Chapter One: The Silent Meteor Shower

“That's a wall.” “Maps disagrees.” He struck the fourteenth-floor exterior. The wall parted like cold water and spilled him into a corridor that had never appeared on any building plan. Green tiles from the 1990s covered the floor. Every door bore a negative number. Behind him, the wall hardened again, sealing out the man in gray. “Where are we?” 【Somewhere Maps omitted. Every redevelopment, renumbering, and renamed street leaves a seam that reality cannot align. I can open those seams now.】 An old man sat at the far end. He wore a security guard's uniform and held a red thermos against his chest, as if he had been waiting for years. When he saw Cheng Ye, he waved frantically. “Stay back. It's looking for living people.”