Chapter Four: Every Malice Leaves an Echo

Xiezhi's terminal woke by itself. A scarlet path unfolded across the screen: electrical cabinet, negative-pressure duct, ICU oxygen valve, then a drone on the roof disguised as a news craft. [Risk chain: cause outage → induce evacuation → abduct Lin Zhou.] [Hidden branch: if abduction fails, detonate oxygen line and blame Firefly divinity.] [Confidence: 99.7%. Reproducible evidence attached to every node.] The first real user was Tang, not Lin. He transmitted the path. “Team Three, oxygen valve. Team One, roof. Do not chase the gray suits. They're bait.” Blue lines crawled from the terminal and formed a black, one-horned beast. It had no eyes, but transparent causal threads floated around it.