CHAPTER 178 — SHE WHO REMEMBERS
The riot node was contained.
Not erased.
Not sealed.
Balanced.
Long Hao stood at the center of the fractured capital square as emergency forces moved civilians away from the epicenter. The black-white distortion hovered faintly above cracked pavement, stabilized into a restrained vortex instead of a catastrophe.
The golden lattice across the sky shimmered faintly.
Six.
Still six.
But thinner.
Closer.
Ling Yifan watched the dispersing crowd carefully.
"They're filming you again."
Long Hao didn't respond.
He was listening.
Not to the crowd.
Not to the sky.
To the silence between pulses.
The fragment inside him was alert.
Not agitated.
Expectant.
Then—
The air shifted.
No golden threads descended.
No spatial rift tore open.
No distortion warped the ground.
She simply stepped out of shadow.
As if she had always been standing behind him.
Zehell.
Calm.
Unarmed.
Her presence did not trigger the node.
Did not escalate the sky.
