Chapter Four: When the Hunters Came, I Put the Whole City Online

Four unmarked vehicles charged toward the repair shop. Their leader wore a silver mask and a zero on his cuff. Raising a signal tracker, he demanded “the root key Lin Zhengchuan stole.” “You knew my father?” “He stole a vote that was never his. Payment is not a public service. It is a tool for selecting the obedient.” The countdown reached zero. Instead of one location, 497 red lights filled the tracker's map, from the southern hospital to farms outside Yunhai. Every node was settling a transaction with a temporary root signature. “Impossible!” the masked man shouted. “You think identity is a name you can erase,” Lin Mo said. “Mine is now 497 promises that were kept.”