Bring an Ancestor Home

At eleven at night, Lin Fan dragged his leaden legs out of the brightly lit office building.

The city's neon lights blurred into hazy spots before his tired eyes, much like his muddled brain at that moment. Another standard "996 blessing day." His neck was stiff, his back and waist ached, and his only consolation was the paltry overtime pay on his timekeeping app—and the relief of finally being able to crawl back to his rental and collapse.

"Lin Fan, I want to see the first draft of that request tomorrow morning." The project manager's casual remark as he left echoed in Lin Fan's ears like a curse.

"First draft... Easy for him to say. Has he even looked at the time?" Lin Fan muttered, rubbing his dry, swollen eyes. Resigned, he headed for the subway station. The last train had left long ago, so he could only hope his little electric scooter, as exhausted as he was, would carry him halfway across the city to his ten-square-meter rental in an old residential complex.

The late-spring breeze carried a hint of chill and blew away some of his fatigue. The residential complex where he rented had been around for quite a while. It was nicely landscaped, with lush trees, but that also meant the streetlights' glow was sliced into fragments by layer upon layer of leaves at night, casting great shifting patches of unsettling shadow on the ground.

It was quiet around him. Only his own footsteps echoed along the empty roads of the complex, occasionally accompanied by the distant bark of a dog.

For some reason, Lin Fan felt unusually uneasy tonight. Maybe he was just exhausted, or maybe this stretch, where the streetlights had been broken for days without anyone fixing them, was simply too dark. He instinctively quickened his pace, wanting nothing more than to get back to his little nest. It was cramped, but it made him feel completely safe.

Just as he rounded a residential building and saw the entrance to his own unit up ahead, his steps abruptly stopped.

A short distance away, beneath a streetlight, a blurry figure sat slumped against the lamppost, head hanging low, perfectly still.

Lin Fan's heart skipped a beat. A drunk? A vagrant? Or...?

His first instinct was to go around. Better not to get involved; these days, who wasn't barely keeping their own life together? But when he glanced at the person, he couldn't help freezing.

In the faint light spilling from a streetlamp farther away, he could make out that the person was wearing... very strange clothes.

They weren't anything people wore in modern times. They looked more like a costume from a period drama. The material seemed ordinary, yet in the dim light it had an indescribable texture, neither cloth nor silk. Wide sleeves and long robes—though they were dust-stained and crumpled around him now, they somehow still gave off an air of... faded elegance?

Long, ink-black hair hung loose, falling casually around his face and concealing most of it. Only his sharply defined jaw and a patch of rather pale skin were visible.

"What the hell? Did he pass out on the roadside after going overboard with his cosplay?" Lin Fan grumbled to himself, but his feet seemed nailed in place, and he couldn't bring himself to walk away.

The main thing was, this person... looked too clean.

Not his clothes, but his bearing. Even slumped so miserably by the roadside, he had none of a vagrant's dirtiness or a drunk's dejected air. Instead, he looked like an exquisite jade carving accidentally left behind in the mortal world, radiating a quiet, ancient aura completely at odds with the noisy streets around him.

Lin Fan shook his head, certain that overtime had finally made him hallucinate. He tentatively took a couple of steps closer and asked in a low voice, "Hey, man? You okay?"

There was no response.

Only the rustling of leaves in the evening breeze.

Lin Fan felt a little spooked. Was he... dead? He worked up his courage and edged closer. He was almost close enough to catch a faint, crisp scent from the other man, like pine needles after a snowfall—nothing like the smell of booze or sweat he'd expected.

"Hey, buddy? Wake up. Do you need me to call an ambulance?" He raised his voice, then cautiously nudged the hem of the man's robe with his toe.

The moment his toe touched the seemingly soft fabric, he felt a faint sensation like an electric current and jerked his foot back.

At almost the same time, the head that had been hanging low moved.

Long hair slid to either side, revealing a face.

Lin Fan's breath caught.

It was an extraordinarily young face, yet it also seemed extraordinarily ancient. The contradictory impressions clashed in his mind. Slanted brows swept toward his temples, his nose was as high and straight as a mountain ridge, and his pale lips were pressed into a hard, cold line. Most startling of all were the eyes that slowly opened.

Deep and black, like two ancient wells with no visible bottom. At first, they were empty and muddled, as if covered by ice that had never thawed in ten thousand years, devoid of any human emotion. But soon, something razor-sharp seemed to awaken beneath that icy surface, like a divine sword sealed away for countless ages about to be drawn. Just one sweep of his gaze made Lin Fan's skin prickle and sent a sudden chill racing up his spine.

That gaze held the indifference of someone looking down at an ant, and a trace of displeasure at being disturbed.

Lin Fan instinctively took half a step back, his heart pounding. There was no way an ordinary person could have eyes like that!

The man looked at him, his brow furrowing almost imperceptibly, as if trying to recognize something—or suppressing immense pain and... weakness? He spoke in a low, hoarse voice, yet with a strange, unquestionable cadence. The words he uttered left Lin Fan dumbfounded.

"Where... is this place? Who... are you?"

Lin Fan: "???"

Come on, man, weren't you taking this role a little too seriously?!

He took a deep breath, trying to communicate using common sense from modern society. "Hey, man, what set did you wander off from? Are you drunk or hypoglycemic? Do you need me to contact a friend or the police?"

The man—or rather, the handsome guy in ancient garb—seemed to have trouble understanding Lin Fan. He looked around at the distant concrete jungle, rising high with a few scattered lights glowing in its windows. The confusion in his eyes deepened, then turned to shock and... revulsion that Lin Fan couldn't understand.

"A film set? Hmph..." He gave a cold snort and seemed to struggle to his feet, but the moment he moved, he swayed violently and had to lean back against the lamppost. His face seemed to grow even paler. He raised a hand, apparently trying to gather something, but his fingertips remained empty, stirring only the faintest trace of air.

Lin Fan clearly saw an instant of sheer disbelief in his eyes, followed by deep humiliation.

"If not for the changes in the Heavenly Dao and the shifting of the laws, which stripped this lord of all his cultivation and damaged his soul..." His words sounded gritted through clenched teeth, but his weakness robbed his threat of any force. "Mere mortal iron could never come near me! You people..."

Before he could finish, a thoroughly ill-timed rumbling came clearly from his stomach.

The scene turned painfully awkward.

That gaze, cold enough to crack stone and metal, froze in place, then developed a hairline fracture.

Lin Fan: "..."

The handsome guy in ancient garb: "..."

Their eyes met. The air seemed to go still.

Lin Fan looked at the man, who was clearly starving to death but still stubbornly holding on to his pride. Somehow, his fear vanished all at once, replaced by an utterly absurd sense of comedy.

Trying not to laugh, he rummaged through the cheap backpack with his company logo on it and pulled out a individually wrapped little bread roll. He hadn't finished it during the afternoon snack at work, so he'd planned to bring it home as a late-night snack. He held it out.

"Here. Have a bite to tide you over."

The man's gaze fell on the brightly colored wrapper. His eyes were full of scrutiny, wariness, and... a hint of curiosity he could barely conceal. He didn't take it.

Lin Fan sighed, tore open the wrapper himself, broke off a small piece of the soft bread, and popped it into his mouth in front of the other man. "See? It's not poisoned. Just ordinary bread."

Seeing Lin Fan eat it without getting sick—or perhaps because hunger finally overcame his pride and caution—the man hesitated, then reached out. His fingers were long and pale, with distinct knuckles, like a work of art. Still, the way he took the bread was stiff and awkward.

He copied Lin Fan and put the small piece of bread in his mouth.

Then Lin Fan witnessed what it meant for someone's "pupils to quake."

Those eyes, as still as ancient wells, widened for an instant when the sweet, soft bread touched his tongue. His expression quickly returned to its usual impassiveness, but Lin Fan still caught his Adam's apple bobbing rapidly and a flash of light in his eyes that clearly said, This is delicious.

He ate quickly, but not crudely. If anything, there was still a trace of elegance ingrained in his bones. It was just the speed that gave away what his body truly needed.

After finishing the little piece, his gaze drifted involuntarily toward the rest of the bread in Lin Fan's hand.

Lin Fan found it both exasperating and funny. He handed him the rest of the bread. "Take it easy. Don't choke."

This time, the man didn't hesitate. He took it and polished it off in no time, without leaving a single crumb.

After eating, he seemed to recover a little strength. When he looked at Lin Fan again, his eyes still held little warmth, but that sheer indifference and hostility seemed to have diminished by the tiniest bit.

"This thing... is passable," he pronounced, grudgingly.

Lin Fan almost burst out laughing. "Passable"? He'd just eaten like a starving man.

"Listen, man," Lin Fan said, crouching down to make himself seem as approachable as possible. "What exactly happened to you? Amnesia? Did you get separated from your film crew? Where do you live? Want me to call you a cab?"

The man was silent for a moment, seemingly digesting Lin Fan's words or weighing his options. At last, he raised his eyes and looked directly at Lin Fan with those deep, inscrutable eyes, full of an intensity Lin Fan couldn't understand.

"I... do not know," he replied frankly. "I awoke here. My divine sense is obstructed, my Celestial Essence dormant, and I am... utterly out of place in this realm."

He paused, his gaze lingering on Lin Fan for a moment, as if confirming something, then added, "Only your aura... seems somewhat different."

His stare made Lin Fan's skin crawl. "Different? How? Do I smell like sweat because I haven't showered in three days?"

The other man didn't answer his joke. He only furrowed his brow slightly, as though pondering an extremely complicated question.

The night breeze grew colder. Lin Fan looked at this man in thin ancient clothing, of unknown origins, who spoke strangely but had an inexplicable air that made him impossible to abandon. He was torn.

Should he leave him here? These days, you couldn't trust people. If this was really someone with a mental illness who'd wandered away, and something happened to him on a night like this, Lin Fan wouldn't be able to live with himself. Call the police? How was he supposed to explain it? "I found a guy who calls himself 'this lord' and might've crossed over from a cultivation drama set"?

Take him home?

The thought had barely crossed Lin Fan's mind when he startled himself. What was he thinking?! His place was tiny. How could he fit another grown man in there? Besides, this was a stranger! What if...?

His gaze met those eyes again. Beneath the weakness and stubborn pride, there seemed to be a faint trace of confusion and helplessness, like someone who'd fallen on hard times.

Like... a large feline that had been soaked by the rain but still held its head high?

"Fine, fine! I'll take the blame!" Lin Fan clenched his teeth and stamped his foot. In the end, his pitiful reserve of overworked office-worker compassion won out. He pulled out his phone and waved it. "I'm Lin Fan, just... an ordinary office worker. How about you come back with me tonight and make do for one night? Once it's light, I'll help you figure out how to find your family or... your sect?"

He tried to use words the other man might understand.

The handsome man in ancient garb watched him in silence without answering right away. His gaze swept over Lin Fan from head to toe again, bringing back the feeling that he was being seen through completely. After a long while, he gave the slightest nod.

"Fine."

Just one word, yet it sounded as if he were granting Lin Fan an immense favor.

The corner of Lin Fan's mouth twitched. Great. He really had brought an ancestor home.

He resignedly reached out to support the other man. "Can you walk? My place is in that building up ahead."

The other man avoided his hand and tried to stand on his own, bracing himself against the lamppost. But after being weak and depleted for so long, his efforts were futile. He tried several times, staggering so badly that he nearly fell.

Lin Fan couldn't watch any longer. Without asking, he hooked an arm under the man's and hauled him upright. "Enough. Stop trying to save face and making yourself suffer. Let's go!"

The arm in his grasp wasn't thick. If anything, it was somewhat slender, but its muscles were smooth and firm beneath his hand, carrying a strength far beyond what his build suggested. Lin Fan wondered again: what exactly did this guy do?

The other man's body stiffened for an instant, as though he were extremely unaccustomed to being in such close contact with someone. But in the end, he didn't pull away. He let Lin Fan half-support, half-carry him toward the unit entrance.

They didn't speak again along the way. Only their footsteps and the other man's occasional heavy breaths from weakness echoed through the quiet night.

Lin Fan's thoughts were a mess. He had to be crazy to bring an unknown man in ancient clothes home with him. What was he supposed to do tomorrow? What if the guy never got his "memory" back? His meager salary was barely enough to support himself. How could he afford another mouth to feed?

He stole a glance at the man leaning against him. The other man's eyes were half closed, his long lashes casting faint shadows across his pale face. His brow remained slightly furrowed, as if he were enduring some pain or struggling against this utterly unfamiliar world.

"Whatever. I'll take it one step at a time." Lin Fan sighed, fished out his key, and inserted it into the lock on the unit entrance.

There was a soft click, and the door opened. The motion-sensor light in the hallway came on, spilling a dim yellow glow.

At that very moment, the corner of Lin Fan's eye seemed to catch a few scarlet points of light flickering in the shadows of the landscaped greenery not far behind him, like... cigarette embers?

His heart clenched. He instinctively turned to look.

The shadows stirred, but there was no one there. Only the sound of wind in the leaves.

Had he imagined it?

He frowned and suppressed the unease rising in his heart. Then he supported the man who'd dropped into his life by chance and stepped through the unit entrance.

The old, rusty hinges let out a harsh squeal, and the heavy door slowly closed behind him, shutting out the world beyond.

In the hallway, the motion-sensor light went out after the silence stretched on, and darkness descended once more.

Only the sound of their footsteps as they climbed the stairs echoed through the narrow space, gradually fading away.

And just before the unit entrance shut completely, a few faint, malicious snickers seemed to come from deep within the shadows of the landscaped greenery, followed by hushed voices.

"...Damn it, we waited all this time, only to get a broke pretty boy?"

"Look at the guy he's supporting. Dressed all weird, like a fat sheep..."

"Follow them. Find somewhere deserted... Heh."

The voices were quiet and soon vanished into the night breeze, as though they'd never been there.

Inside the building, Lin Fan supported the stranger as they climbed the stairs one step at a time. He had no idea that, just on the other side of the door, trouble had already begun to stalk them.

Tonight was bound to be anything but peaceful.