Chapter One: The Night Mirror Went Live

At 11:47 p.m., Lu Chuan's monitor still displayed the same vicious red message: PAYMENT CALLBACK TIMEOUT. He was alone in the office. The air conditioner turned the open floor into a cheap morgue, while voice notes from the client kept landing in the project chat. “It has to be restored by nine tomorrow morning. Figure out the consequences yourselves if it isn't.” Lu swallowed the last of his cold coffee. The fault was not in his code. Three hours earlier, team lead Zhao Qiming had forced an untested interface into the release to meet a deadline. Zhao had switched off his phone and left the person who “understood production best” to spend the night cleaning it up.