Chapter Three: The Release-Night Crash

At 11:49, the lamp stand still fell. Sparks burst, but they did not land in a rear passage packed with bodies as the Ledger had predicted. Firefighters stormed in and covered the fuel with powder. There was no stampede and no inferno—only more than seven thousand pairs Hive had failed to hide, all recorded on official body cameras. At midnight, Obsidian announced additional online raffles and froze abnormal orders. Resale dropped through eight thousand, five thousand, and finally settled near thirty-one hundred. Behind the police line, He's face was as dark as the rain. “Exposed inventory isn't a crime. You won one night. Don't imagine you beat the market.” “You aren't the market,” Lin said. “The people wearing the shoes are.”