REBORN BEFORE THE FREEZE

The pendant

The torn halves of the loan agreement lay on the desk between them, and for a moment nobody in the office moved.

Then Lin Chen turned to the account manager, ignoring the way Su Wei's jaw had dropped beside him, and spoke with a calm that felt entirely new.

"Remove every authorization my wife currently has on my accounts. No transfer, no withdrawal, no changes of any kind unless I'm standing here myself with ID."

The manager hesitated only a second before nodding. "Right away, Mr. Lin."

Su Wei stared at him like a stranger had just climbed out of her husband's skin.

"No. Don't listen to him." She lunged toward the desk. "He doesn't know what he's saying."

"I'm sorry," the manager said, not unkindly, "but the accounts are registered in Mr. Lin's name alone. You don't have the authority to stop this." She glanced back at him. "Sir, shall I process it now?"

"Now," Lin Chen said, without hesitation.

Su Wei went very still.

For nine years she'd spent his money like it belonged to the Su family by right. He'd paid their bills, funded their schemes, cleaned up every mess without a word of protest. Why would he suddenly stop?

She didn't understand it, and she didn't care to. Her shock curdled fast into fury.

"What is wrong with you?" she hissed. "What are you trying to prove? How am I supposed to cover Rui's expenses? My mother's medical bills?"

He looked at her the way he might look at a stranger on the street. Once he'd seen the woman he loved standing there. Now he saw only something that had spent a decade feeding on him and calling it marriage.

"I don't know, Wei," he said flatly. "Ask Yan. I'm done."

Something flickered across her face  real fear, gone almost as fast as it came, buried under practiced outrage.

"There is nothing going on between me and Gu Yan," she snapped. "How many times do I have to say it before you stop acting like some jealous, insecure…"

The door swung open before she could finish. Su Heng shoved past the manager and into the room, already irritated.

"What's going on in here?" He looked between his sister and his brother-in-law, arms crossed, entitlement written across every line of his face. "And more importantly, where's my million?"

Lin Chen gave him a long, cold, appraising look. "If you want money, earn it. Like everyone else has to."

"Are you serious right now?" Su Heng's face twisted. "We had a deal, Chen!"

"There was never a deal." His voice had none of the deference it used to carry around this family. "There was a family that decided it had the right to spend my money whenever it felt like it."

"You son of a bitch" Su Heng took a step forward, hand raised.

"Careful," Lin Chen said quiet, flat, final and something in the word made Su Heng stop where he stood.

Lin Chen buttoned his coat, turned, and walked out without another word. Behind him, their voices chased him down the marble hallway his name, then threats, then something about Su Heng's ruined "business"  but none of it landed anymore.

Ninety-two days.

That was the only number that mattered now. This time he'd be ready. He needed supplies. Shelter. Capital. Right now he had a modest balance, a seven-year-old sedan, and total knowledge of the disaster bearing down on the world.

And one more thing.

A faint coolness pressed against his chest, under his shirt. He reached in and closed his hand around it.

The pendant. He hadn't known hadn't let himself hope  that it would come back with him too.

It had been built in the last stretch of the old world, when governments were pouring whatever they had left into anything that might keep people alive. He found an empty alley, bit the tip of his finger, and let a single drop of blood fall onto the metal.

Light swallowed him whole.

When it faded, he was standing in an apartment that shouldn't exist  no running water, no power, not a stick of furniture, two bedrooms and a living room stretching across what looked like a hundred and twenty square meters, ceilings nearly three meters high, a small garden past the balcony doors.

The dimensional space.

Lin Chen turned in a slow circle, breath coming faster. "I can't even guess how much I could store in here."

Anything placed inside stayed exactly as it was, forever. Food wouldn't rot. Water wouldn't evaporate. Hot food stayed hot. Frozen stayed frozen. In his old life this technology had arrived far too late to matter, invented into a world that already had nothing left worth preserving.

This time, he'd use every second of it.

Because there was a catch. Above him, a timer hung glowing in midair.

26:20.

Counting down.

He could stay inside for thirty minutes at a stretch. Once he left, twenty-four hours before he could come back.

Lin Chen allowed himself a small, humorless smile. For now, that was nothing.

A moment later he stepped back out into the ordinary world traffic moving through the intersection, a couple arguing over lunch, a delivery rider weaving past with a stack of warm food balanced on one arm. Overhead, the sky stretched clear and blue, as if it intended to stay that way forever.

He knew better.

Ninety-two days until it came down on all of them and this time, he intended to be the one holding everything they'd need to survive it.