Chapter 1: Chapter 1: Father’s Forbidden Legacy
"Mom, I’m back!" Zhou Feng pushed open the door and exclaimed joyfully, his voice echoing through the small apartment.
It was already evening, and after a grueling day at school, all he wanted was to collapse into bed. But tomorrow was National Day, and that thought brought a smile to his face.
As a second-year high school student, he wasn’t supposed to have this holiday — but his school wasn’t exactly rigorous with its curriculum, save for the top ten students in the class.
"Hm?"
No response came, so Zhou Feng glanced around the familiar living room. The old community they lived in hadn’t changed in over a decade, but his mother kept their home tidy and clean.
He kicked off his shoes and walked in, tossing his schoolbag onto the worn-out sofa. As he passed his mother’s room, he noticed a sliver of light leaking from under the door. Intrigued, he pushed it open and peeked inside.
"Not in here either?" The room was empty, but the light was on, beckoning him in. His gaze fell upon a wooden box sitting in front of his mother’s dressing table. The carving on it was simple yet intricate, unlike anything he’d seen before.
The lock on the box was already open, and Zhou Feng couldn’t resist the urge to explore. He sat down at the dressing table and lifted the lid. Inside, he found a thick photo album, a small bottle, and a peculiar notebook that seemed to have a locked mechanism.
He picked up the album first and flipped through the pages. Most of the photos were of his mother in her younger days — a beauty blossoming before his eyes. In the last few photos, she stood beside a man whose face was always turned away, his identity a mystery.
"Xiaofeng?"
His mother’s voice startled him. He turned to see her walking in, her eyes filled with warmth.
"Mom, what’s this?" Zhou Feng asked, holding up the album as she approached.
"Oh, that’s me — from childhood all the way to adulthood. The last one," she said, tapping the photo of the man with his face turned away, "is your father."
Zhou Feng barely remembered his father. The man had died suddenly of some illness, and even his mother seemed uncertain about the details.
"Why isn’t his face ever in the pictures?" he asked, a curious ache in his heart.
"His work required... confidentiality. Even I never really knew what he did. Let’s not talk about it," Lin Yunzhu said, taking the album from him and setting it aside.
"This notebook and the little bottle — your father left them for you. I’d almost forgotten about them, honestly. But since you just turned eighteen, I figured it was finally time to give them to you."
"For me?" Zhou Feng pointed at himself, surprise evident in his voice.
"Mm. I don’t know what’s written inside. It’s probably something he meant for you to have." She turned to leave. "Anyway — let your mother go cook. I picked up some ribs for you today."
Her words left a warm, aching sensation in his chest. As she walked away, hips swaying slightly, Zhou Feng felt a flush of embarrassment creep up, remembering the dream he’d had the night before.
"Left for me, huh?" he murmured, picking up the notebook and the bottle. He got up, planning to take them to his room for a closer look.
He stepped out of his mother’s room and, glancing toward the kitchen, saw cuts of meat and vegetables already laid out on the counter. So she really had just come back from grocery shopping.
His room was much smaller than his mother’s — just a desk and chair by the window, decorated with a single poster. Setting the notebook and bottle down on the wooden desk, he pulled the cork from the bottle first.
Looking inside, he found just two small, transparent glass beads. He had no idea why his father would have kept something like this, but they reminded him of the marbles he used to play with as a kid.
He set the bottle aside and turned his attention to the notebook. It was thin, with some kind of metal locking mechanism built into the side. A fingerprint-shaped marking caught his eye, and he pressed his thumb against it. There was a soft click — and the mechanism popped open.
Son, if you’re reading this, you must be grown now. I’m sorry I can’t leave you more than this, but what follows matters more than anything else I could tell you.
From this moment, stop whatever you’re doing and follow these steps exactly: First, press both temples with your fingers and hold for twenty seconds, then begin...
What followed was a long, strange passage that read like the ramblings of some dubious qigong master. The notebook itself was only three pages long, the last page a diagram of the human body’s acupoints.
His mother still had a while left before dinner would be ready, so Zhou Feng figured — why not. It was his father’s legacy, after all.
First, hold both temples for twenty seconds. Focus your mental energy into your eyes. Then...
The moment he finished the first step, his eyes widened. He stood frozen for a full three minutes — because he could actually feel heat building behind his eyes. Maybe it was just his imagination. Maybe not.
Following the acupoint chart, he worked through the sequence step by step, channeling the strange energy through his body and finally back to his eyes. The whole process took more than ten minutes.
"Last step is... the glass beads?" He picked the little bottle back up and held it toward his eyes.
Without warning, two shadows ballooned outward from the bottle’s mouth and shot straight into his eyes.
"Wha— ow! Wait... it doesn’t hurt?" He clapped his hands over his eyes, bracing for pain that never came. If anything, they felt strangely refreshed.
"What are these things?" He flipped back through the notebook, looking for more, and found one last passage beneath the acupoint diagram.
Once the Pupil is activated, anyone who looks into your eyes for more than three seconds can be hypnotized, if you choose to.
I don’t need you to become someone great. I just hope you find a way to enjoy this world.
