Chapter One: The Extra Man on the Screen

At 11:47 p.m., the last audience left the Starvault Cinema. Ye Lan sat in the back row of Auditorium Twelve with next week's schedule across her knees. Three internal trailers looped on the screen: *The Day-and-Night Watchman*, *The Court of Ashes*, and *The Faceless Age*. The first two had release dates. The third showed only a black rectangle and a countdown: seventy-two hours, thirteen minutes. She hated countdowns. They turned neutral time into a tightening rope. The city on-screen burned. Lu Chenzhou, dressed in black, leapt from a tower and drew daylight from his palms. At nineteen seconds, he was supposed to say, “I will end the night.” Instead, he landed and looked beyond the camera. He looked at Ye Lan.