Chapter 1 : The Boy Who Drew Constellations

*Shanghai, Present Day*

The neon heartbeat of Nanjing Road pulsed in time with Li Chen's restless fingers. He sat cross-legged on the curb, his sketchpad balanced on his knees, charcoal smudging his palms as he tried to trap the city's chaos on paper. A delivery rider weaved through traffic, his electric bike humming like a wasp; a street vendor hawked jianbing under a flickering sign for VR gambling dens; a businessman in a wrinkled suit vomited into a storm drain, his tie fluttering in the sour breeze. Li Chen's charcoal raced, each stroke a rebellion against the debt notices piling up at home.

Auntie Mei's voice hissed in his memory: "You're just like your father—dreaming instead of doing. When will you go to find a job?"

His father, a failed painter who'd died with a brush in his hand and a repossession notice on the door.

"What to do now?"

Li Chen liked to draw. His foster mother often called it a waste of time.

"Art won't pay the debt, Xiao Chen,"

She would say, her voice sharp as the cleaver she used to slice pork buns at their struggling noodle shop. But Li Chen couldn't stop. How can he make her understand that when he drew, the world made sense?

Otherwise, he felt overwhelmed and suffocated. It was as if the world was trying to drown him.

Tonight, though, the lines fought him. His usual precision frayed, his strokes jagged, as if the city itself were resisting his gaze. He'd been having the dreams again—constellations dripping ink like blood, a woman's voice chanting in a language that made his teeth ache and... his father's face.

"They must have gotten in my mind."

He blamed the loan sharks. Three months overdue on the payments, and Uncle Bo's men patrolled the alley behind the shop, their laughter thick with menace.

"Hey, Picasso!" A sneer cut through the hum of traffic. Zhou, Uncle Bo's enforcer, loomed like a vulture in a leather jacket two sizes too small, his leather jacket reeking of cigarettes. Two thugs flanked him, one cracking his knuckles. They had him surrounded. There was no escape.

"Your ma's got till sunrise. Or we take the shop *and* her kneecaps."

Li Chen's grip tightened on his charcoal, his anger visible at their provocation.

"I'll get the money."

A shadow fell over his sketchpad.

"Pretty picture,"

Zhou sneered, snatching the sketchpad. Li Chen proved to be no match for the thug that was twice his size. The page tore as Li Chen fall back with a part of the picture—a half-finished portrait of an old woman feeding pigeons, her smile crumbling under Zhou's grip.

"Nail it in your mind. Your ma's got till dawn, or we'll take her hands... and your pretty fingers. Artists need those, right?"

Li Chen stood, fists clenched. "I said I'll get the money!"

"You said the same a month ago."

Zhou laughed, tossing the torn sketch into a puddle. His lackeys echoed the threat in a chorus of hyena snickers before vanishing into the crowd.

Li Chen salvaged the sketch, the ink bleeding into a Rorschach blot of wings and shadows.

"Like my life."

He paused for a moment, holding back his tears. Li Chen exhaled, his pulse thundering. He packed his supplies, avoiding the stares of passersby, and slipped into the labyrinth of backstreets.

---

Li Chen didn't remember walking to Longhua Temple or what remained of it—a relic wedged between a karaoke bar and a construction site, its vermilion walls peeling, courtyard choked with weeds. Developers had tried to demolish it for years, but rumors of cursed ground kept bulldozers at bay. Locals called it Guǐ Miào*—Ghost Temple.

Tonight, the air tasted different. Static prickled his skin as he pushed through the rusted gate. The courtyard was a graveyard of shattered incense burners and ginkgo leaves, the moonlight pooling like spilled milk on the cracked stone tiles, illuminating murals of eroded deities.

Li Chen pushed through the rusted gate. One caught his eye: a woman in flowing robes, her hand outstretched to a sky raining stars. The style was unlike anything he'd seen—not quite Ming dynasty, not quite human.

The artist in him itched to redraw her eroded features, to fill in the gaps where time had stolen her eyes.

He settled on a broken pillar, sketching the mural. As his charcoal moved, the air thickened. His pen—a cheap ballpoint—rolled from his bag, glowing faintly. He reached for it, and a spark leapt to his fingers.

"What the—?"

The world shifted.

The murals bled color, the stars in the painting swirling like live embers. The woman's eyes snapped open—sapphire irises piercing the dark and looking straight towards him.

"Li Chen of the Lin bloodline." Her voice echoed from everywhere and, from within him.

"You've kept me waiting."

The ground dissolved. Li Chen fell, weightless, through a void streaked with comet tails and nebulae, until his boots hit polished obsidian. All around him were towers of jade scrolls stretched endlessly, their shelves lit by floating orbs of blue flame. The scent of sandalwood and ozone choked his lungs.

"You are here..."

Before him stood the woman from the mural—Yue Ming, her hair a cascade of silver, her robes stitched with constellations and eyes were twin supernovae.

"Let me go back!" Li Chen staggered back, only now realising that this wasn't dream or hallucinations.

"This is the Astral Archives— a memory of the Astral Veil Sect's glory. I am its current guardian." Yue Ming stepped closer, her gaze dissecting him.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Li Chen backed away, his sketchpad clutched to his chest, looking for some exit or a way to escape.

"You've inherited the 'Starfall Map', though it seems fate has a cruel sense of humor."

"I didn't inherit shit. Let me go!"

She flicked her wrist. The air rippled, projecting a hologram of Li Chen's own skeleton—his ribs glowing with nine faint sigils.

"The Map is fragmented, buried in your soul. The stars are waking. And you,"

she paused,"are woefully unprepared. A key that doesn't know its lock."

"Unfortunately you are late."

"Wh-"

Before he could speak, the archive trembled. Shadows oozed from the shelves, coalescing into figures clad in black armor etched with crescent moons.

"The Eclipse Syndicate. They have found us."

Yue Ming exclaimed.

"Us? I don't know about that. Please let me go, I have a lone mother to take care off."

Among the black clad group, a person stood forward, his visor retracted, revealing a face that was covered in tendrils of black lightning.

"That is Kai, the current leader of the syndicate. Watch out for him." Yue Ming said as a door appeared behind Li Chen.

"Huh?"

Kai looked at the situation amused, "This is the Cartographer's heir. How… quaint. All this time, we were worried for nothing."

"What you should be worried of is me."

Yue Ming shoved Li Chen behind her. "Run. Now. To the ------"

"Run where?!"

She tossed him a jade pendant shaped like a compass and pushed him towards the door.

"Find the Nine Altars. Restore the Map, or the stars will burn this world to cinders! Hurry!"

"As if I will let him."

With a chuckle, Kai lunged forward, his blade screaming with corrupted starlight. Yue Ming intercepted and parried with a fan forged from moonlight, their clash scattering scrolls like dead leaves.

"Go catch that rat."

Kai ordered his men as he dodged one of Yue Ming's attack.

Li Chen seeing the exit, bolted out of the place, the door closing with his departure and the world shifted once more. The archive collapsed behind him, shelves erupting into blue fire.

"Crazy Bitch! This is not the end."

---

Back at the Longhua Temple.

"It burns!"

Li Chen woke up gasping on the temple floor, dawn bleeding through the broken roof. He immediately looked at his right hand, the pendant seared his palm, his eyes distraught.

Hallucinations," he muttered, voice shaky. "Stress. Sleep deprivation."

But the proof burned his wrist: an azure dragon coiled around a star, its tail flickering when he moved.

"It was not a dream."

He looked around him, his eyes darting towards his supplies. His sketchpad laid open to a perfect replica of the mural—except the woman now held his glowing pen.

"What now?"

As he said those incessant pain assaulted his wrist, the pendant cascading into blueish flame, pointing towards a new direction.

Li Chen grabbed the pendant and threw it in the ruins.

"I am not involved in all this. I have my problems to deal with."

– The world will shatter if you failed.

"Whatever."

The city roared back to life as he stumbled into the streets. Morning had arrived and he needed to go to the shop. The goons should be waiting for him.

"I will try to ask for a bit more time. I will go beg Uncle Bo if it doesn't work."

"Wait, that pendant looked costly. I could have sold it. Should I go and pick it up?"

Muttering mindlessly, he neared the bund, the pendant appearing on his neck, flared, tugging him toward a hole-in-the-wall tea shop beside the highway pass.

"Shit!"

"What is this cursed object?"

Li Chen looked at the pendant dumbfoundedly.

He looked towards the place that the pendant pointed and inside that place, someone was also looking at him.

A grizzled man with a military buzz cut and a dragon tattoo peeking from his collar—froze mid-pour, his eyes locked on the pendant.

The man came to Li Chen and hastily took him inside the shop. Li Chen tried ro wrestle free from the grasp of the Old man but failed and could only follow behind consensually.

"Where'd you get that?"

The asked asked in a somber tone. Li Chen was sure that the Old man had seen the pendant floating around him. The Old man was also not normal.

"A ghost gave it to me. Do you want to buy it?" Li Chen said.

The Old Man locked the door, drew the blinds, and brewed bitter pu'er in silence. Over the steam, he spoke: "The Astral Veil Sect bound the stars to human souls to stop them from devouring the world. You're their last descendant."

"Bullshit."

Old Wei rolled up his sleeve, revealing a scarred sigil—a star crossed out by a blade. "I served the Eclipse Syndicate once. The stars don't care if you believe in them. They'll eat you either way."

"I don't want to do anything with all this. This is related to my life."

Li Chen exclaimed in a near crying tone. He felt overwhelming suffocating with each passing event that he had encountered till now. Old Wei's expression darkened at his words.

"Sit. And don't touch the oolong tea."

"You can call me Old Wei. Let me tell you how wrong you are. About yourself. About everything."

Over bitter tea, Old Wei revealed fragments of the truth: the Astral Veil Sect, the stars' fall, the Eclipse Syndicate's hunt and finally what would happen if Li Chen failed. Everything would end.

"The cataclysm is just a week away and you are the only one who can protect this world. Unfortunately you are late."

"...That's not fair. Agh, not fair at all."

He broke down, tears began to well up his eyes as he cried while looking at the ground.

Hia father had left him with debt, his ancestors had left him with the fate of the world and he was to do the same. He just wanted to draw in peace.

"Everything has a price. Ancestors had trapped the stars and now you have to take the burden, followed by your generations and the generations after that. This is what she had chosen."

Old Wei said and silently sipped his tea while watching him cry his heart out. When Li Chen was done, he gave him a small map.

"Do I have to start now? Right now?"

"Tomorrow. We need to prepare things first. The First Altar's beneath the Huangpu River. But kid—" he gripped Li Chen's shoulder, "—each star demands a sacrifice. Something you love. Something you *are*."

At the mention of more sacrifices, Li Chen couldn't help but laugh hollowly. "I'm a debt-ridden nobody. What's left to take? My life"

Old Wei's gaze fell to the sketchpad. "Your art. Your memories. Your *soul*. Or how much of it that belongs to you."

Li Chen hands trembled at the mention of those words.

"Or you can pay something else. Your choice. Unlike others, you can decide on that."

Old Wei, as if understanding his thoughts, said.

"Can I leave now? And come back tomorrow."

"I wouldn't advice that. They should be searching for you every nook and cranny. Hide here for now and leave after a while."

"No, I need to leave now. There's something I had to do-"

Li Chen fell to the ground mid sentence.

"*Sigh* I am sorry but I have to keep you safe."

....

Li Chen woke up with a jolt and found himself to be surrounded by dense shrubbery made in weird formation.

"What time is it? Auntie Mei!"

He immediately got up and ran out of the shrubs, his skin getting scratches and tears from the branches. Yet he didn't care, all his mind was on the shop and Auntie Mei.

"Please be safe."

He ran out of the place he was in and after a few minutes of running, he encountered familiar streets. He picked up his speed and dashed towards the shop.

Fortunate seems to have abandoned him as Li Chen neared the shop, Zhou's voice slithered from an alley: "There's the little rat! Catch him!"

He ran away from them, Zhou's gang close behind. Passerbys looked at them yet none came forward to help. Most of them knew who Zhou was.

"How is he so fast? Hurry up"

Zhou screamed towards his men as they passed through streets and alleyways. Zhou was just going to leave Li Chen after a few slaps but now he was angry at Li Chen's antics.

He needed to show what happens when people mess with him.

A wrong turn trapped Li Chen in a dead-end alley, putrid puddles soaking his sneakers.

"Listen, please give me a few more days. Or just one day. One more day and I will pay it all back."

Li Chen said, his voice a tone of plea and defeat. Zhou seem to have not hear him though and continued to advance while taking out his switchblade.

"You got legs. Why don't you run the marathons? *Picasso*."

He said as his blade gleamed with the reflection of the moon, his intentions pretty clear. Behind him, his goons began to to smirk, taking out their phones to record the upcoming show.

"Please, I beg you. Just let me leave now."

Desperation ignited the sigil on Li Chen's wrist. The azure dragon stirred within him as wind howled, channeling through his palm—a gale hurling Zhou into a wall as an audible crack was heard.

The thugs screamed in horror as Zhou's body limped to the ground without any movement.

"He killed Zhou! Run! He killed Zhou!"

The thugs fled the scene as terror filled their hearts. No one dared to look back. They were small time goons and they had never killed or witnessed a killing.

Li Chen, clearly distraught at his actions, stared at his trembling hands.

Why did I?

"Don't worry. He isn't dead."

A laugh echoed above him.

He immediately tensed and turned his gaze towards the source. On a fire escape crouched a girl similar to his age with a pixie cut dyed electric blue and a smirk sharp enough to cut glass.

"Not bad for a rookie. But the Syndicate's got drones and they are searching for you everywhere. Here, you'll need backup."

She tossed him a star-shaped locket—the same symbol that was on his pendant.

"Meet me at Yuyuan Garden. Sunrise. And bring snacks. I'm starving."

"Who are you now?"

Li Chen asked in a tiresome tone. None he encountered today had bring him fortune.

"Xia Ling."

She vanished after saying that, leaving Li Chen behind, alone with his thoughts and the body of Zhou.

"What do I do with him?"

He questioned himself while looking at Zhou. He didn't dare to go near him.

*Sigh*

After a small sigh, he went near him, checked his clothes, found his phone and it was locked. He dialed the emergency number and called for their help.

"There's a person injured here. I don't know where we are but it should be near the dumping ground. Please hurry, he isn't responding..."

"...Okay, just give me a minute, I will provide the location of the nearest landmark."

Li Chen wandered around the area while talking with the helping staff and they finally got the right location.

Half an hour later, he followed the medical staff and got Zhou admitted. He finally left the hospital after signing some papers and left for the shop.

....

He wandered the way, lost and distraught. He didn't know how he should face Auntie Mei.

At last, unable to take the situation, he sat down at the side and began to draw a dragon sigil. He needed to make sense. Nothing was making sense.

Auntie Mei found him, her appearance haggard with her eyes red from tears. She must have been searching for him. For how long, he didn't know. Emotions welled up in his hearts, flowing down as muffled tears.

"The shop… They took it."

Auntie Mei sat beside him. His voice miserable and dejected.

"I am sorry. I am sorry..."

That was all he could mutter through his tear drenched voice. Guilt curdled in his gut. He almost told her everything—the archive, Yue Ming, the storm in his veins, why he was late, his encounter with Zhou. Everything.

But he didn't. He tucked the pendant under his shirt, its heat scorching his flesh.

"I'll fix this. I promise."

She pressed a steamed bun into his hand.

"Eat first. You haven't eaten all day, have you?"

"Did you eat?"

"Umm. I did. I will eat more when I get back."

"I see. *Cough*"

"Be careful, Xiao Chen. Eat slowly."

"Uh-huh *sniff*"

Li Chen wiped away his tears. For the first time in his day, he felt at calm and peace. In his pocket, the pen glowed. Somewhere, a star laughed. His Prey had a weakness to exploit.

...

Hello.

I am FlairyBun and this is one of my works that I truly like. I hope you like it as well.

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