Chapter 1: The Albino — April 9th, 1:00 PM.

April 9th, 1:00 PM.

When Su Ze got into the taxi, the driver was listening to the national evening news to stay alert, the announcer’s crisp, textbook-perfect cadence echoing through the car.

“Some experts have stated that this latest round of parasitic infection cases in Jisang is closely tied to that country’s food culture. Seafood products readily carry parasite eggs and viruses, and raw consumption should be avoided whenever possible.”

“The Ursa Minor Meteor Shower ended a month ago, but the ‘meteorite craze’ sweeping the globe shows no sign of cooling. Regarding the ‘meteorite hunters’ springing up around the world, experts warn that the meteorites yet to be recovered have mostly crashed into uninhabited regions, and venturing out recklessly is extremely dangerous…”

Su Ze was listening intently when the taxi driver’s booming voice suddenly cut in: “No kidding—like the one that fell on Changling Mountain. Who’d dare go looking for that?”

Su Ze turned to glance at the driver, his violet eyes looking like two beautiful glass marbles in the sunlight.

The driver perked up under that gaze and immediately grew animated: “Didn’t you know, young man? It came down on the third night of the meteor shower! The city government even issued a special notice, saying the thing landed deep in Changling Mountain—wide search area, high difficulty, that sort of thing. Not that anyone would dare go even without the warning. That’s virgin forest with fierce beasts prowling around!”

Not a hint of expression crossed Su Ze’s jade-white face. He turned back to face forward and didn’t pick up the thread.

But the driver seemed to have had his chattiness stirred up, and kept talking whether anyone listened or not.

“Years back, tons of hiking enthusiasts went exploring on Changling Mountain, and it took actual deaths to stamp out that trend. However valuable a meteorite is, what’s it worth next to your life? Besides, according to the news, that meteor shower looked impressive and lasted a whole week, but everything that actually landed was tiny. The biggest one supposedly fell in Pulche? Never heard anything special about that either…”

Rambling on like this the whole way, the driver delivered the car to Liyang First People’s Hospital.

Seeing they’d arrived, he smacked his lips—clearly not done talking—and held up a sign with a QR code stuck to it: “Eighteen fifty.”

Su Ze took out his phone. The moment he scanned the code, a chorus of sirens sounded as several ambulances came wailing in from the distance, charging into the hospital in the blink of an eye.

The driver craned his neck to gawk, clicking his tongue. “Looks like something big went down. Probably not a car accident, though, otherwise…”

Before he could finish, Su Ze had already paid, grabbed his insulated food container, and gotten out of the cab, seemingly without a shred of curiosity.

Watching that slender back, the driver gave a “heh,” stepped on the gas, plugged in his earpiece, and made a call.

“Hey, Old Liu! Let me tell you, I just picked up that Albino Old Zhang mentioned! Exactly like he described! Snow-white hair and skin, eyes like glass marbles…”

Carrying the insulated container, Su Ze circled around the outpatient building to a small three-story building. A plaque hung at its entrance: “Liyang First People’s Hospital — Oncology Inpatient Ward.”

Unlike the bustle and clamor elsewhere in the hospital, it was quiet here. People hurried past with worried faces, and even the air felt heavier than outside.

Su Ze took the elevator to the third floor and ran straight into the attending physician on his rounds the moment he stepped out.

Seeing him, the haggard-faced doctor visibly relaxed and greeted him with a smile.

“Little Su, you’re here. I just checked on your grandma—her recovery is going well. Two more days of observation and she can be discharged.”

“Okay. Thank you, Doctor.”

“You’re welcome. Go on in.”

With that, the doctor continued his rounds, while a few interns kept glancing back as they walked, whispering among themselves in what they believed were hushed voices.

“So that’s that super handsome Albino the whole department’s been talking about? He lives up to the reputation!”

“How come his eyes are purple? Some special pathological change?”

“The bed the department head just mentioned was 307, right?”

“Yeah. Surgery half a month ago.”

“Finally one who’s improving. I’ve been in oncology for a week and haven’t seen a single patient get better…”

Su Ze pushed open the door to Room 307 and looked at the old woman sitting on the hospital bed, bathed in sunlight, and his heart tightened.

Improving… was she, though?

She was in her sixties, gaunt and emaciated from stomach cancer, yet she looked wonderful—rosy-cheeked and full of spirit.

Su Ze couldn’t feel happy about it at all.

“Little Ze,” Su Qiuyu said, beckoning to him with a beaming smile. “What are you standing around for? Come in.”

Su Ze walked to the bedside and set the insulated container on the nightstand. Just as he reached to pull over the over-bed table, Su Qiuyu stopped him.

“No rush, I’m not hungry yet. Sit down and rest a bit first—all that back and forth, you must be tired?”

Symptom One: Appetite spiking sharply, then plummeting.

Su Ze’s hand stilled, and he obediently sat down in the chair beside the bed, answering quietly, “I’m not tired.”

Su Qiuyu looked at him fondly. “You—just like when you were little. So quiet.”

Raising a hand to measure the air above her head, she went on: “When the police brought you to me, they said you were fourteen. Back then I thought, fourteen and already this tall—surely you’d end up over one-ninety? Who’d have thought nine years would pass and you wouldn’t grow even a single centimeter. If I didn’t know everyone in the orphanage inside and out, I’d suspect someone was bullying you and stealing your food.”

Symptom Two: A sixty-four-year-old woman who’d had half her stomach removed only two weeks ago, abnormally energized.

“No, everyone treats me well.” It was just that no matter how much he ate, it never helped.

Su Ze reached out and tucked in the old woman’s blanket, not understanding himself what good the gesture would do. A blanket could block the wind, but it couldn’t hold on to her swiftly draining life force. Effort wasted.

But he wanted to do it anyway.

“That’s because you’re good to everyone too,” Su Qiuyu said, taking Su Ze’s hand and patting it gently. “You’re a child of pitifully few words and poor health, but you’ve always worked hard to help. That year during the earthquake—the cabinet in the game room toppled but crushed no one. That was you, wasn’t it?”

Su Ze’s heart skipped. He raised his eyes to meet Su Qiuyu’s gentle gaze and was just about to open his mouth to deny it when he saw the old woman give a sly smile.

“Don’t bother denying it. Every child in the home except you has a disability—they don’t even know what an earthquake is, so how would they know to run? Those cabinets were all two-meter-tall units. They came crashing down everywhere and not one person got hurt. Since when does luck work out that neatly?”

Su Ze lowered his eyes and answered with silence.

Su Qiuyu patted his hand again. “You’re a good child—smart and gentle, just a bit cold-looking, so it’s not easy for you to make friends. Oh, right, that classmate of yours from high school—what was his name again… Xing… Xing Lyu, was it?”

Su Ze gave a small “mm.”

“He was a good child too. Are you two still in touch?”

“No.”

The old woman sighed. “Ah, you two were so close in high school—how did you lose contact? You should reach out when you get the chance. Friendships from youth are the purest and rarest kind. Don’t give them up so easily.”

Su Ze gave another “mm,” neither agreeing nor refusing.

Su Qiuyu looked at him, an inexplicable worry stirring in her heart.

As the director of an orphanage, she had had hundreds of children pass through her hands. Albinism was rare, but she had raised one albino child before Su Ze.

That child had pinkish-white skin, pale yellow hair, and red eyes that were extremely light-sensitive. The skin was fragile too—one lapse in care and it would water or break out in rashes.

Su Ze was different.

His skin was a true creamy white, never tinged pink from capillaries showing through skin too thin. His hair was pure white, silky and thick. And his eyes were a brilliant violet, as translucent and crystal-clear as gemstones.

Most importantly, Su Ze had no photophobia whatsoever and had excellent vision. If not for his extremely severe anemia, he was no different from any ordinary child.

The police had never seen an Albino before, and the hospital had done only a simple examination. They had spent far too little time with Su Ze, drawing conclusions off experience alone—but she had raised him with her own hands for four full years.

Four years together, day and night, was enough to notice any problem.

Lately, Su Qiuyu always felt there wasn’t enough time, yet she still had so much she wanted to tell Su Ze.

She wanted to tell him to go out more and stop cooping himself up at home; wanted to tell him not to let people misunderstand him just because explaining was too much trouble; wanted to tell him not to be so cold, not to always position himself as a bystander…

But in the end, she simply raised a hand and pointed to the spot in front of her own forehead. “From now on, stop staring at this spot so often. The gesture is too obvious.”

At those words, Su Ze reflexively glanced upward.

With that motion, something like a projection quickly surfaced—

It was about two fingers wide and one palm long, a standard rectangle, mostly translucent gray-black, with a small red segment at the far left occupying less than 10% of the rectangle.

The projection hung at an angle above Su Ze’s forehead, roughly two fists away. It wasn’t big, but its presence was overwhelming—because it kept flickering nonstop, as if trying to warn him of something.

Su Ze didn’t play games, but he’d watched others play. He knew that in games, this thing represented a character’s HP—and once it hit zero, the character died.

He didn’t want to connect this thing to his own life, but there didn’t seem to be any other reasonable explanation. After all, he could never eat enough—he was always starving, just like this flickering health bar, barely clinging to life at the edge of death.

The saving grace was that the thing wasn’t always there. As long as he didn’t look at it, it would slowly fade away—until the next time Su Ze deliberately glanced up.

Realizing that his unconscious habit fully corroborated Su Qiuyu’s words, a slight change finally appeared on Su Ze’s placid face.

He frowned faintly, lips parting, but in the end said nothing.

He didn’t think anyone would believe him, and he had no way to prove it anyway.

Su Qiuyu patted his hand soothingly. “Don’t worry, I’ve never told a soul about this. You don’t have to explain. Everyone has their own secrets. I just don’t want you being misunderstood because of it.”

In fact, apart from checking the health bar frequently during those first two years, Su Ze had looked at it less and less over time—and he hadn’t looked at it at all in over a year now.

After all, out of sight, out of mind.

Su Ze didn’t explain, only gave another dutiful sound of acknowledgment.

Su Qiuyu smiled, comforted, and kept murmuring her instructions. “Little Ze, take care of yourself. Look at the world more… This world is a lovely place. You have to look at it with your heart…”

Before she could finish, she suddenly yawned. One second she’d been full of energy; the next, she was so drowsy she could barely keep her eyes open.

“So sleepy… Little Ze, I’m going to nap for a bit…”

“…Okay.”

Symptom Three: Irregular, unpredictable drowsiness.

Su Ze raised a hand, intending to pull the blanket up over Su Qiuyu, but drew it back moments later, silently watching her sleeping face.

Things had only started deteriorating sharply in the past few days.

Su Qiuyu had originally been recovering beautifully from surgery, all her indicators normal, and Su Ze hadn’t smelled that odor of decay again.

Until six days ago, when Su Qiuyu’s appetite turned voracious and her spirits vigorous, all in a single night.

Her body was recovering at an inconceivable speed—but at the same time, a hidden danger was spreading. Two forces waxed and waned against each other, and Su Qiuyu’s body had become the battlefield they fought over. Her healthy glow was nothing but a final flare before the end.

The doctor hadn’t noticed because he was simply too busy. The oncology ward had seen an explosive surge of patients recently, and he’d been so run off his feet he hadn’t slept in days. Moreover, the follow-up tests done at Su Ze’s request had all come back normal.

When the test report arrived, Su Ze had doubted himself too—but he quickly realized that this war was being waged at a far more fundamental level. Even if today’s medicine could detect it, it would be helpless to stop it.

This silent battle was vicious and hidden. If Su Qiuyu were twenty years younger, she might have pulled through. But she was already sixty-four.

Now, the war was nearing its end.