Endless darkness, like deep-sea currents, wrapped around Lin Qiye as his body slowly sank.
His hollow eyes stared into the void before him. Like a puppet that had lost its soul, he was utterly powerless to resist the darkness swallowing him, merely sinking, sinking, sinking with the currents around him...
Whenever he felt he had already fallen into the abyss of darkness, some force would always forcibly hold him up, only to keep dragging him downward.
Lin Qiye did not know how long he had been sinking. Perhaps a day, perhaps a month, perhaps a year.
Here, time seemed to have lost all meaning. Only darkness and chaos were eternal melodies.
After an unknown length of time, a voice suddenly sounded beside his ear.
"—Who are you?"
A trace of life suddenly returned to Lin Qiye's hollow eyes. He blinked and dazedly looked toward a corner of the endless darkness, following the source of the voice.
A child of six or seven stood quietly in the heart of the darkness, frowning at him.
Was that me?
The moment he saw the child's face, Lin Qiye froze.
The child looked almost exactly like him as a boy. The only difference was that the child's gaze upon him was like the abyss around them—bottomless and unfathomable.
The child frowned at him and spoke again:
"—Who are you?"
"I am Lin Qiye."
At that answer, the child's brow furrowed even more tightly. He narrowed his eyes at Lin Qiye for a moment, then shook his head.
"—Wrong..."
"What is wrong?"
"—You are not me."
The moment the final word fell, a thunderclap exploded in Lin Qiye's mind, and the darkness around him began to churn violently.
At that moment, a speck of golden light ignited in the darkness above Lin Qiye's head. Like