The autumn night air bites through my damp clothes as I drag the mysterious man from the river. His skin is impossibly cold, like marble, but there's something hauntingly beautiful about him—those green eyes that seem to hold centuries of sadness and confusion. I shouldn't bring him home. Every rational instinct screams this is a terrible idea that will complicate my orderly life. But as I look at his pale face, something won't let me leave him there shivering in the dark.

Now he's in my apartment, sitting on my couch looking utterly lost, and I'm struggling with the impossible reality of what's happening. One moment he's wearing clothes, the next they vanish when he steps outside. He claims not to remember who he is, yet somehow responds to the name孔融—Kong Wenju, my former university senior from literature department.

The jade ring in my pocket suddenly feels heavier, warmer against my thigh. When I fished it out of the river last week, I thought it was just a curiosity, but now...

I glance at him sitting there, hugging himself against a cold that shouldn't exist in my heated apartment, and make my decision.