Chapter One: The Second the World Went Silent

Lin Mo lunged before Zhou Yan spoke, shoving Su Cheng and her chair beyond the falling glass. A shard grazed his neck and drew a red line. Everyone stared. “How did you know?” Tang Ye asked. Lin Mo did not answer. His world was quiet again except for his heart battering his ribs. Three seconds. Those sounds had arrived exactly three seconds early. The medical team took Su Cheng away. Their first report found no damage to her ear canal, only abnormal neural response consistent with a short burst of intense directed frequency. At the same time, a technician found worse news in the low-level logs. The audio profiles had not crashed. Someone had precisely erased them with administrator privileges—from an Emberstar account.