Chapter Three: The Price of Attention

The fifth revealed the room number. The ninth showed Starbridge's internal rough cut playing on the hotel television. The fourteenth caught Gu Wei in the mirrored wall, handing a drive to Aurora's agent. The eighteenth showed Kron standing behind Gu. Each export hollowed Chen out. By version twenty, Tang asked his name again. Zhixia took a marker and wrote CHEN MO across his white shirt. “Anyone forgets, they look here,” she said. Before exporting version twenty-three, Chen hid a change known only to him: one white frame inside the final second of black, bearing the hotel room number. The client rejected it. Tomorrow's coda showed police escorting Gu from that room. The online crisis stopped climbing. Crown's takeover failed.