Chapter Two: Before the Trap Closes

Investors began to murmur. Zhou’s expression remained calm. “Fabricating images carries legal consequences.” “That is why I brought verifiable evidence.” Lin had not hacked Lucent. He published the warehouse’s power records, server purchase orders, and a thermal model of the facility. A campus supposedly housing a quantum mainframe drew enough electricity for only two hundred ordinary graphics cards. Worse, Lucent’s seven hundred and twenty days of records generated identical random noise on public holidays. It was not market data. It was a loop. The livestream audience passed two million. Zhou glanced toward security. Six guards approached. Su Lan turned the camera on them. “Mr. Zhou, violence would improve the headline.”