Chapter Three: The Observers Are Watching

Su Mi took Lin Yan to the places the city could not see. An abandoned metro line ran beneath the award hall. She used the eye-engraved coin to unlock a maintenance gate, then followed the flooded track north. Lin Yan should have called the police or gone to find his mother. But every time Su Mi spoke, the infinite recursion turned in his vision. He hated an unsolved problem more than he feared danger. “The competition was a filter,” Su Mi said. “The cheating was real, and you exposing it was real. But the altered problem, the live camera, Gu Tingzhi approaching you—those were arranged to see how many layers of deception you could parse.” “Arranged by whom?” “The Observatory.”