Chapter Five: Folding a City into the Set

At 11:59, Tang Jing appeared onstage before a hundred different brass cities. Silver occasionally flashed across his pupils. “Creation should not be monopolized by a few.” At midnight, all hundred films launched. Gears engaged above the city. Cafés became airship docks, subway entrances exhaled coal smoke, and rows of faceless workers appeared behind office windows. The more people raised phones in wonder, the faster reality transformed. “Black screens—now!” Lin Xia ordered. Every purchased display went dark. Gu Yan activated the Folding Set. The black frames became depthless openings. Streets rose along their seams like scenery flats and folded twenty kilometers toward the boiler room.