Chapter Five: The Twelve-Division Business

With every success the light grew brighter; the lives cut away in its shadow became harder to see. Gu did not collect the fourth negative or interfere with the next three. He merely left traces: a black umbrella in one frame of Lu's operation; 1927 newsprint bleeding through Xu's formulas; an ageless man in the last row of Yan's press conference. Lin Wan arranged scans of all seven pledges by silver-grain pattern. Two-thirds of the old street formed on screen. Beneath the clock tower, people aimed an enormous camera at the sky. Gu Yao stood apart with her hands over her ears. The soundtracks appeared empty. Slowed twelve times, they carried a deep countdown. Twelve. Eleven. Ten.