Record of Mortals Slaying Heaven

Primer

In the Great Yan Kingdom, in Yanjing, on the city wall, standing beside General Zhang Cheng, who was guarding the city, was a young man named Shen Moqi.

Seven hundred paces away from the city wall, at the Black Stone Kingdom's military camp, the towering flames had subsided, leaving only charred ruins.

Shen Moqi stared blankly ahead, thinking to herself that she had finally survived...

Chapter One

In the bedroom, the countdown on the wall looked like a death knell; there were only 97 days left until the college entrance examination.

Shen Moqi sat at his desk with his back to the locked door, his fingers frantically swiping across his phone screen. He had the sound effects of the battle in the game down to the lowest setting, but he couldn't control his frantic heartbeat. Every slight sound in the living room made his fingertips tremble.

Outside the door, there was a suffocating silence.

Suddenly, there was a soft "click" as the door lock turned. Shen Moqi jumped up as if he had been burned, shoving his phone under his half-open math textbook with the fastest speed he had ever done. His elbow "accidentally" knocked over the water glass next to him, spilling half a glass of cold water onto the test paper.

The mother pushed open the door and her gaze fell directly on the bulging textbook. She held a piece of paper in her hand, her knuckles turning white from the pressure.

"89 points."

Her voice was calm, as calm as the thick air before a storm. She gently placed the mock exam score sheet on the damp table. The red "89" in the math section was blurred by water stains, like a festering wound.

Shen Moqi's throat went dry, and she lowered her eyes: "This time... the questions are difficult."

"The questions are difficult?" The mother finally raised her eyes, which were bloodshot, a sign of long-term insomnia and anxiety. "Shen Moqi, look me in the eyes and tell me, what have you been doing every night with the door locked?"

"I'm reviewing!" Shen Moqi said stiffly, but her voice was weak and shaky.

"Review?" The mother suddenly reached out and ripped open the textbook. The black phone was exposed nakedly under the light, the screen still on the game results screen, flashing flashy "victory" icons.

The air seemed to have been sucked out.

The calm on her mother's face shattered instantly, replaced by an almost desperate anger and an unconcealable weariness. Her body began to tremble slightly, not from anger, but like a string that had been stretched to its limit and was finally on the verge of snapping.

"89 points... In one month, it dropped from 130 to the 80s..." She repeated these numbers, her eyes vacant for a moment before turning into a burning rage. "Shen Moqi! What on earth is going on in your head?! Only three months left, just three months! Your life is going to be decided by this exam, do you know that?!"

"I know!" Shen Moqi was also ignited by this anger. The pent-up frustration, the fear of pressure, and the pitiful self-esteem of a teenager all mixed together, overwhelming her reason. "I know! That's why I'm under a lot of pressure! What's wrong with me playing on my phone for a while? It's the only way I can catch my breath!"

"Take a breath? You're ruining your future!" The mother's voice shrilled as she grabbed the phone. "Give me the phone! You're not touching it again until the college entrance exam is over!"

"No way!" Shen Moqi grabbed the phone tightly, the cold metal casing digging painfully into her palm. The two stood across the desk, like beasts locked in a standoff, vying for the black cube that had ignited the conflict.

"Give me!"

"I won't give it to you!"

In the struggle, the mother's gaze swept over Shen Moqi's stubborn yet pale face, over the dark circles under his eyes from lack of sleep, and over the frayed threads on the cuffs of his school uniform. Her raised hand suddenly froze in mid-air, trembling violently. The anger receded like the tide, replaced by a deeper, more powerless sorrow. She saw in her son's eyes the same weariness as her own, and the fragile shell he wore, a shell of rebellion.

But this brief softening only stung Shen Moqi more. He felt like a clown who had been stripped naked and displayed in public.

"Besides confiscating phones, what else can you do?" He jerked his hand back, staggering from the force, his voice trembling with agitation. "Is failing a test all the phone's fault? All my fault? Have you ever asked me what it feels like to be in prison every day at school?!"

As he shouted those words, he seemed to gain some tragic courage. He turned around and rushed to the wardrobe, dragged out an old backpack, and haphazardly stuffed in a few changes of clothes, his phone, and even the hand-cranked charger he had bought for fun.

"Fine, fine... Shen Moqi, you've grown up, you've become independent." His mother didn't stop him, but leaned against the door frame, her face ashen, tears finally rolling down her cheeks silently. "If you dare to walk out of this door today, then... don't ever come back."

These words were like an icicle, piercing Shen Moqi's heart. But there was no turning back now. He gritted his teeth, slung his backpack over his shoulder, slammed open the half-closed bedroom door, and rushed into the stairwell without hesitation.

"Bang--!"

The loud slam of the door knocked a dusty photo frame off the entryway cabinet. It was a picture of Shen Moqi in elementary school, wearing a crooked red scarf, laughing carefree at a sports meet.

Inside the door, the mother slowly slid down the door frame to sit on the floor, covered her face, and suppressed sobs leaked out from between her fingers, eventually turning into a breakdown and a wail.

Outside, Shen Moqi stood in the cold stairwell, his resolute figure disappearing into the darkness after the motion-activated lights went out. Only his rapid breathing proved his presence. His face was a little wet; he roughly wiped it away with the back of his hand, telling himself it was just sweat.

He ran away from home for the third time. The first two times, he simply spent the night in internet cafes, numbing himself in the world of games, and then was "escorted" home by his parents, who came looking for him with red eyes, at dawn. But this time, he didn't want to go to that smoky and chaotic place.

He needs a real "distant place," even if it's just a psychological one.

Unbeknownst to him, he had climbed to the rooftop of his seven-story old apartment building. The rusty iron door creaked open, and a biting night wind lashed at him, sending a shiver down his spine.

The city stretched out beneath his feet, a dazzling yet indifferent sea of ​​lights. Behind each light seemed to lie a warm and orderly home, but none of them mattered to him at this moment. He walked to the edge of the rooftop, where a low, cracked concrete railing stood. He climbed over it and sat on the remaining, less than a foot wide, concrete edge, his feet dangling in the air. Below him lay a dizzying abyss of darkness that swallowed all light.

The rough cement pebbles dug painfully into his thighs, and the icy night wind pierced through his thin school uniform, taking away the little warmth left on his skin. He gripped the cold cement beneath him tightly, his fingertips numb with cold.

My phone was vibrating incessantly in my pocket.

The first time, he turned it off.

He pressed the button again the second time.

On the screen, the word "Mom" stubbornly lit up and then went dark. Each vibration was like a heavy knock, striking the most vulnerable part of his heart.

The third, the fourth... the seventeenth...

Frustration grew wildly like weeds, drowning out the initial guilt and resentment. He had had enough of this feeling of being controlled and chased.

When the twenty-seventh vibration came, the screen's light was particularly dazzling in the darkness. A huge torrent of self-abandonment and rebellious pleasure washed away his last shred of hesitation.

"Stop hitting me! It's so annoying!"

He roared at the void, suddenly stood up, wanting to shout all the emotions in his heart into the endless night sky.

Just as he leaned forward and shifted his center of gravity due to emotional agitation—

"Creak..."

A faint, almost inaudible sound, like the snapping of a dry branch, came from beneath his feet.

Shen Moqi felt all the blood rush to her head.

Time stretched out infinitely in that moment. He clearly felt the small piece of cement beneath his feet, bearing his entire weight, let out its final lament before turning to dust.

A sudden feeling of weightlessness gripped him, like an invisible giant hand dragging him violently toward an abyss. The world abruptly turned upside down, and the last image remaining on his retina was the rapidly receding, cold outline of the rooftop's edge, and the distant, seemingly unchanging, indifferent city lights.

"Well--!"

His scream was choked back by the violent gust of wind. The icy wind scraped his cheeks like blades, filling his mouth and nose, making it impossible for him to breathe. In the rapid descent, the world spun around him, and his internal organs seemed to be squeezed into his throat.

In the chaos, his survival instinct drove him to wave his arms in vain. The phone clutched in his right hand stubbornly remained lit, displaying the twenty-seventh missed call. That faint light, in the rapidly descending darkness, traced a brief, futile, yet remarkably clear arc, like a falling meteor.

Then, the arc of light annihilated.

Endless darkness swallowed up all sound, all light, and all sensation.

……

At home, in the living room.

The phone slipped from his palm and hit the floor with a dull thud.

The mother slumped onto the cold tiles, staring blankly at the emotionless electronic female voice coming from the receiver:

— "The number you dialed is not in service area, please try again later."

Again and again.

The night outside the window was as thick as ink.