Chapter Five: No Miracles Allowed

Before the match against Polaris, Lin Zhou owned two playbooks. The black one tracked opponents. The white one tracked himself. Family photographs filled its first page, with names, relationships, and private details written behind them. Nova required a five-question memory check after every game. Any hesitation had to be logged. Rampart discovered the ritual when he picked up the recorder. Then he saw a line in the white book: *My sister took me to the academy. It rained. Everything else is lost.* The room went still. Lin Zhou told the whole team. Ferry spent twenty minutes establishing the limits: whether Lin Zhou could see abilities, what counted as changing a route, and whether a teammate's voluntary choice carried a cost.