Lin Che once thought that familiar nightmare was nothing more than his imagination running wild under the pressure of school.
A cold Mobius strip spun in the air. Four mutilated corpses dangled in the forest: one with its tongue cut out, one with both hands severed, one with its eyes gouged out, and one with its heart ripped out. Beneath the trees, a monster greedily gnawed on the dismembered bodies.
And he was one of them.
He woke with a start in the familiar classroom. The fear of the nightmare still clung to him, but reality was already sliding into the abyss.
The bullying was as usual, but that day it went too far. Lu Mo, the silent sidekick, was murdered in front of everyone. Faced with Zheng Xiao's threats and a strange excitement stirring in the darkness, Lin Che and his companions Chen Rui and Li Wei were forced to take part in a bloody dismemberment and burial.
The soil on Mount Xuantai was cold and clammy. They had buried not only Lu Mo's shattered remains, but also their inescapable guilt. On the way back, shadows swayed among the trees, and four hanging figures drifted in the wind, exactly as they had at the end of his nightmare.
A cold gaze followed them wherever they went. The gears of fate had begun to turn.
Only when symbolic punishments came down upon them, tongues cut out, hands severed, eyes gouged out, hearts ripped out, did they realize in despair: death was not the end, but the beginning of an endless cycle. Every time they “woke” back in the classroom, it was a countdown to the next sacrifice.
Who was whispering in the darkness?
Whose fate had been locked in place by those crossed rings?
What had they buried with their own hands: Lu Mo's remains, or their own ticket to hell?
The shadow of a snake in a cup had become real, coiling at the crossroads of fate.
Theme: Cherish life and hold fast to your principles
