Chapter One: Another City in the Sky

Mortar lines in the black stone, unknown writing on the lanterns, a pale hand pressed against a train window—everything was too precise to be lens flare. Yet his assistant saw only the luxury terrace. The cold of seven years ago climbed Shen Yan’s spine. At twenty-two, he had traveled north alone to photograph an aurora. His image showed people without shadows standing on a snowfield and, behind them, an observatory absent from every map. A magazine praised it as the photograph of the year. Three days later, someone produced evidence of compositing and repeated pixels. His award was revoked. His peers called him a fraud. Worse, his sister, Shen Xingyao, vanished the night he returned.