After Shen Xingyao said those words, the air in the laboratory congealed for 0.7 seconds.
I didn't calculate it—Gu Yan reported it through the communicator. He said 0.7 seconds is the standard time for human nerves to transmit signals from the cochlea to the cerebral cortex after hearing earth-shattering words, triggering adrenaline secretion.
"Scarlet wants me to love you for her."
She repeated it, each word like a scalpel carving the concept of "love" from flesh and placing it on the lab bench for both of us to examine.
The word "love" in the Rift Zone Administration's terminology database is classified as a "high-contamination vocabulary," listed alongside "hope," "release," and "resurrection"—key terms monitored by the psychological evaluation department. Hearing it from Shen Xingyao's mouth, in such a calm tone, was more terrifying than her hitting me with a folder.
"Captain Shen, you..." I retreated a step, back against the lab bench. "You're serious?"
"I'm not joking." She raised her wrist. The silver pattern writhed under her skin like a living snake. "This 0.3% War Authority is rewriting my underlying logic. It's changing 'mission' to 'desire,' 'protection' to 'possession,' 'teammates' lives' to 'Lin Jin's story.'"
"I can help..."
"You can't." She cut me off. "Only Scarlet can retract it—or—"
She didn't finish, but her eyes said it all. Or she fully becomes Scarlet, or she dies.
Gu Yan's voice came through the communicator: "Captain Shen, your sync rate rose to 19.5%. War Authority is accelerating erosion. You must return to Medical immediately for inhibitor injection."
"Inhibitors are ineffective against Authority contamination." Shen Xingyao said. "They're for Rift Zone erosion. Scarlet's contamination is conceptual."
"Then what do we do?"
"Let her continue." She said. "Let her keep writing stories in my mind until I learn her writing style, then write back."
"Write back?"
"Yes." She looked at me. "Lin Jin, teach me how to write rules. I'll teach you how to kill."
"Kill?"
"Kill Scarlet." She said. "Not kill her person, but kill her concept. Turn her from 'War Authority holder' to 'War Authority's failure.'"
The moment she finished, the silver pattern on her wrist erupted in golden light, like hot iron wire. She grunted, dropping to one knee, hand bracing against the lab bench, knuckles white.
"She... is listening." Shen Xingyao panted. "She can hear us through me."
"Then just now..."
"Just now I said it deliberately for her to hear." She raised her head. Her pupils were half silver-white, half gold—like the sun and moon sharing the sky. "I wanted to test if she would get angry."
"Is she angry?"
"Angry." She smiled, silver-white blood trickling from her mouth's corner. "Furious enough to die."
The blood droplets hit the lab bench, not spreading but congealing into a line of text:
[Shen Xingyao, you're courting death]
It was Scarlet's handwriting, but not golden this time—blood-red, like scratched out with fingernails.
"She's impatient." Shen Xingyao wiped the blood with her thumb. "An impatient Authority holder will personally enter the field."
"Personally?"
"Yes." She said. "Her main body will appear in this laboratory within twenty-four hours."
"Why?"
"Because twenty-four hours is the maximum time limit for Authority resonance." White Gloves' voice came through the communicator. "Exceeding that, she'll be reverse-contaminated by Captain Shen's Spatial Authority. She doesn't want to become Shen Xingyao, so she must eliminate Shen Xingyao within twenty-four hours."
"Eliminate meaning?"
"Kill, or take." Shen Xingyao said. "Kill me, War Authority becomes complete. Take me, Spatial Authority becomes hers."
"What about Lin Jin?"
"Lin Jin?" She glanced at me. "He's a bonus."
"Bonus?"
"Correct." She said. "The story Scarlet wants needs a male lead. If I die, you become the male lead. If I live, you become the..."
She paused, searching for a word:
"Wager."
---
01:00, the laboratory.
Shen Xingyao didn't leave. She locked herself inside, saying she needed twenty-four hours to refine Scarlet's 0.3% War Authority into her own "conceptual weapon."
"How to refine?" I asked.
"Like forging steel." She said. "High heat, hammering, quenching, then shaping."
"Where does the high heat come from?"
"From Scarlet's anger." She said. "The angrier she gets, the more active the Authority, the easier to forge."
"Then the hammering?"
"Use your HB Pencil." She extended her hand. "Write her story, make her angry."
"What to write?"
"Write her failures." She said. "Write how at sixteen during Scarlet Christmas, she didn't actually kill forty-one people—only forty. One played dead and escaped."
"Is there really such a person?"
"There is." She said. "That person was Chen Lan."
I froze.
"Chen Lan was a trainee at an Administration intelligence station back then. When Scarlet launched Scarlet Christmas, she played dead among the corpses and survived. Since then, she knows Scarlet's Authority frequency like the back of her hand, which is why she can be the Skills Class instructor, specifically screening for Scarlet's puppets."
"Then why doesn't she take revenge?"
"She can't." Shen Xingyao said. "Scarlet's War Authority grants 'survivors' immunity. As long as Chen Lan doesn't think about revenge, Scarlet can't kill her. The moment she does, immunity is lost."
"So she's been enduring all this time?"
"Yes." She said. "Enduring for three years, waiting for someone who can rewrite rules to appear."
"Me?"
"You." She said. "Your Narrative Authority can bypass immunity and directly rewrite Scarlet's 'survivor list.'"
"How to rewrite?"
"Change Chen Lan's name from 'survivor' to 'avenger.'" She said. "This way, Scarlet must kill Chen Lan first within twenty-four hours, before killing me."
"Isn't Chen Lan in great danger then?"
"She's always been in great danger." Shen Xingyao said. "But she's worth it."
---
02:00, Chen Lan's dorm.
She wasn't asleep—she was packing.
"Leaving?"
"Leaving." She said. "Scarlet knows about me now. If I don't leave, I'll implicate the students."
"Captain Shen said you can take revenge."
"I can." She didn't turn around. "But the price is too high."
"What price?"
"Having you write a story." She said. "Write how I personally kill Scarlet, how I take revenge, how I become the new War Authority holder."
"Then what?"
"Then your story becomes reality, and I become the second Scarlet." She said. "This is the curse of Narrative Authority—the more you write, the more you become who you write."
"So you won't let me write?"
"No." She turned, handing me a photograph. "Write, but look at this first."
The photo showed two girls, sixteen years old. One in a red cloak, one in black training gear, standing side by side in Rift Zone ruins, smiling like sisters.
"That's Scarlet three years ago, and me three years ago." She said. "We were once teammates."
"Teammates?"
"Yes." She said. "In the slums, we awakened together, joined the Original Sect together, killed together, fled together."
"What happened later..."
"Later, I discovered she went mad." She said. "She treated killing as art, war as aesthetics, companions as consumables."
"So I fled, escaped to the Administration, played the survivor, living in humiliation."
She pointed at the red-cloaked girl in the photo: "She wasn't like this back then. She could smile, cry, protect me, say 'Sister Lan, don't be afraid, I'm here.'"
"Did Erosion make her this way?"
"No." She said. "Power did. War Authority chose her when she was fourteen. She couldn't bear it."
"So you want me to..."
"Write her, not her evil, but her goodness." She said. "Write the moment she protected me, the moment she smiled, the moment before she went mad."
"Can this save her?"
"It can't." She said. "But it can kill her. Kill the evil in her heart, leave the goodness."
"What's the use of goodness?"
"None." She said. "But it will crack her Authority."
She put the photo away: "When the story is done, give it to Captain Shen. She'll know how to use it."
---
03:00, the laboratory.
Shen Xingyao's refinement reached its critical stage.
She soaked herself in a glass tank filled with silver liquid, only her head exposed, hair floating on the surface like seaweed.
"What is this?" I asked.
"The 'amniotic fluid' of Spatial Authority." She said. "I'm regressing to pre-awakening, treating Scarlet's 0.3% War Authority as an impurity to expel."
"Will it work?"
"It will." She said. "But it needs your story as a catalyst."
"What story?"
"The one Chen Lan gave you." She said. "Write about Scarlet's goodness."
I handed over the finished story. Silver-white characters filled the page, describing how at fourteen, Scarlet protected Chen Lan, was surrounded and beaten by three adults, didn't fight back, just used War Authority to shred their "malice."
Shen Xingyao finished reading, said nothing, tore the page, and threw it into the amniotic fluid.
The paper dissolved. The silver liquid began boiling like water.
"Chen Lan was wrong." She said. "Scarlet's goodness isn't a flaw—it's bait."
"Bait?"
"Yes." She said. "She deliberately made Chen Lan remember her goodness, so Chen Lan wouldn't strike to kill."
"Then where is the real flaw?"
"In loneliness." She said. "In Chen Lan's story, after Scarlet protected her, she sat alone in the ruins, crying for three hours."
"During those three hours, no one saw."
"Correct." She said. "A War Authority holder cannot cry. Cry, and the Authority cracks."
She extended her hand. A mirror materialized in her palm, reflecting Scarlet's face—the sixteen-year-old face, crying.
"This is her weakness." Shen Xingyao said. "She wants the whole world to cry with her, but the world only wants to see her smile."
"So?"
"So, we make her smile." She said. "The madder she smiles, the faster she cracks."
She climbed out of the tank, drenched, but her eyes blazed.
"Lin Jin, answer question 53 like this—"
She wrote in the air:
[War Authority's weakness: The holder wants to be loved]
---
04:00, Old campus rooftop.
All seventeen of us stood there—seventeen students, seventeen conceptual soldiers, seventeen "me's."
Scarlet's characters filled the sky:
[Question 53, answered correctly]
[But question 54 is harder]
[Please write Shen Xingyao's weakness]
Shen Xingyao walked forward, standing at the rooftop's edge. The wind whipped her hair.
"My weakness is my teammates." She said. "Every single one."
"You answered wrong." Scarlet's characters said.
"I didn't." She said. "You asked for a weakness. I gave you an answer."
"Your answer is suicide."
"Then let it be suicide." She smiled. "B-07 Squad specializes in suicide charges."
She opened her hand. The seventeenth mark rose from her palm, becoming a silver-white sun.
"Scarlet, watch closely." She said. "This is my weakness, and my strength."
The sun detonated, its light swallowing the rooftop.
All seventeen students opened their eyes simultaneously. Their pupils were no longer golden, but silver.
[Question 54, answered correctly]
[Plus ten points]
[But question 55 is a death sentence]
[Please write Scarlet's weakness]
Shen Xingyao looked back at me: "Lin Jin, your turn."
I raised my HB Pencil and wrote on the blackboard:
[Scarlet's weakness: She wants to be Shen Xingyao]
The moment the characters glowed, the sky split open.
Scarlet's face materialized—the sixteen-year-old face, twisted, furious, but with tears at the corners.
"You're courting death!"
"Right." I said. "I'm courting death, and I'm looking for you."
"Looking for me?"
"Looking for the fourteen-year-old girl inside you." I said. "The one who still cries, still smiles, still protected Chen Lan—that Scarlet."
The sky fell silent.
Then, it rained.
Golden rain, like blood.
[Exam concluded]
[You passed]
[But graduation is far away]
[25 days until Gaokao]
Scarlet's characters appeared one last time, then vanished.
Shen Xingyao collapsed into my arms. Her sync rate dropped to 17%, but the gold in her eyes had completely faded.
"She's gone." She whispered. "For now."
"And after 25 days?"
"After 25 days." She said. "She'll return, bringing true war."
"Bringing her, and my, and our—"
She didn't finish, losing consciousness.
But I knew what she wanted to say.
Bringing her "love," my "story," and our "death."