Chapter Four: ClearMark Opens Its Doors

On ClearMark's opening day, no flowers waited outside—only seventeen pairs other authenticators had sentenced to death. The studio occupied forty square meters above Su Tang's restoration shop. It held one examination table and two secondhand spectrometers. A sentence on the glass door read: Every verdict comes with evidence. We do not endorse prices. Lin had insisted on the second line. For three days, NULL-01 had been locked in a fireproof cabinet. Even through steel, he could see the 8,000 stitched behind its tongue. Tang Xiaoman returned the test shoes. Lin refunded the full price and added eight thousand, but the interface did not change. [A realized fortune deficit cannot be repaid with currency.]