Come To Me At Dawn

The plan was simple enough.

Find the protagonist.

Take the golden finger.

Survive.

It wasn't personal - it was survival. If he needed to steal to stay alive, so be it.

In the last life, Lin Zeyan had been nothing. A coward nobody who was happy to live day by day. Now transmigrated into this damn apocalyptic book, there was no way he would take himself as a hero.

The protagonist, Lu Qingshan, was easy to find. Same school, same year, same ugly green uniform. Quiet kid. Sat by the window in class, looking like a starved cat in human skin. Nobody talked to him - which was perfect.

It should have been easy. The golden finger was supposed to awaken the day Lu Qingshan fell into the abandoned subway tunnel near the old market. Lin Zeyan just needed to be there first, get the item, walk away.

Except... Lu Qingshan didn't fall that day. Someone pushed him.

Lin Zeyan caught him by reflex.

By the time he realized what he'd done, they were both lying on the dusty concrete, coughing, the sound of shuffling footsteps echoing deeper in the tunnel. The first monsters.

He should've run. Should've left Lu Qingshan to his fate. Anyway, there was no way he was gonna die from day one of the apocalypse. But something in the boy's quiet, steady gaze made his stomach knot.

And when the golden finger - a small, unremarkable crystal - rolled toward them, Lin Zeyan didn't pick it up.

He pushed it into Lu Qingshan's hand instead.