Chapter One: A Film in One Second

【Original screenplay detected. Dramatic tension: 71. Emotional truth: 83.】 【Available price: the creator's ability to sleep for the next twenty-four hours. Generate?】 Gu Yan laughed and pressed YES. One second later, the monitor turned on by itself. Hundreds of smokestacks exhaled white steam under black clouds. A gear-driven train thundered over the camera, every tiny rivet reflecting fire. The actors were not real-world stars, yet they breathed; they had wrinkles and coal beneath their fingernails. The camera passed through the brass pupil of a raven and landed on the watchmaker's trembling hands. Gu Yan leaped up and knocked over his chair.