Chapter One: Two Characters at Midnight

In his conclusion, Gu Yan had written: This is not an ordinary back door. It is a knife lodged in the city's nervous system. The reply had contained eight Chinese characters: RISK INVALID. CEASE ALL TESTING. Then came his termination. His phone vibrated at the intersection. Zhou Fang, a former colleague, had sent him a screenshot captioned “a souvenir for your unemployment.” It came from the Linchuan city forum. White text on black, posted by an account named Untitled. Registration date, IP region, and user number were all blank. The post contained two characters: REVERSE RAIN. Its timestamp read 00:00:00. “It's not midnight yet,” Gu Yan replied. “Scheduled-preview cache. Old forum bug. It goes official when the page refreshes at twelve.”