Chapter Three: Everday Screening

Pale hands reached from the fragments and seized five guards. The sixth avoided the reflections and lunged at Su Mi. Jianyue raised the camera. He knocked it aside, but the shutter fell. The flash swept half the corridor. The guard froze. So did Su Mi's flying hair, the falling glass, and the hands reaching out of Shang Xian's mirrors. The frozen field struck the reflected Kin and spread like ice through cracks. Time slowed along the entire hall. Jianyue heard countless clocks running backward behind the walls. A man approached from the far end. He wore a black shirt without a tie. His pale face was identical to the one in the old photograph. Frozen time parted around him. Suspended glass brushed his shoulder and began falling again. Pei Du.