Chapter One: You Will Die in Seven Minutes

At 2:17 in the morning, Lin Mo found an email from tomorrow. Its timestamp read June 19, 2037, 02:24—exactly seven minutes ahead of the clock on his wall. The subject contained a single sentence: “If you are still sitting by the window, you will die in seven minutes.” Lin Mo stared at the screen, his right hand resting on a half-disassembled enterprise router. His rented room measured fourteen square meters. Rain crawled down cracks in the outer wall, and neon from the street dyed the damp curtains a cheap shade of violet. He had just repaired a firewall for an illegal clinic. They had refused to pay and left him the old router instead. He did not move away from the window.