The Highest Authority, Locked Out

Lin's authority was frozen. Structured Diagnostics was not. Knowledge Oracle had awarded him had become his own. Most shutters at the market were dusty and closed. At the registered address, a sign read YUESHAN WATCHES. A gray-haired man behind the counter was dismantling a mechanical watch with tweezers. “Computers are upstairs,” he said without looking up. “I'm here to repair eight seconds.” The tweezers stopped. Tang Yue looked first at Lin, then at two black cars parked too neatly outside. “Did StarArc send you?” “StarArc just suspended me.” “Then you especially shouldn't be here. Three years ago, someone else thought highest authority could change the company. The audit vanished, and they wrote me off as unstable.”