Chapter Two: An Eighteen-Hour Chain of Evidence

Chen Mo unplugged the printer first. The silver interface remained suspended in his vision, cold light burned onto the retina. Closing his eyes did nothing. Neither turning away nor filming it with his phone made a difference. Tang Ye's camera showed only Chen staring into empty air. “Sleep deprivation causes hallucinations,” Tang said seriously. “But hallucinations don't usually make printers produce future dates.” Chen sealed the page in an antistatic bag. He did not ask Zero what “future” meant. The eighteen-hour countdown was already shrinking, and the useful part of the hint was clear: the code they wanted him to see. On the day of his suspension, Hanhai's security team had found a repository copy named `Tide-Mirror` on his private drive.