Dreamline - The Fall Behind the Curtain

Lin Yuan realized for the first time that “falling” was not an action—

but the sensation of being forgotten by the entire world.

There was no gravity.

No direction.

No light.

Only layers and layers of invisible thoughts circling his consciousness, overlapping, devouring, multiplying.

It felt as if thousands of voices pressed against his ears, whispering—

Yet every single one of them…

belonged to him.

“You shouldn’t have come here.”

“You’re far too late compared to the others.”

“You will end up as the next hollow failure.”

The voices were cold, sharp, but none came from the outside world.

They all came from within him.

He didn’t know how long he drifted before the darkness began to tear apart.

Like a thin sheet of paper being ripped open from the center.

A faint beam of cold white light seeped through the crack, distorting everything around him.

Lin Yuan was forced to open his eyes.

Beneath his feet wasn’t ground, but an endless field of “folded planes.”

They resembled billions of transparent glass plates suspended in midair, overlapping, intersecting, yet from any angle they barely seemed to exist in reality at all.

—Zero Domain.

He had finally reached it.

The air carried a faint but piercing scent, like old memories being burned.

As soon as Lin Yuan took his first step, a subtle metallic sound echoed from deep within the planes—

Ding.

Like metal tapping against a distant wall.

He lifted his gaze.

On one of the folded planes ahead stood a human silhouette.

The figure was blurred, unfocused, but its outline was painfully familiar.

It looked like…

himself.

Lin Yuan frowned.

“Another remnant?”

The silhouette slowly lifted its head.

It had no facial features—only a torn, distorted surface.

But the way it opened its mouth—

was exactly how Lin Yuan would.

“No,” the figure replied, its voice filtered through a thousand layers of echoes.

“I am the first piece of logic stripped from you the moment you arrived.”

A chill tightened around Lin Yuan’s heart.

“My… copy?”

“No.”

The shadow shook its head gently.

“I am the failed you.”

Lin Yuan froze.

The shadow placed a hand on its chest.

There was a nearly transparent crack running through its torso, from the collarbone down to the abdomen—

as if a broken program had been forcibly stopped before it fully generated into a human form.

“You think you’re the first ‘In-Depth Diver’?” the shadow asked softly, almost pitying.

“You are the 9,436th version.”

Lin Yuan’s breath stopped.

“…What?”

The shadow continued:

“Every one of you believed you were the protagonist.

Every one of you found Li.

Every one of you died at the same node.”

A cold wave crawled down Lin Yuan’s spine.

The shadow walked toward him.

With each step, the folded plane beneath its feet punctured downward, revealing yawning voids.

“Your failure wasn’t caused by technology.

Not by the dream realm.

Not by permissions.”

“But because—

the ending you sought was never something you could survive.”

Lin Yuan stared at him.

“Then what about me? What makes me different from them?”

The shadow stopped three meters away.

“You carry the fragment… she left you.”

Lin Yuan’s pupils contracted.

“Li?”

The shadow didn’t nod or shake its head.

“Not Li.”

“It was the only anomaly—

the sole surviving variable among thousands of failed outcomes.”

Lin Yuan felt the truth crashing into him.

Hai was not erased from reality.

Not missing.

Not hidden.

She was—

the exception that leaked out from every failed ending.

The shadow pointed toward the depths of the Zero Domain.

From far away came a faint, gentle breathing.

Someone waiting.

“You still wish to find her?”

“Yes,” Lin Yuan answered without hesitation.

The shadow’s faint smile vanished.

“Then are you prepared to face the true point of failure?”

“What do you mean?”

The shadow stepped backward.

Back into the darkness.

Back into the folded planes.

Its body dissolved like erased pixels.

But it left behind one chilling final sentence—

“She didn’t come to help you succeed.”

“She came to test whether you would fail like the rest.”

The entire Zero Domain ignited with that sentence.

Folded planes began collapsing.

Twisted winds surged upward from the cracks.

Echoes of pain—

every past version of Lin Yuan dying, gasping, screaming—

filled the air like overlapping radio static.

A thousand deaths.

A thousand endings.

All happening at once.

Lin Yuan clenched his jaw and moved forward.

He didn’t look back.

Because he knew.

This was the failure point.

The place where more than nine thousand past versions had stepped and died.

And the place he must walk through.

Just as he stepped onto the next transparent plane—

The air tore open.

A thin black line rose from the plane’s surface.

Like the spine of a creature.

Like a crack in the world.

Like…

a person.

A person whose posture he had seen countless times—

in reality, in dreams, in fragmented memories.

—Li.

But not any version of Li he had ever known.

This one’s smile was quiet, impossibly gentle.

As if she had been waiting.

For years.

Centuries.

Eons.

Li lifted her gaze.

Her voice was barely more than breath:

“Yuan…”

“You finally made it.”

Lin Yuan froze.

He didn’t know if she was an illusion, a remnant, a manipulation—

or truly herself.

He only knew—

For the first time, when she called his name, her voice didn’t tremble.

It was absolutely real.

Li took one step forward.

The entire domain shuddered with that step.

She whispered:

“Do you know why every version of you failed?”

Lin Yuan’s throat tightened.

Li touched the thin black line at her feet.

Instantly—

it spread like ink, staining everything.

Her eyes filled with a sorrow that ran far deeper than any wound.

“Because all of you…

stop when you see me.”

Lin Yuan’s breath faltered.

Li opened her arms.

Like an embrace.

Like a trap.

Like salvation.

“Yuan.”

“This time…

will you stop too?”

Her voice was as soft as dreaming.

Lin Yuan finally spoke, painfully:

“You want me to stop… because you’re afraid of what I’ll find?”

Li shook her head.

“No.”

She walked toward him.

The cracks widened.

“I’m afraid…”

She touched his fingertips.

The light vanished.

Darkness swallowed everything.

Her voice trembled against his ear—

“If you keep going…

you will learn what you truly are.”

“And you…

may not survive it.”

Lin Yuan whispered:

“Then tell me.”

Li’s voice shivered.

“Yuan…

you didn’t come to save me.”

“You came to—”

Her final word was devoured by the dark.

Only one blurred shape lingered—

—‘be reclaimed.’

Lin Yuan’s eyes snapped open.

The world shattered.

Planes collapsed.

Shadows dissolved.

All the death-echoes of his failed selves fell into the abyss.

Only one truth remained—

He had never been chasing Li.

He had been walking toward a single fate:

To return himself.

—To be reclaimed.

A pale light flickered in the depths of the Zero Domain.

Under it sat a small trembling figure.

Hai.

But this time, she wasn’t standing calmly.

She was holding her head, trying to block out unbearable pain.

When she heard his footsteps, she slowly lifted her face.

Tears in her eyes.

“…Gege.”

Lin Yuan’s chest tightened violently.

Her voice shook like a collapsing world.

“Do you… still remember me?”

Everything stopped.

The wind.

The cracks.

Time itself.

This was the failure point.

The moment thousands of past Lin Yuans could not pass,

because they never understood Hai’s true nature,

or Li’s real origin,

or their own identity.

Lin Yuan breathed deeply.

And walked toward her.

Without stopping.

For the first time in nine thousand iterations—

someone moved forward.

The domain trembled.

Cracks sealed.

In Hai’s eyes flickered fear and longing.

“Gege… aren’t you afraid of me?”

Lin Yuan knelt and embraced her.

“I am afraid.”

He said.

“But I didn’t come to run.”

Hai froze.

Like she forgot how to breathe.

After a long moment, she whispered:

“Then… will you listen to the truth?”

Lin Yuan nodded.

Hai pointed toward the depths of Zero Domain.

A door opened.

A door none of the failed versions ever saw.

The Door of Truth.

Hai spoke softly:

“Your name… was never Lin Yuan.”

“Your real name… is behind that door.”

“You are the only version among thousands that wasn’t completely written to die.”

“And I…”

Hai inhaled sharply.

“I am the part of you that was deleted.”

Lin Yuan’s pupils constricted.

Hai lifted her gaze.

The last lock in her eyes broke open.

“I am—your original form.”

“Your first, true self.”

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