Chapter Three: The People Cut from the Film

He told Zhou Fang to connect the mechanical core to the fire pump and placed Lin Xia before the live camera. “We'll shoot option three.” The pump roared. Instead of water, dense white steam heated by the core filled the floor, turning it into a natural projection screen. Gu Yan spent his remaining Resonance to combine every phone watching the stream into one vast camera array. “Don't like this broadcast,” he told a million viewers. “Write one thing only you know—something no character could know.” Secrets poured down the comments: a certificate hidden beneath a bed, an unsent love letter, a father's final lie. Unique memories flooded the stream, and the single movie spreading over the city began to stutter.