The knock came before anyone was ready for anything.
Lin Yue was still awake, lying on his back with one arm folded behind his head, listening to Bai Wuyin's charcoal pencil scratch quiet half-circles across the sketchbook in the dark. Neither of them had said much since the corridor. There hadn't been much left to say. He Yuan's stumble had used up the last of the group's appetite for talking, and everyone had gone to their rooms early, doors shut, lights out, the whole dormitory wing pretending at a kind of sleep nobody actually had.
Then it happened.
Knock.
One sound. Not a series, not a rhythm building toward something — a single, flat strike, and it hit every door in the hallway at the exact same instant.
Lin Yue was upright before he'd finished registering it, one hand already braced against the mattress. Across the room, Bai Wuyin's pencil had stopped dead against the page, a long gray line trailing off where his hand had frozen mid-stroke.
