Reverse Scale

Gu Chi is nineteen, a college dropout, and the night-shift worker at a FamilyMart in the south of the city, earning 17.5 yuan an hour. His greatest achievement in life is killing a cockroach with a mop. His closest brush with an epic moment was eating an expired rice ball without getting the runs.

Then, at 2:17 a.m., a girl in a white dress, drenched from head to toe, walked in and used a lighter to set a dark gold bead on her ankle ablaze. The flame was blue. She said, “There's half a reverse scale mark behind your shoulder. You didn't know, did you?”

Only then did Gu Chi remember that the “birthmark” beneath his right shoulder blade did sometimes grow hot. He also remembered his father, missing for seven years, and his younger brother Gu Chi, who had awakened before him and once stabbed a monster through the throat with a ballpoint pen.

The Secret Party wants to take him back. The Abyss Pavilion wants to recruit him. Ancient dragons are waiting in the shadows for him to awaken. With two groups fighting over him, Gu Chi does the math and decides to negotiate first: “My little brother isn't great at math. Can you set him up with a tutor?”

This is the story of an unlucky kid forced to become a hero. Slaying dragons isn't about fighting monsters. It's about a group of youths exiled by their bloodlines, facing ancient gods...

This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any similarities are purely coincidental. Do not imitate.