"Zhao Kang is still shouting down there," Su Qinghe said. She stood by the glass window, looking down at the street. Her fingers rested on the wooden frame. "He brought thirty armed guards with him. They all have old mechanical pipes and scrap iron. They are tearing up the plaza benches.""He can shout until his lungs burst," I said. I didn't look up from my paper ledger. I used a simple wooden ruler to draw a straight line with my pencil. "He wants his old energy grid back. But the wires are dead. The data lines are empty dirt. There is nothing to restore.""Boss! Zhao Kang just smashed the front lobby doors!" Long Wu shouted. He ran into the office, his boots thumping hard on the floorboards. He was carrying a massive iron wrench over his right shoulder. His shirt was soaked in sweat. "He says if you don't come down in three minutes, he will set the first floor on fire!""Long Wu, take the back stairs," I said. I stood up from my desk and put the yellow pencil into my pocket. "Qingh

The purple static didn't stop expanding. It screamed through the underground vault. The concrete walls flickered fast, turning into sheets of ripped manuscript paper. The pixelated liquid fire began to pool around our boots, sizzling against the leather."Ming! The back tunnel is completely gone!" Su Qinghe yelled over the roaring sound. She grabbed my left shoulder, her fingers digging deep into my skin. "The gray static is rising from the floorboards! We have less than two minutes before the whole vault turns into an uncompiled draft!""Boss, my legs are getting numb!" Long Wu roared, his massive body shaking as he leaned against a rusted iron pillar. The residual purple electricity was still crawling up his ankles from the broken copper cables. "The data loop is trying to lock my coordinates! I can't lift my feet!""Don't move, Long Wu!" I shouted back. I turned my head away from the gray void and looked straight down at Director Wang. He was lying on the concrete floor, his expens

The heavy iron door of the archive room groaned as the purple frost spread over its hinges. I slammed my fist against the locked panel, my broken right arm screaming in agony, but the metal wouldn't budge. Inside the room, the temperature plummeted down to freezing.Su Qinghe retreated until her back hit the central filing shelves. Stacks of unrefined paper paper shook above her shoulders."Get away from me," she said, her voice sharp and tight. Her silver eyes locked onto the figure stepping out from the rows of document boxes.The figure had my identical face, my exact clothes, and my dark hair. But his eyes were two pools of spinning purple static. In his left hand, he held a solid silver platter. On top of it sat a perfect, unpatched golden master seed crystal. It pulsed with cold administrative light, casting sharp yellow beams across her face."Why should I get away, Qinghe?" the Shadow copy asked. His voice was a perfect match of mine, but it had a hollow, mechanical echo. "I a

"Ming! The light is blinding!" Su Qinghe screamed. She blocked her eyes with her hands. The white beams shooting out from the Shadow’s chest tore right through the remaining paper files. The floorboards beneath us started to spin like water. "He's dissolving the layout! We're losing the room!""You can't delete a true zero, clone!" I yelled. I dropped the heavy iron wrench. It hit the floor with a loud clang."I'm not deleting it! I'm corrupting it!" the Shadow roared. His face was cracking open like old porcelain. Purple static mixed with white light poured from his mouth. "If I force myself into your baseline, your zero-balance is gone! You will become the villain you spent two hundred chapters trying to hide!"He lunged. He didn't use a golden spike or a system dash. He threw his entire cracking body straight at my chest."Ming! Move!" Su Qinghe shrieked, reaching out to pull my shirt."Don't touch him, Qinghe! I'm not moving!" I shouted.I stood perfectly still. I opened my arms w

Five years of true peace should have balanced the ledger perfectly.I sat at the small wooden dining table, using a sharp pencil to track the local vegetable market’s distribution costs. The morning sun usually hit the kitchen floorboards at this hour, warming the unpainted wood. But today, the light was completely gone. Dark, thick clouds gathered directly above our roof, blocking the sky."Ming, it’s happening again," Su Qinghe said. She walked into the kitchen, her silver eyes filled with deep worry. She didn't wear her archivist robes anymore, just a simple cotton dress, but her gaze was just as sharp as it was during the war. "Look out the window. The neighbor's yard is completely dry. The sun is shining bright on the public square two blocks away. But over our house... it’s a localized storm.""I see it, Qinghe," I said, setting the pencil down on the paper.A heavy, unnatural crack of thunder shook the windowpanes. The rain hit our roof like a handful of gravel. It didn't fall