Chapter One: The Night Mirror Went Live

Years of swallowed anger cracked open in Lu's chest. “Can I delete it?” he asked. “You can,” Zero replied. “But that is what the old you would do. The new you should send it to the people who need to see it.” Following the audit path Zero highlighted, Lu exported the full chain of actions and posted it in the incident channel where the director could see it. Three minutes later Zhao called, his voice shaking, and asked whether Lu had lost his mind. For the first time, Lu did not explain. “Logs don't lie,” he said. When the call ended, the screen dimmed. In the dark reflection, the face like his own came into focus. Zero lifted a hand and wrote a number in the misty glass: 7. “After every midnight, it will decrease.”