Chapter Five: Give the Talent Back

When the takeover timer began at fifty-nine minutes, ordinary passengers started pounding on the cabin doors. Some insisted the city was a mass hallucination. Others filmed the windows, only to find normal night sky on their phones. The crew shut down the network, but Cloud Capital remained on every dark screen. Lin Xia stood in the aisle. “Sit down! The aircraft is structurally sound. The captain still has control.” Her disposable glove was gone, and there was no mark beneath it. The candidate map had identified 12F, but 12F was a crew jump seat, not Lin’s permanent position. Someone had hidden behind her seat. Before Lu could investigate, the gong sounded. 【Market Level Three opened early: Talent.】