Chapter Three: The Sentence That Was Erased

“My mother. You visited the hospital. What was the last thing she said to me?” Lin Qi's silence lasted too long. “She asked me not to tell you. She said those words belonged to you alone.” Shen Yan struck the power button. Nothing happened. New rules illuminated the screen, one line at a time: mandatory connection at midnight; victory synchronized talent; defeat deleted memory; calibration completed at one hundred percent synchronization. “So it can take things from you,” Lin Qi said. “In that final, when you suddenly stopped hearing our calls—that wasn't trauma?” Fragments of the match stirred. Before the deciding fight, Shen Yan's screen had shown a burning city. An unfamiliar girl had shouted the name Yanhui.