Chapter Three: The White Platform

“Zhou is lying?” “Every word was true. He omitted the price.” The bell rang again. White lines reached Chen's shoulders. Lin ran to her, but his hand passed through her body like ice water. He could not hold her because she could not see him. The attention anchor. He opened the cached video of her son's sports day and turned the volume to maximum. Through the crowd, the boy shouted, “Mom, look at me!” Chen turned. Her gaze crossed both worlds and landed precisely on Lin's face. He seized her hand. The platform tilted. Mist rose in waves. Hundreds of screens played his search history, the videos he watched during sleepless nights, the termination notice Qiongjing had published.