Chapter Two: Three Seconds From Now, the Bullet Fires First

“Which means this is our last chance to be afraid.” Zhou Yan tapped the desk three times with his left hand. “Lin Mo hears the future. Su Cheng can’t hear the present. We find a language that doesn’t belong to sound.” They compressed their commands into visible actions. A circle drawn with the crosshair meant rotate. Two crouches meant bait. One shot at a teammate’s feet meant danger in three seconds. Su Cheng broke complex plans into colors and directions. Tang Ye insisted that every prediction reserve a “counterline,” a player assigned to attack the branch Lin Mo rejected. “You don’t trust me?” Lin Mo asked. “I trust you to be wrong sometimes,” Tang Ye replied. “So I’ll cover the wrong side.” They lasted twelve minutes in the fourth round.