Chapter Five: A Murder That Never Happened

At 4:12, the engineer was alive. He had discovered that Qichen's network copied habits of perception from everyone who photographed its lights. At 4:17, an advertising screen lit in the empty plant. A false Li Wu stepped out and drove glass into his chest. The wound did not kill him. Another ray from the skylight caught Zhou Jibai removing the man's badge and laying a prerecorded reflection of blood across the floor. Shen Yan pushed beyond the original image. Reflections showed Zhou using the badge in an underground elevator. Seven anchors lit on its panel. The engineer was placed in life support; the corpse above was only a memory shell.