Chapter One: The Ring That Crushed an Elevator

Officials called it an anomalous mass event and advised citizens to avoid possessions that had suddenly gained weight. Experts blamed gravitational waves. Online, people found a harsher pattern. A husband confessed an affair and his sports car rose from the road. An accountant surrendered and a forklift could lift his company safe again. A child admitted breaking a vase, and his schoolbag lost only a few ounces. By noon, a sentence written at an evacuation center had spread across the city: The bigger the lie, the heavier the thing. Lin sat on the rear step of an ambulance while a medic splinted his arms. Xu Cheng finished a call outside the cordon.