Yin Lie understood the moment he made the choice.
Not when he stepped forward.
Not when the pain surged.
But when the resonance answered him.
It did not push back.
It accepted.
And that was worse.
The Feedback Has No Place to Go
The city's instability had reached a dangerous equilibrium.
Qin Mian's Anchor continued to pulse—too wide, too strong—sending feedback through layers of the system that had never been designed to receive it. The foundation held, but every adjustment sent ripples upward, cracking timing, logic, and space itself.
Something had to absorb it.
The city couldn't.
The foundation wouldn't.
So Yin Lie did.
He Steps Into the Wrong Current
He moved past the last warning threshold.
Kai shouted his name, but the sound felt distant, muffled, like it was coming through water. His vision narrowed, edges blurring as the drift inside him surged in alarm.
This was not an opening.
This was overlap.
Yin Lie didn't try to block the feedback. He didn't try to redirect it cleanly. There was no time, no structure left for elegance.
He opened himself.
Completely.
The Moment of Contact
The resonance slammed into him like a tidal force.
Not heat.
Not cold.
Pressure.
His bones screamed as if they were being compressed from every direction at once. Ice crawled up his limbs instinctively, not as an attack, but as a brace—locking joints, reinforcing fractures that hadn't happened yet.
His heartbeat stuttered.
Then slowed.
The drift howled in panic, trying to tear free, but Yin Lie forced it down, wrapping it around the incoming feedback like bare hands around a live wire.
Pain exploded behind his eyes.
He screamed.
The City Registers a New Error
Across multiple sectors, alerts spiked simultaneously.
ANOMALOUS LOAD TRANSFER DETECTED
SOURCE: UNKNOWN HOST
WARNING: NON-ANCHOR CARRIER
Analysts froze.
"That's not possible," someone whispered.
"Only Anchors can—"
The data didn't care.
The feedback curve bent sharply—away from Qin Mian.
And straight into Yin Lie.
Qin Mian Feels Him Take It
Qin Mian gasped as the pressure crushing her chest suddenly lifted.
Not gone.
Redirected.
Her Anchor shrieked in confusion as the load shifted, tearing away from her nervous system.
"…Lie?" she whispered.
The resonance answered instantly.
Too loud.
Too close.
Her eyes widened in horror.
"No—!" she screamed. "Stop—don't—!"
She tried to pull it back.
It wouldn't come.
What the Feedback Does to Him
Yin Lie's body began to fail in layers.
First the muscles—locking, spasming violently as signals misfired.
Then the nerves—burning, then going numb in patches that spread unpredictably.
Then something deeper.
Structural.
He felt it in his spine.
A grinding sensation, like stress fractures forming and freezing in place at the same time. Ice surged automatically, fusing damaged sections together—but that only trapped the damage inside.
Blood filled his mouth.
He tasted metal.
His vision fractured into double images that refused to align.
But he didn't let go.
Permanent Is Not a Word the Body Understands—Until It Does
The drift screamed warnings he ignored.
He forced the feedback to circulate through himself, using sheer will to keep it moving instead of letting it tear straight through.
Every second hurt worse than the last.
Something inside him gave.
Not a bone.
Not an organ.
A limit.
He felt it snap—clean, final.
From that moment on, the feedback stopped escalating.
Because his body could no longer register it properly.
The City Falls Silent
For a brief, impossible moment—
the city stabilized.
Erasure grids paused.
Containment fields recalibrated.
Timing errors smoothed out.
Not because the problem was solved.
Because someone else was paying for it.
The Director stared at the data, her expression unreadable.
"…He took it," she said quietly.
An aide swallowed. "Director… that load—no human body—"
"I know," she replied.
Qin Mian Reaches Him Too Late
Qin Mian dragged herself across the chamber floor, ignoring the pain in her side, her hands slick with blood.
She reached him just as his knees gave out.
Yin Lie collapsed forward, caught only because she was there.
His body was burning hot and ice-cold at the same time, skin mottled with frost patterns that no longer faded.
"Why?" she sobbed, clutching him.
"Why would you do that?"
His breath was shallow.
Uneven.
But he smiled.
Weakly.
"So you wouldn't," he whispered.
The Cost Reveals Itself
His left hand didn't respond when she tried to squeeze it.
She shook it.
Nothing.
"Lie?" she whispered, panic rising.
His eyes fluttered.
"…Can't feel it," he admitted. "Might be… more than that."
She pressed her forehead to his chest, shaking.
"I didn't ask you to," she cried.
"I didn't want this."
He coughed softly.
"I know."
The Director Names the Damage
The Director turned away from the screen.
"Log the change," she said.
STATUS UPDATE:
SUBJECT: YIN LIE
CONDITION: IRREVERSIBLE FEEDBACK INTEGRATION
COMBAT CAPACITY: DEGRADED
RECOVERY PROBABILITY: ZERO
No one spoke.
End of the Chapter
The city breathed again—uneasily.
Qin Mian knelt on the floor, holding a man who had taken something that would never be returned.
Yin Lie lay half-conscious, his body altered at a level no healing could reach.
The feedback was gone from her.
It lived in him now.
And everyone in that city—system, Director, and foundation alike—understood the same terrifying truth:
He had saved her.
But he had broken himself to do it.
And the cost would follow him
for the rest of his life.