Chapter Five: Folding a City into the Set

All one hundred counterfeit cities compressed into a single virtual soundstage. The price struck him. Gu Yan forgot why his hands had shaken the first time he called action. He forgot his father secretly selling a watch to buy him a camera. Then he lost the question twelve-year-old Xu Zhou had asked after performing in the university hall. Only the shape of the child's lips remained: Director, can I…? “Stop!” Lin Xia saw blood at Gu Yan's ear. “One shot left.” Mechanical Compilation seized the hundred watermarks. To Gu Yan, they were projectors stealing electricity. He did not destroy them. He changed their function from EXTRACT ATTENTION to DISPLAY CREATIVE SOURCE.