Lin Qiye went back to his room and closed the door.
He hadn't turned on the lights.
It was late at night. Starlight trickled through the window, scattering across the floor. In the darkness, Lin Qiye sat at his desk and slowly removed the black silk wrapping from his eyes.
In the mirror on the desk, a handsome young face was reflected back.
Lin Qiye was strikingly good-looking. Once he removed the black silk binding his eyes and tidied himself up a little, combined with his cool detachment and the mysterious aura that surrounds him he would easily be the type girls would call "campus heartthrob".
It's a pity that he is always bound in black silk and burdened with the identity of a disabled person, which completely obscured his radiance.
In the mirror, Lin Qiye's eyes were still closed.
His brow furrowed slightly, and the eyelids covering his eyes trembled as though straining desperately to open. Even his hands clenched into fists.
One second. Two seconds. Three seconds…
His body trembled for a long time, before finally giving out. He suddenly relaxed, his shoulders sagging as he drew in ragged, heaving breaths.
A few droplets of sweat traced down Lin Qiye's cheeks. A flash of frustration crossed his features.
So close… he was so close!
Why is it always like this? Every single time, just falling short by such a margin.
When would he finally be able to open his eyes again and truly see this world with his own vision?
He had said that he could see now. He'd lied.
His eyes simply would not open. Not even a sliver.
Yet he hadn't lied either.
Because even with his eyes closed, he could "see" everything around him with perfect clarity.
The sensation was strange — as though his entire body had become an eye, able to sense everything from all angles without any blind spots. And what he perceived was not only clearer than his normal vision had ever been, but also far more distant.
It wasn't always this way. During those first five years after going blind, he was no different from any truly sightless person. He could only navigate through sound and the white cane in his hand.
But somehow, five years ago, his eyes had started to change, and gradually he had started to perceive his surroundings in a way he couldn't quite explain.
At first, it was only within a few centimeters of from himself. BUt as time passed, that range expanded. Farther and farther. Clearer and clearer. Now, five years later, he could "see" up to ten meters away.
For a normal person, ten meters of vision would render their eyes essentially useless. But for a boy who had once lost all light, those ten meters meant everything.
The crucial distinction was that the ten meters he could "see" was unobstructed by any obstacles.
In other words, within a ten-meter radius centered on him, Lin Qiye, possessed absolute perception. Put crudely, he could see through things. Put more elegantly, he could perceive every speck of dust drifting through the air, every component inside a machine, every subtle motion a magician made beneath the table…
And the source of this power seemed to originate from those eyes that had been sealed shut beneath the black silk for the past ten years.
Despite possessing this near-superhuman ability, Lin Qiye remained unsatisfied. Yes, having absolute perception within a ten-meter radius was remarkable, but what he truly desired was to see this world with his own eyes.
This was the persistence of a young man.
Though today's attempt to open his eyes had failed, he could sense something clearly…
The moment when he could truly open his eyes was drawing near.
After washing up, Lin Qiye got into bed early as usual. Living as a blind man for so many years was not all bad, at least he had developed a good habit of going to bed early.
But the moment his head touched the pillow, subconsciously, that image surfaced in his mind again.
Beneath the dark cosmic sky lay the desolate lunar surface. The ashen white plains reflected the faint starlight, and in the center of the Moon's largest crater stood a figure as still as sculpture.
It stood motionless, as though it had existed since the beginning of time. Sacred golden radiance emanated from it — a divine brilliance so overwhelming that it would compel all living beings to prostrate themselves in reverence.
Behind it, six pairs of wings — impossibly massive — unfurled, their shadow casting across the silvery-gray ground like a vast eclipse, blocking out the sunlight streaming from behind.
But what was truly imprinted in Lin Qiye's mind, what lingered and refused to fade, were those eyes.
Those eyes — brimming with divine majesty, burning like twin furnaces — blazed with an intensity that rivaled the Sun itself. Unbearable to look upon.
He once had gazed into those eyes for only a moment, and in that single instant, his world became nothing but darkness.
Ten years ago, he spoke the truth, yet was diagnosed as mentally ill.
But deep down, he knew better than anyone what was real and what was delusion.
Ever since he witnessed the Seraph on the Moon, he had known — this world… was far from what it appeared to be.
Gradually, Lin Qiye drifted into a dep sleep.
What he didn't know was that the instant he fell asleep, two brilliant golden rays shot out from between his eyelids in the darkened room — flashing once, then vanishing without a trace.
...
Tap, tap, tap…
Lin Qiye walked alone through a world shrouded in mist.
The fog around him swirled endlessly, seemingly without bounds. Though he walked through nothingness, each footstep produced a crisp collision sound — as if beneath his feet lay an invisible ground.
Lin Qiye lowered his gaze to examine himself, then sighed.
"This dream again… I keep knocking on this door every night, it's so exhausting!" he said with frustration, shaking his head before taking another step forward.
In the next instant, the surrounding mist suddenly reversed its flow, and a building with a peculiar architectural style materialized before him.
Its peculiarity lay in this fundamental contradiction: here stood a structure of unambiguous modern design, yet its finer details overflowed with an atmosphere of mystery and the sacred.
The evidence was unmistakable. Massive iron gates carve with an array of divine deities. Blazing electrical fixtures that resembled burning fireballs. Floating beneath one's feet, shimmering porcelain tiles adorned with intricate engravings…
It was as though someone had deliberately woven together the clean lines of contemporary architecture with the sacred temple elements drawn from ancient mythology — jarring in its incongruity, yet undeniably possessing an indescribable, ethereal beauty.
Lin Qiye recognized this structure. It was strikingly familiar.
It bore an uncanny resemblance to the Sunshine Mental Hospital where he'd spent a year. The most compelling evidence lay at the entrance, where the original inscription reading "Sunshine Mental Hospital" had once stood, it had transformed into something else entirely.
— God's Asylum
"What a mysterious place." Lin Qiye murmured, shaking his head as he stepped forward toward the massive iron gates.
It had begun five years ago — the time when his body underwent inexplicable changes coincided precisely with the awakening of his dreams.
For five years now, he had experienced the same dream every single night. And in every dream, he found himself within this enigmatic God's Asylum.
Yet the hospital's entrance remained tightly closed. No matter what he attempted, the iron gates refused to open.
Lin Qiye had circled the asylum countless times. Only one entrance existed — the imposing iron gates at the front. The surrounding walls, though not particularly tall, possessed a most frustrating property: whenever Lin Qiye attempted to jump over them, the walls grew proportionally taller, as though mocking his efforts.
As for brute force… even if Lin Qiye threw his entire body against it repeatedly, the massive iron gate wouldn't budge an inch.
There seemed to be only one way in.
Knocking.
Lin Qiye grasped the iron ring on the gate, took a deep breath, and struck the metal surface with force.
Clang—!
A sound like an ancient bell resonating echoed through the asylum. The iron gate trembled and swayed, but it didn't open.
Clang—!
Another blow. The gate still wouldn't yield.
Lin Qiye didn't seem surprised or frustrated by this. With remarkable patience, he continued knocking.
Over the past five years, he had come to understand the rules of this dream deeply. The iron gate could only be opened by knocking — no other method would work. And in his dream, knocking was all he could do.
So Lin Qiye knocked on through the night like a hardworking laborer, persistent and methodical, strike after strike…