Chapter Three: The Release-Night Crash

Rain battered Hailin on the night of the anniversary release. By ten, three hundred people waited outside Leap. Some held tents, some operated five phones for raffles, and most watched resale apps as Polar Day climbed from six thousand to nine, then twelve. Manager Ma's face shone with excitement. “That's a legend. Don't mistake last night's luck for skill, Lin. A real market is made by men like Mr. He.” Lin had resigned. He wore the uniform one final time only to finish his shift. Across the street, Su sat in a van and sent him a logistics sheet. It showed that forty-seven Hive-controlled accounts had acquired seventy percent of Hailin's physical allocation, then photographed the same empty boxes repeatedly to fabricate an international sellout.