Chapter 002: The Cold Armor

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The shopkeeper’s reading glasses drooped at the tip of his nose as he raised his head slightly to look up at Lin Zhan, spreading the fingers of one hand.

“Five what?” Lin Zhan felt uneasy—did he mean fifty, five hundred, or five thousand?

If it was five hundred, he could grit his teeth and buy it, but if it was five thousand, he would have to give up the idea altogether.

“Five hundred... no bargaining!” The shopkeeper finally spoke. “That was the price set twenty years ago when the seller entrusted this to me. Even though there’s been no word from them for three years, well...” He trailed off, sighing, as if there were a world of sorrow he could hardly keep inside.

Lin Zhan couldn’t help but feel puzzled. The shopkeeper’s hesitation, the fact that the price had been set two decades ago—didn’t anyone take inflation into account these days, with prices soaring as they were? How odd.

But perhaps it was a stroke of luck for him. He couldn’t help feeling he’d gotten a bargain.

Lin Zhan knew that a peerless piece of art like this couldn’t be measured in money; the only thing to do was pay quickly and run before the shopkeeper changed his mind.

Before leaving, though, he asked a lingering question. “Sir, why did you say it’s difficult to see the details of this miniature carving?”

“That seller—what a trickster—claimed it was a grand, majestic city, with every figure inside clearly visible. But I’ve looked at it hundreds of times, and all I’ve ever seen is a blank whiteness—not a single ghost of a figure to be found...”

“Sir, I... oh, never mind. Thank you. Goodbye!”

Lin Zhan had been about to say that he could see the city inside, and even the tiny figures frozen like ice sculptures, but he thought better of it. If the shopkeeper knew, he might refuse to sell it. Perhaps it was precisely because the details were invisible that it was being offered so cheaply. All in all, he’d stumbled across a treasure today.

Back at his dormitory, Lin Zhan sat at his desk, deep in thought, and wrote the last few lines on a gift card for Ling Qier. He wanted to express his gratitude for the days they’d spent together, now drawing to a close, and wish her happiness in the days to come.

“Third Brother, you’ve got the mentality of a loser. With a girlfriend like that, your family should be burning incense in thanks! I just don’t get why you’d break up.” The eldest brother, shirtless, leaned over the upper bunk, watching Lin Zhan scribble furiously below.

“You don’t understand, Eldest. ‘Everyone has their own ambitions’—that’s how the saying goes. A man must have dignity, not be swayed by outside forces. That’s the bottom line,” Lin Zhan retorted. He felt the breakup was absolutely right and non-negotiable, especially since Ling Qier had made decisions without consulting him.

“Come on, Eldest, stop giving him a hard time. I think Third Brother has his reasons. There are plenty of beautiful women in the world—why hang yourself on a single tree? What we should do now is get him drunk. How about this: tonight, I’ll treat everyone at the street food stalls by the back gate.” The second eldest, just back from playing basketball, dropped his gear to offer encouragement.

Lin Zhan grinned over his shoulder. “Now that’s what I like to hear, Second Brother. Come, get me drunk tonight...”

“Alright, let’s go—all of us are here.” Lin Zhan waved them off. “Head downstairs first. I just called the courier—he should arrive any minute. I’ll finish these last two lines and send this off today. Tomorrow, I start a new life!”

“Fine, we’ll go ahead. It’s the weekend; the juniors are all out in their short skirts. Time to enjoy the view. You catch up with us.” The others followed the eldest out, leaving behind a rare quiet in the room.

Lin Zhan signed his name in the lower right corner of the card, filled out the courier slip in a few strokes, and opened the brocade box one last time to look at the pendant, sighing deeply.

He reached in and took out the pendant. At the heart of the miniature “Snow City,” he noticed a faint red stain and gently rubbed it with his finger, wanting to clean away the last trace of blood.

Unexpectedly, the red glow grew brighter, radiating an intense heat and a dazzling light.

Lin Zhan suddenly felt as if he were losing all sense of gravity, his body no longer his own. The red light first pooled in his right palm, then spread outward, enveloping his body and filling the entire dormitory with light.

A powerful force pulled him in, drawing Lin Zhan’s entire being into the miniature...

Downstairs, the group was admiring the passing girls when the courier, Xiao Zhang, arrived and went upstairs.

Soon, he was shouting down from the third-floor hallway, “Hey, where’s Lin Zhan? He said he wanted to send a package, but he’s not here. I’ve got to hurry!”

Helpless, the eldest headed up.

“He was just here—probably went off to clear his head. This must be his package: the gift’s in the box, then into this small carton. Here’s his completed slip. How much is the shipping? I’ll pay for him.”

The dormmates were close; though the eldest grumbled, he swiftly handled the package for Lin Zhan.

The courier, carrying Lin Zhan’s breakup gift for Ling Qier, hurried away.

But Lin Zhan had no idea what had happened in the dorm afterward, nor that his bizarre disappearance would become a campus mystery at Honghai City Police University, even making the news. Room 303 would become a legend.

He also didn’t know that at the very moment he was drawn into the Blue Ice City, the miniature cities in major museums around the world each emitted a glow of their own color, shining for a few seconds before fading and causing widespread blackouts.

Lin Zhan was oblivious to all this, for now he was enduring an agony as if his flesh and bones were being torn apart, a pain that swept through him like a destroying storm. The colorful light refracted wildly around him, devouring every last thread of clothing, leaving him utterly bare.

Instinctively, he tried to shield his most private parts, screaming as his body plunged into weightlessness, his soul almost torn from him, about to vanish like smoke.

At last, with a thunderous crash, Lin Zhan lost consciousness and fell into endless darkness.

He didn’t know how much time passed before he awoke in a cramped underground ice chamber.

“Ah!” The aching pain, as if his whole body had been disassembled, made him grimace. Then a biting cold seeped into his bones, spreading relentlessly from the inside out.

“What the hell is this place? I’m freezing!” As soon as he opened his eyes, he saw a glaring white ice ceiling above him, with a hole in it. He complained, but his words froze in his mouth, barely audible even to himself.

If he didn’t move soon, he’d die here.

Apart from the cold, there was something else: the air was unbelievably fresh, carrying a sweet, cloying scent. Lin Zhan inhaled greedily, feeling as if his whole body had undergone some special cleansing. The mark on his palm was gradually coming back to life.

Since his mind was beginning to function again, his first order of business was to ask himself: “Where am I?”

With difficulty, he turned his neck, using the slanting light from the hole above to inspect his surroundings.

This was by no means a proper icehouse—more likely a small cave hastily dug out to escape the cold, no more than a few square meters in size.

Lin Zhan’s movements were limited and slow, barely perceptible, a caution born of being in an unfamiliar place.

Perhaps it was only because he’d been unconscious that he hadn’t been discovered.

And then he saw someone.

A person—but a dead one!