The fall did not feel like falling.
It felt like being unwritten.
1. Qin Mian Lands in a World That Isn't Finished
Qin Mian hit the ground hard.
Pain exploded through her shoulder, sharp enough to rip a scream out of her throat. She rolled instinctively, coughing, hands scraping against something rough and cold.
Stone.
Real stone.
For a heartbeat, relief flooded her.
Then she looked up.
The sky was wrong.
Not dark.
Not bright.
Incomplete.
Large sections of it simply… weren't there. Gaps hung overhead like missing files, edges jagged and flickering. Light leaked through some of them, but it didn't behave like sunlight. It bent, paused, then resumed as if waiting for permission.
Qin Mian's chest tightened.
"…This place is broken," she whispered.
2. Silence Without Comfort
She pushed herself upright, ignoring the pain.
"Lie?" she called.
Her voice traveled too far.
It echoed once—then twice—then came back warped, stretched, arriving later than it should have.
No answer.
No boundary.
No pressure of protection.
Just empty space pressing back.
The Anchor inside her pulsed wildly, reaching—
and finding nothing to latch onto.
Her knees buckled.
"No," she whispered.
"No, no, no…"
3. The Anchor Loses Its Frame
The Anchor had always oriented itself around something.
Around Yin Lie.
Around threat.
Around consequence.
Now—
there was no reference point.
The sensation was nauseating. Like trying to balance without gravity, or think without language.
Pain flared sharply behind her eyes.
She gasped, clutching her head.
"…Stop," she begged it.
"I'm still here."
The Anchor pulsed back—confused, fragmented.
Not hostile.
Lost.
4. Memories Drift Instead of Anchoring
Time slipped.
Or maybe it didn't.
Qin Mian couldn't tell.
Images floated into her mind without order:
Yin Lie's hand tightening around hers.
The sound of ice cracking inside his chest.
The way he said "stay" like it cost him something irreplaceable.
She clung to those memories desperately.
But they felt lighter here.
Like they could drift away if she let go.
That terrified her more than the city ever had.
5. Something Watches From the Gaps
She felt it then.
Not a presence.
An absence with attention.
One of the gaps in the sky shifted slightly, its edges crawling like static.
Qin Mian froze.
"Who's there?" she demanded, voice shaking.
The gap did not answer.
But she felt pressure—not on her body, but on her concept. Like something was examining the shape of her existence, checking if she belonged.
The Anchor reacted violently.
Pain tore through her chest, dropping her to her knees.
"…Don't," she gasped.
"I didn't choose this."
6. Elsewhere — Yin Lie Is Not Safe
Yin Lie did not land.
He stopped.
Abruptly.
One moment tearing through distortion—
the next, suspended in a narrow band of space that refused to finish forming around him.
His body hung at an impossible angle, ice locking him in place, blood frozen mid-drip.
His eyes were half-open now.
Unfocused.
"…Qin… Mian…"
The name scraped out of him, barely sound.
The space around him reacted.
Not kindly.
Pressure surged inward, crushing, testing.
Yin Lie convulsed.
His boundary tried to form—
and failed.
"…Rejected," he whispered.
7. The City Does Not Follow
There was no city here.
No systems.
No guidance.
No correction.
Whatever space this was—it was outside the domain of optimization.
That was worse.
Because nothing was stopping reality from doing whatever it wanted.
Yin Lie's breathing turned ragged.
Ice cracked violently across his ribs, no longer protective—just structural damage.
"…Must… reach…" he muttered.
The space shuddered.
8. Qin Mian Makes Herself Loud
Back in the broken world, Qin Mian forced herself to stand.
Pain screamed through her body.
She ignored it.
"I'm still here!" she shouted into the empty sky.
"I didn't disappear!"
Her voice shook the gaps.
Not physically.
Conceptually.
The Anchor flared—raw, unstable, human.
The pressure eased slightly.
The gaps hesitated.
Something recalculated.
9. The First Sign of Connection
Qin Mian staggered forward, hand pressed to her chest.
"…Lie," she whispered.
For a brief moment—
she felt it.
Not him.
But the direction where he should be.
Like a tug at the edge of perception.
Her heart slammed painfully.
"You're not gone," she breathed.
The Anchor pulsed once.
Confirming.
Weakly.
10. Two Worlds, One Fracture
Yin Lie screamed.
Not in pain.
In effort.
Ice shattered outward violently, ripping through the unfinished space.
"…Stay… with… me…"
The words tore through layers that weren't supposed to carry sound.
Something cracked.
Not enough.
But enough.
Qin Mian gasped sharply, dropping to her knees.
Her Anchor screamed in resonance.
"I heard you," she sobbed.
"I heard you."
End of the Chapter
They were separated.
By broken space.
By incompatible rules.
By a world that no longer agreed on how existence should work.
But they were not erased.
Not yet.
Something had noticed them.
Something old.
Something unfinished.
Something that did not belong to the city.
And whatever came next
would not be governed
by optimization,
by mercy,
or by control—
but by choice made inside broken worlds.