Chapter Two: Selling Moonlight to Strangers

One person seriously asked whether the moonlight remained when they were sad. "Light runs fast," Gu Ye answered, looking at A-Li, "but someone who remembers it can keep it." At sixty-eight bottles, dawn paled the east. Then a clip titled MILLIONAIRE STREAMER EXPLOITS WORKERS went viral. Reports poured in. The platform cut his feed. His screen went black. A-Li's left hand vanished. "The stream needs witnesses," Tang Ke realized. "If nobody watches, she gets deleted." Gu Ye ran into a nearby mall. It was closed, but a wall of demonstration televisions still played advertisements. He found an open casting connection and sent his stream to every screen. A guard shouted at him. "I need a few minutes!" Gu Ye said. "Turn it off!"