Chapter Three: Light Sent Seven Years Ago

The observatory revived inside the memory of starlight. Time rolled back seven years. Display cases repaired themselves and the dome began to turn. Xingyao, wearing a white lab coat, rushed out of the control room. The twenty-two-year-old Shen Yan followed her—while an eight-year-old Shen Yan stood beside the sundial. Two versions of him occupied the same night. “This isn’t an original memory,” Xingyao told Zhou Jibai. “Someone stitched a childhood anchor into tonight.” Zhou looked younger, his eyes bloodshot behind his glasses. “The gate is open. If he remembers the first time he saw Qiyao—” “He will die.” “More people will die in both cities.”