If you asked Lin Yuan what his greatest achievement was, he'd probably say getting into a college so unknown that even the local taxi drivers couldn't find it.
"Lanshan College? Oh, that place near Lanshan… some kind of private school?" The driver scratched his head, tapped at his phone for a good minute, and finally sighed. "Kid, that name sounds more like a resort."
Lin Yuan smiled. He was used to this.
Used to being forgotten. Used to standing in the corner of every group photo. Used to a phone that only buzzed for system notifications and birthday wishes from his carrier. He was a transparent wall—people walked right through him and never noticed he was there.
Registration day. The counselor glanced at the list and frowned.
"Lin Yuan… you're a make-up admission?"
"Yes."
"Barely made the cut. Only spot left is a mixed dorm with some third-years."
"Fine."
He never bargained. He'd been taking "whatever's left" his whole life. Leftover seats, leftover food, leftover chances. His mother always said, "Yuan, we're not rich. Be grateful you can even go to college." He nodded. Arguing never changed anything. His father had a broken leg from a construction accident. His mother worked a cash register at a supermarket, scraping by on three thousand yuan a month. Getting into any college at all—even a second-tier one—was already more than his family had any right to hope for.
The dorm was on the sixth floor. No elevator. Lin Yuan dragged his six-year-old suitcase up the stairs, the hallway thick with the smell of instant noodles and damp laundry. He pushed open the door to 607 and found three seniors huddled around a computer, yelling at a game.
"New guy?" The one closest to the door didn't even look up.
"Yeah."
"Bottom bunk's free. Wipe down the cabinet yourself."
"Okay."
He shoved the suitcase under the bed and spread out the old blue bedsheet his mother had patched at the corners. Then he lay there, staring at the underside of the upper bunk, listening to the shouting.
"Use your ult!"
"Dude, how do you whiff that?"
"Shut up, I can still—"
Lin Yuan closed his eyes. Eighteen years of this. He'd thought college would be different. Turned out it was just a new place to be invisible.
The first day of military training, the instructor made everyone introduce themselves.
"Lin Yuan. From the province. I like reading."
Fifteen seconds. The instructor blinked, maybe expecting more, then just waved him back. The next guy talked for five minutes about being student council president and winning some competition and playing guitar. A few girls whispered.
Lin Yuan stood in the sun, the back of his neck burning. He thought: even if I could play guitar, nobody'd want to listen.
On the third day, his skin started peeling from sunburn. That night, his seniors went out for barbecue. They didn't invite him. He lay on his bed, scrolling through WeChat. High school classmates were posting about their new lives—student council, clubs, talent show performances. He tried to think of something to post. There was nothing.
He opened a writing app. He'd always loved making up stories, building fantasy worlds in his head. In those worlds, he wasn't invisible. He was a hero. But he'd never shown anyone. They were too childish, he thought.
That night, he wrote a paragraph about dragons. Then he deleted it.
"Who'd even read this?" he muttered.
Then he fell asleep.
The dreams started that night.
Lin Yuan remembered the date perfectly—September 17th, the day before training ended. He'd peeled his sunburned skin, crashed into bed, and then he saw the fire.
Not ordinary fire. The kind that could burn through the sky, thick with sulfur, like the world itself was ending.
He stood in the middle of ruins. Broken marble underfoot, fallen columns all around. The buildings didn't look like anything from history—not Greek, not Gothic, but older, crueler, as if built from the bones of giant beasts. The columns were thick as three men, carved with patterns that weren't words but something like veins.
Something moved in the sky.
He looked up.
A shadow passed over the moon—huge, wings blotting out half the heavens, each beat sending down a gale. Scales glowed dark gold in the firelight, like molten rock that had cooled into armor.
A dragon.
The word exploded from somewhere deep in Lin Yuan's skull. Not fear. Something else. Memory. Like he'd seen this before, in a time older than time.
The dragon lowered its head.
Golden eyes. Vertical pupils. Like twin suns fallen into an abyss. Those eyes looked at him—not like prey, but something more complicated. Recognition. Even… longing.
"You came."
The voice didn't enter through his ears. It detonated inside his head, rippling out to every nerve.
"Finally."
Lin Yuan tried to scream. Nothing came out. Tried to run. Feet nailed to the ground. The golden eyes grew closer, fire surging from the dragon's throat—
He sat up.
Pillow soaked. Shirt soaked. He was gasping like a drowning man.
The dorm was quiet. Seniors snoring. Moonlight cold on his hands.
He looked down at his hand.
(Continued in Part 2)