staring blankly at a bill of lading, his eyes fixed on the number "1028". October 28th. The day it happened. Whenever he saw that specific combination of digits, the phantom smell of rust and blood seemed to travel through time and assault his senses. A dull throb began behind his right eye, the familiar harbinger of a migraine.
"You okay? You look pale," Pat asked, a genuine concern in her voice as she handed him a cold bottle of Vitasoy lemon tea, a small ritual of her own.
"I'm fine," Leo shook his head, the icy bottle a grounding presence in his suddenly clammy hand. "Just… didn't sleep well last night."
Pat was the only person in the office who made an effort to talk to him. Her attention stemmed from an incident months ago when a hidden system glitch caused a significant duplicate payment. The entire department had been in a panic for two days until Leo, based on a gut feeling, pointed out the source of the error in a sea of thousands of data entries, saving Pat from a major headache. Since then, she held a mixture of gratitude and curiosity for her quiet, meticulous colleague.
Seeing his pale face, she teased gently, "Another headache? You should go home early. It's almost Friday, go out and have some fun. Got a date or something?"
A faint blush crept up Leo's neck. He immediately looked down, avoiding her gaze, and mumbled a noncommittal "Mm." He didn't know how to respond to such casual, well-meaning banter. Any conversation that strayed from the predictable script of his daily rituals left him feeling utterly exposed.
Pat, seeing his discomfort, gave a wry, helpless smile and returned to her desk. She didn't know that for Leo, the concept of "rest" was sometimes more terrifying than work. Because when he stopped, the nightmare would find him.
It found him, as expected, during his lunch break.
He was dozing at his desk when he plunged into the familiar, monochromatic purgatory.
He was in an infinite space made of black and white squares. His father's figure sat nearby, his face a blur, like an ink wash painting left in the rain. Across from him sat a "shadow," a being of pure, shifting darkness with no discernible features. They were playing Go on a board that stretched to the horizon.
With a flick of the shadow's wrist, a silent, sharp snap echoed in the void. The black stones on the board began to multiply, spreading like a virus, visibly consuming the white stones. The shadow let out a silent "laugh" that vibrated through the entire space, an expression of pure, emotionless contempt.
His father's white stones dwindled. Finally, with a desperate cry, he crushed the last one in his hand. Leo saw blood, vividly red, gush from his father's blurred fingers. In the next instant, the entire board collapsed into a giant, roaring black vortex, sucking in his father, the shadow, and all the stones.
He was left alone, floating in an endless darkness, with only the sharp, crisp sound of a shattering stone echoing over and over again.
"Leo! Leo!"
He was shaken awake by Pat. He was drenched in cold sweat, his heart pounding. The entire office was looking at him with curious glances.
"Nightmare again?" Pat asked, handing him a cup of hot water, her voice soft with worry.
Leo took the cup, his hands still trembling. He could only nod, unable to speak.
In the afternoon, a package with no return address was delivered to the front desk. The receptionist noted the strange "white dove" stamp. Pat, ever the office busybody, brought it to his desk, her curiosity piqued. The unexpected object sat on his desk like a time bomb, radiating an aura of pure anxiety.
He carried it home, clutching it tightly on the MTR, a suspicious object he guarded from the jostling crowd. His mind was a battlefield. Throw it away, preserve the safety of his ritual? Or open it, and face the unknown? For the first time in years, he felt a flicker of something other than fear: a terrifying, exhilarating spark of excitement.
Back in his tiny, cramped room, he carefully unwrapped the package. Inside, nestled in a small velvet pouch, was a single, flawless white Yunzi Go stone.
He held it in his palm. The cool, smooth touch was a key, unlocking a flood of memories. He felt a wave of suffocation. He wanted to throw it away, but as he raised his hand, he froze. On the stone's surface was a black speck, smaller than a mote of dust.
He walked to the corner of the room, to the old Go board his father had left behind, now covered in a thin layer of dust. He'd never touched it before. On a sudden impulse, he lifted it, intending to move it to his desk. He grunted with surprise. It was much heavier than it looked, as if filled with metal. He turned it over and ran his finger along the bottom. He felt it: a hairline crack, almost imperceptible.
He placed the board on his desk. Tentatively, he brought the white stone—the key—closer to the board. Just as the two were about to touch, the thin layer of dust on the board's surface shivered, a silent, almost invisible tremor, as if affected by a static charge.
The phenomenon, as subtle as it was, sent a jolt of pure terror through him. He stumbled back, but at the same time, a desire for the truth, suppressed for eighteen years, erupted within him like a volcano.
He knew he could not run anymore.
The next day, he called in sick. He took the stone and boarded a bus to Sham Shui Po.
He arrived at Apliu Street, feeling lost and overwhelmed. Just as he was about to give up, his eyes landed on a tiny, unremarkable stall: "Phone Repair, Unlock, Data Recovery." Behind the counter, a young man in grease-stained goggles was hunched over, his focus absolute.
Leo walked up and placed the stone on the counter. "Excuse me," he said, his voice hoarse. "I was wondering… could you see if there's anything special about this?"
The young man glanced up, picked up the stone, and examined it. "Yunzi, fake A-grade," he said bluntly. "Solid. Nothing inside."
Leo's heart sank.
But as he reached for the stone, the young man held up a hand. "Wait. Huh. Weird." He placed it under a high-powered microscope. He fiddled with the focus. "Strange," he muttered. "This speck… it's not a stain."
He looked up, his eyes, magnified by the goggles, suddenly serious. "Hey, buddy," he said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "There's something weird about your Go stone."
Across the street, in the window seat of a cafe, the old man who played crossword puzzles lowered his newspaper. His gaze traveled through the chaotic crowd, landing with perfect precision on the small repair stall. A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched the corners of his lips, the smile of a man who had been waiting for a very, very long time.