The address of the old campus's abandoned laboratory was labeled in Changzheng High's archives as "Biohazard Disposal Room, Sealed 1998."
In reality, it was one of the Administration's earliest Rift Zone observation points, designation S-01. Later, after a Level-B Rift Zone went berserk, the entire area was contaminated by rules, becoming a space that "could not be recorded." Any instruments that entered filmed only static; anyone who entered forgot why they'd gone in upon exiting.
But Image Master chose to conduct his transaction here because "unrecordable" meant "unaccountable to the Administration."
At precisely 15:00, I wore my school uniform and carried my backpack containing Derivative Training Set 15 workbook and a fake pencil. The pencil was wrapped in cloth strips—given by Shen Xingyao, embroidered with the silvery seventeenth mark, like an inconspicuous scratch.
"After entering, don't speak." Shen Xingyao's voice came through the earpiece, "Let Image Master speak first. Whatever he wants, give it to him—but before giving, write it down on paper with the pencil."
"Write it down?"
"Yes." She said, "Every character you write will activate the seventeenth mark once. He'll think it's rule fluctuation, but I'm actually locking onto his real body's coordinates."
"What if he won't let me write?"
"Then force him to let you write." Her voice carried rare emotion, "Say it's your teacher's requirement—homework must be handwritten, or it doesn't count."
"Teacher?"
"Yes." She said, "Your chemistry teacher, Teacher Zhang. He took leave this afternoon specifically to meet you there."
My steps faltered.
"He's here?" My voice tightened slightly.
"He's here." Gu Yan interjected, "Detected his sync rate fluctuation—12.7%, Level-2 adaptoid level. He's not Image Master, he's Image Master's puppet."
"Then the real Image Master is..."
"In deeper." Shen Xingyao said, "Scarlet didn't let him show his face."
Scarlet.
That name stabbed into my ear like a thorn.
---
The abandoned laboratory's door was iron, rust-covered, with a skull painted in red on it. I pushed it open, hinges screeching like a baby's cry.
Inside wasn't a laboratory—it was a bookstore.
"Forgotten Bookstore," four characters hung on the wall, the handwriting identical to the one I'd cleared three months ago. The owner was still that old man, sitting behind the counter, wearing reading glasses, flipping through a book titled Five Years of College Entrance Exams, Three Years of Simulation.
"Here?" He didn't look up, "Brought your homework?"
"Brought it." I walked over, placed the workbook on the counter.
He opened it. The first page held my handwriting—three solutions, silvery-white light flowing beneath the paper's surface.
"Handwriting has improved." He said, "But two are wrong."
"Which two?"
"The last two." He adjusted his glasses, "What you wrote weren't answers, they were rules."
I didn't speak, my hand reaching into my backpack to touch the fake pencil.
"Brought the pencil too?" He finally looked up, his eyes golden like two melted Rift Zone cores, "Let me see."
I handed over the pencil.
He took it, fingers stroking the cracks: "It's real, silvery-white light, the scent of 40% sync rate."
He brought it close to sniff, like tasting wine: "Mm, also Shen Xingyao's mark, the seventeenth, hidden deep enough."
My heart lurched.
"Don't be afraid." He smiled, "I know it's fake."
He snapped the pencil in two. The break showed no light, only wood pulp.
"The real pencil has blood in its cracks." He said, "Your blood. The fake only has rules."
He tossed it casually into the trash can, the sound crisp and clear.
"Though, fakes have their advantages." He snapped his fingers, "At least Shen Xingyao can locate me."
He looked toward the ceiling where silver light points appeared—the seventeenth mark, like stars.
"Pity, she located wrong." He said, "This isn't a mirror labyrinth, it's a war labyrinth."
The bookstore began changing.
Walls turned red like congealed blood. Bookshelves became weapon racks filled with broken blades and ruined swords. The ceiling inverted into a battlefield, corpses floating in pools of blood.
"Scarlet says you're interesting." He—no, she, the voice changed to a girl's voice, sweet but iced-over, "She wants to see if your pencil can write war."
"Scarlet?" I stepped back, "You're not Image Master?"
"I'm Scarlet's pen." She said, "She wrote me out specifically to collect your homework."
She removed the old man mask, revealing a young face, sixteen years old, red cloak, golden pupils.
"Codename: Imitation." She said, "Authorities: Narrative & Mirror Dual-type. Ability: act out the stories Scarlet writes."
She extended her hand, a book appearing in her palm, cover blood-red:
Death of B-07 Squad
"The script is written." She said, "But the ending is blank, waiting for you to fill."
---
15:17, Administration Command Center.
"Location failed." Gu Yan's tablet screamed alarms, "Seventeenth mark landed on an empty coordinate, nothing there."
"Impossible." Shen Xingyao's pupils contracted to needlepoints, "The mark landed on his heart, unless..."
"Unless the heart is fake." White Gloves said, "Image Master long ago wrote his own existence as 'false.'"
"What about Lin Jin?"
"He's in the war labyrinth." Gu Yan pulled up the old district's historical archives, "S-01 observation point, sealed in 1998 because... it was contaminated by War Authority."
"Scarlet?" Shen Xingyao's voice wavered for the first time, "She wasn't born in 1998."
"Not Scarlet." White Gloves said, "It's Erosion. Scarlet's adoptive father, Original Sect leader. He buried his War Authority fragment there."
"So the labyrinth is..."
"Erosion's eye." He said, "He's watching Lin Jin through Imitation."
---
15:23, inside the labyrinth.
Imitation threw the script at me: "Fill it. Once filled, they can live."
I flipped it open. First page:
[Chapter One: Tang Lan's Shield Shatters]
[Reason: To protect Zhou Fang, she tanked a causality weapon head-on]
[Result: Shield shattered, person not dead, but lost the root of existence]
I gripped the script, hands trembling.
"This isn't real." I said.
"It soon will be." Imitation smiled, "Now your teammates are rushing here. Shen Xingyao will use spatial sovereignty to forcibly break the labyrinth, but the instant she breaks through, War Authority will counter-devour, turning her sovereignty into my home ground."
"How do you know?"
"Because I'm the one who wrote the script." She said, "And you can only perform it."
She snapped her fingers. The labyrinth walls became transparent like glass.
I saw outside—B-07 Squad was rushing over.
Shen Xingyao at the forefront, spatial marks falling like meteors. Tang Lan on the left, oscillating blade ready to strike. Zhou Fang on the right, jammer at overload. Gu Yan in the center, tablet smoking.
They couldn't see me, nor Imitation.
"Begin." Imitation said, "Write it down, or watch them die."
I lowered my head, looking at the script, the pencil burning in my palm.
The back of the first page was blank, waiting for me to fill in the ending.
I wrote three words:
[I refuse]
Silvery-white letters, like blades.
Imitation froze: "Refuse?"
"Right." I said, "Your script is garbage."
I tore the script apart. Pages shattered into light points like snow.
"Scarlet didn't teach you that stories can't be torn?" She laughed, "Tear them, and they become real."
"Then let them become real." I said, "Once real, they're no longer stories."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean." I wrote in the air with my pencil, "The ending I fill is—"
[B-07 Squad never entered the labyrinth]
The moment the words lit, the entire labyrinth began collapsing.
Imitation screamed: "Impossible! How can you rewrite War Authority's rules!"
"Because I'm not rewriting war." I said, "I'm rewriting the concept of 'entering.'"
"Even the strongest War Authority can only strike existing things. If we never existed, who do you strike?"
Imitation's face began shattering like a mirror.
"Scarlet will kill you!" she shrieked.
"Let her come." I said, "My homework isn't finished, just waiting for the teacher to grade it."
---
15:31, outside the labyrinth.
B-07 Squad saw the labyrinth suddenly vanish. I stood in the empty space, holding half a torn script.
"Lin Jin!" Shen Xingyao teleported before me, "Are you okay?"
"Fine." I said, "But I tore Scarlet's script."
Her expression changed: "Tore it?"
"Mm." I handed her the remaining half, "She said tearing makes it real."
Gu Yan took it, tablet scanning, model running frantically.
"Not becoming real." He said, "It's 'materialization.' Scarlet wrote the script as rules. Tearing it releases the rules."
"What happens then?"
"Creates a 'possibility.'" He said, "In this possibility, we indeed didn't enter the labyrinth. So those thirty seconds didn't exist for us."
"What about Imitation?"
"Gone." He said, "She was the script's guardian. No script, no meaning."
"And Scarlet?"
"Didn't appear." Shen Xingyao said, "But the seventeenth mark locked onto a coordinate."
She opened her hand—the silver light point in her palm pointed to the deepest part of the old campus—
There, a chemistry laboratory door sealed with a notice:
[Sealed 1998, Entry Prohibited]
"That's Erosion's War Authority fragment." White Gloves said, "Scarlet uses it as a base to write scripts."
"Can we enter?"
"No." Shen Xingyao said, "Entering means entering Scarlet's domain."
"Then what do we do?"
"Wait." She said, "Wait until she finishes the final chapter, then she'll open the door."
"What's the final chapter?"
She looked at me, her gaze complicated:
"Your Gaokao."