Act One: Solidified Amber
3:07 a.m. Jiang Mian felt suffocated in her sleep.
Not the kind of suffocation from a hand on her throat—this was the feeling of the entire room turning into amber.
She snapped her eyes open, pupils constricting sharply in the darkness. Everything in her vision slowed to an unnerving crawl: the red digits on the bedside electronic clock stretching from “03:06” to “03:07” over ten long seconds; the rustle of leaves outside dragged into a prolonged, distorted hum; even the thought of lifting her hand, traveling from brain to fingertip, moved as if through viscous syrup.
No, it wasn’t slow.
It was frozen.
She saw her eyelashes trembling at the edges of her vision—each flutter weighed like a thousand pounds, leaving faint golden afterimages in the air. The touch of the blanket on her body felt both immediate and distant, as if separated by thick frosted glass. She tried to turn her head; the muscles in her neck tensed and quivered, yet only a fraction of movement came.
And then she saw it.
In the center of the room, the air seemed torn open by invisible fingers.
Not a crack, more like an oil painting gently kneaded from the middle, the pigments flowing and mixing to reveal a deeper darkness behind the canvas. A hand emerged from that darkness—long, articulated fingers, skin pale to the point of illness in the dim light.
Then, the whole person followed.
He “walked” out of the darkness as if through an invisible curtain of water, his body untouched by moisture.
It was Rong Xubai.
But not the Rong Xubai Jiang Mian remembered.
He stood in the center of the room, the hem of his dark gray trench coat fluttering faintly—the residual ripple from crossing the dimensional barrier. His eyes behind gold-rimmed glasses glimmered faintly with a golden light—not reflection, but something glowing from deep within his pupils. He didn’t look at Jiang Mian first; he scanned the room, inspecting each piece of furniture as if evaluating a freshly completed artwork.
Then, finally, he looked at Jiang Mian, frozen in bed.
“Good evening,” he said, voice gentle and steady, with the calm reassurance of a psychologist, “I hope I didn’t startle you.”
Jiang Mian’s lips tried to move, but no sound came out. Only her eyes could barely shift, fixed on him.
Rong Xubai let out a soft sigh and approached the bed. His footsteps were so light that the wooden floor made no creak. He sat in the chair by the bed—a chair that had been at the desk, now silently relocated.
“I know you have many questions right now,” he leaned slightly forward, hands clasped on his knees, posture relaxed as if in a late-night counseling session. “The first question is usually—why is it you?”
Jiang Mian’s eyelashes trembled.
“The second question—who exactly am I?” Rong Xubai continued, a faint smile at the corner of his lips. “The third question—what do you want to do?”
He paused for three seconds, waiting for her eyes to confirm.
Then he smiled. Not the usual gentle, controlled smile, but one more complex and difficult to read—like an artist observing a work nearly finished, or a scientist watching a sample respond as expected.
“Let’s go in order,” he said. “First, I am indeed Rong Xubai. Your appointed psychologist, head of the music therapy project, and just last month, author of a paper on PTSD—all of that is true.”
Moonlight shifted at that moment, slanting through the blinds to cast a chiaroscuro across his face—half in light, refined and gentle; half in shadow, deep and inscrutable.
“But at the same time,” he pushed his glasses slightly, golden gleam reflecting, “I am also a Seventh-Sequence special agent of the Dimensional Surveillance Bureau, codename ‘Night Watcher.’ I observe and assess the impact of ‘script-external variables’ on world-line stability.”
Jiang Mian’s breath struggled in the frozen air.
“As for what I want to do…” Rong Xubai walked to the window. He did not open the blinds, merely peered through the gap at the sleeping city. “I’m here to give you a choice.”
He turned, back to the sparse city lights, his silhouette outlined in faint light.
“Or rather, a chance for both of you.”
Act Two: Three Dawns
Rong Xubai did not summon flashy effects, nor light screens, nor data streams.
He simply lifted his right hand, index finger pointing lightly in the air.
From his fingertip, three images rippled through the air like water—less like holograms, more as if the air itself became a canvas, pigments oozing from nothingness, forming, solidifying.
The first image: a sunlit afternoon.
Jiang Mian saw “herself” seated on a sofa in a counseling room, wearing a cream knit sweater, holding a cup of tea. Outside, ginkgo trees at Binhai University shimmered gold. Rong Xubai sat across, gently taking notes. “She” spoke with a relaxed, relieved smile. The scene widened to show the door plaque—“Dr. Rong Xubai.” Further out, the bustling streets of Binhai City; she walked out of a mall with shopping bags, a simple ring on her ring finger. Years later, in court, Shen Huaishan was escorted by bailiffs, and she calmly applauded in the audience. No Pei Yuyan. The entire scene was warm, bright, orderly.
“This is Choice One,” Rong Xubai said, his voice calm as a documentary narrator. “I would modify all relevant memories. The Shen family’s crimes would be exposed ‘reasonably’—perhaps internal reporting, perhaps accounting errors. You remain a hero, recognized and compensated. You meet a suitable partner, marry, have children, and live a peaceful, fulfilling life. The name Pei Yuyan, and all he did for you, would never have existed.”
His finger swept lightly—the first image dissipated like smoke.
The second image emerged: a hospital corridor at night.
Jiang Mian saw herself leaning against the ICU wall, slowly sliding to the floor. Head bowed, long hair obscuring her face, shoulders trembling violently. Through the glass window, a person lay inside—tubes everywhere, vital signs weakly pulsing. Pei Yuyan. The scene shifted: she alone at her parents’ grave, holding a court verdict; alone in her empty apartment, standing by the door long moments after turning on the light; facing reporters’ questions, responding calmly, only subtle wrinkles and occasional blank stares betraying fatigue. The last frame froze on her fortieth birthday at dawn, sitting in her study, staring at a computer screen with an encrypted file titled “Unsolved Mysteries.”
“This is Choice Two,” Rong Xubai said. “All memories remain, all truths intact. Pei Yuyan would be forcibly ‘extracted’—you can think of it as a high-dimensional recall program. He disappears from this world, moving to a dimension you should never access again. You retain complete memory, but with an unfillable void, continuing life alone. Victory—but a lonely one.”
The second image shattered like broken glass.
The third image did not immediately appear.
The room fell silent for a few seconds, only Jiang Mian’s heavy, strained breathing breaking the stillness.
Then, darkness began to spread from the four corners of the room. Not the darkness of night, but something thicker, heavier—like ink dropped into clear water—slowly and inevitably swallowing all light.
Just before the darkness completely engulfed the room, a spot of blood-red light appeared in the center.
It was a countdown:
23:59:59
The numbers began ticking down.
23:59:58
23:59:57
Beneath the countdown, the scene gradually became clear—it was the underground tunnel. Pei Yuyan was curled up in a corner, his face as pale as paper. Below his left forearm, his skin appeared unnaturally translucent, like a faded old photograph. His right hand gripped a black device resembling an old pager, its screen displaying another continuously falling number: Stability 31.2%.
Every 0.1% drop made the translucent portion of his arm expand further.
“This is Choice Three,” Rong Xubai’s voice now emotionless, stated. “I’m giving you twenty-four hours. Use only the methods allowed by this world—no unconventional dimensional powers—to completely end the Shen family. Obtain the original experimental record of the ‘Eye-Opening Plan’ from Shen Huaishan. That document alone is enough to pin half a century of crimes on the Shen family.”
He walked to the bed, looking down at Jiang Mian. Faint golden light shimmered in his eyes, a godlike presence eclipsing human gentleness.
“At the same time, during these twenty-four hours, you must ensure Pei Yuyan’s ‘anchor’ does not collapse. He is currently using his last strength to maintain his existence in this world. But every time you face a crisis, a surge of strong emotion, or an increase in pressure from the Shen family, his anchor loosens bit by bit.”
Rong Xubai reached out and lightly touched Jiang Mian’s brow.
A cold sensation seeped in—not pain, but a clear “cognition.” Instantly, she understood anchor points, stability, dimensional rejection, as if these concepts had always been in her memory.
“When stability reaches zero, the anchor collapses,” he said softly, each word sharp as a blade. “He will be ‘erased’ from this world. Not death—but the very disappearance of existence. Like using an eraser to wipe pencil marks, leaving no trace.”
The countdown continued silently in the dark:
23:52:18
23:52:17
Finally, Jiang Mian’s tears broke free from the frozen restraint, streaming down her face in lines rather than drops, scorching hot as they fell onto the pillow with faint “plop” sounds in the silence.
She opened her mouth, squeezing out a hoarse, barely audible sound:
“Ch…choice three…for…why…”
Rong Xubai straightened, putting back on his calm, gentle mask—but Jiang Mian could now see that beneath the mask, his gaze remained inhumanly composed.
“Because it needs to be tested,” he said. “To see what an observer can do for a low-dimensional world variable. And to see whether a variable deserves to be treated this way.”
He walked to the center of the room, looking back at Jiang Mian one last time.
“Twenty-four hours, Jiang Mian. Let me see what your so-called ‘feelings’ can create as a miracle.”
The moment he finished speaking, the room’s sense of frozen time vanished.
Jiang Mian shot upright in bed, gasping as if a drowning person had finally surfaced. She looked around—the room was still the same, the bed, desk, and wardrobe untouched. The electronic clock read 03:21, moonlight still streaming through the blinds.
It was as if everything had been a nightmare.
But when she raised her hand to her brow, her fingertips touched a faint, slowly fading mark—cool to the touch.
At the edge of her vision, the blood-red countdown still hovered:
23:48:33
23:48:32
It was real.
Act Three: The Time Capsule in Morning Light
Jiang Mian sat by the bed for a full ten minutes.
During this time, she did nothing but watch the sky slowly shift from deep black to dark blue, the city skyline emerging in the first light of dawn. Her breathing steadied from rapid to calm, her fingers shaking less.
Then she rose and walked to her desk, opening the bottom drawer.
Inside was a black metal briefcase—the one Pei Yuyan had given her three days ago, saying, “Open it only if a crisis cannot be resolved.” The case had no lock, only a simple clasp.
She pressed the clasp.
As the lid popped open, a faint blue light seeped through the gap. Not electronic, but more like residual phosphorescent energy.
The case had three layers.
The first layer neatly contained seven USB drives, each labeled with handwritten dates from 2018 to 2024. Beside them was a thin notebook, with Pei Yuyan’s handwriting on the first page: “Time Capsule. Fragments salvaged from history; you know how to use them.”
The second layer contained documents. Not copies, but originals—paper yellowed with age, ink uneven in depth, some edges scorched or water-stained. On the top document, the cover bore a shocking red stamp: “Top Secret · Eye-Opening Plan Experimental Record.”
The third layer held only two items: a silver key of unusual design, and a Polaroid photograph.
In the photo were a young Jiang Mingyuan and Song Yun, standing at the lab’s entrance, holding certificates and smiling shyly. On the back, her father had written: “Today the project passed its phased evaluation. Xiao Mian, I promise that when this research ends, I will take you and your mother to the seaside.”
Jiang Mian’s fingers lingered on her parents’ faces in the photo—for a long, long time.
Then she closed the case and carried it to the living room.
Outside, the sky had brightened enough to see the early buses on the streets. The blood-red countdown still hovered at the corner of her vision:
23:12:07
23:12:06
She placed the case on the coffee table, opened her laptop, and inserted the first USB drive—labeled 2018.
The file’s loading bar crept forward slowly. While waiting, she went to the kitchen to boil water. Leaning against the counter, she watched the morning light inch across the floor, laying a thin golden blanket over it.
In that moment, she suddenly remembered something Pei Yuyan had said in the consciousness space:
“High-dimensional observers don’t see time as a linear river, but as an unfolded map. Past, present, and future exist simultaneously; we can go to any point to see it—but we cannot stay, we cannot alter it, we can only observe.”
“Then why can you help me?” she had asked.
The light-formed figure remained silent for a long moment.
“Because one day I came to your point in time,” he said, “and saw you under the spotlight, your face tilted up, your eyes free of fear, filled only with a… near-cold calculation. At that moment, I thought, if every point on this map is destined for tragedy, at least this one point—I want to try to shift it just a little.”
The kettle whistled sharply, interrupting her memory.
Jiang Mian made herself a strong cup of tea and returned to the living room. On the laptop screen, the file had finally opened.
It was the complete money-laundering network of the Shen family in 2018.
Not speculation, not inference—an entire chain of evidence: bank statements, shell company registration documents, offshore account opening records, and every node of fund movement. Times precise to the minute, amounts precise to the second decimal, even scanned signatures of the handlers clearly visible.
She scrolled through, page by page.
2019: The first secret meeting between the Shen family and Gu Changfeng, with transcription and voiceprint analysis.
2020: Original whistleblower materials of Shen Yanxin’s academic fraud, and the entire process later suppressed.
2021: Internal emails where Shen Huaishan ordered early experimental records destroyed.
2022…
2023…
Finally, the last USB was labeled “Endgame Rehearsal.”
It contained only one video file. Jiang Mian clicked it.
The image showed Pei Yuyan—or rather, his light-formed consciousness figure—against a flowing starry data backdrop.
“If you’re watching this video,” his voice was calm as ever, “it means Rong Xubai has already come to you, and you did not choose the first two paths. Good.”
The light points formed into a humanoid shape and made a motion resembling sitting down.
“The items in the case are fragments I ‘extracted’ from the timeline over the past few years. You can think of them as specimens of key moments in the past, preserved in the present. Using them does not violate the Observatory’s rules, because these are all historical facts that truly occurred—just… they were meant to be forgotten or destroyed.”
He paused.
“But you must understand, once you activate these ‘nuclear weapons,’ there’s no turning back. The Shen family will retaliate at all costs, because they will realize that someone holds evidence capable of preventing them from ever rising again.”
The light points extended a hand, as if trying to touch the viewer.
“Jiang Mian, I have never regretted intervening in your world. But if I could, I would hope you choose the first path—forget me, and live a peaceful, happy life. That is the safest choice.”
The light began to flicker, like a poor television signal.
“But if you insist on taking the third path…”
“Then remember:”
“You are not fighting alone.”
“The past I give you is a weapon.”
“And your own will is the hand that wields the sword.”
The video ended.
Jiang Mian closed the window, leaning back on the sofa with her eyes shut.
Morning sunlight filled half the living room, steam rising from her cup of tea, the aroma drifting slowly in the light. It was a calm, ordinary morning—if not for the blood-red countdown lingering at the edge of her vision, she might have thought the past twenty days were a dream.
She opened her eyes and checked her mailbox.
She opened a new email.
In the recipient field, she typed three addresses: the public mailbox of the President of the Supreme People’s Court, the national supervision commission’s whistleblowing hotline, and… all the major news outlets in Binhai City.
The subject line read:
“Whistleblower Report: Complete Evidence Chain of the Shen Group’s Illegal Activities, 1967–2025.”
The body contained only one line:
“All original evidence in the attachments has been uploaded to a cloud server and will be automatically made public after 24 hours. Below is a preview of key content.”
She began uploading the files.
The first attachment: volunteer death records from the 1967 “Eye-Opening Plan” human experiments.
The second: accident reports from the illegal brain experiments overseen by Shen Huaishan in 1990.
The third: the original investigation record of Song Yun’s 2006 “car accident,” including evidence of tampering.
The fourth: the original fire report of Jiang Mingyuan’s laboratory fire in 2011.
The fifth, sixth, seventh…
When the last file finished uploading, her finger hovered over the Send button.
Outside, the city was fully awake. Morning traffic roared in the distance, a milkman parked his tricycle below, and the neighbor’s child was crying, refusing to go to kindergarten.
This was a living, noisy, ordinary morning.
Jiang Mian looked at the short line of text on the screen and whispered:
“Dad, Mom.”
“And Pei Yuyan.”
“Let’s… begin.”
Her finger pressed.
“Sent successfully.”
The moment the notification popped up, a faint line of golden text appeared next to the blood-red countdown:
[Points Settled: Historical Evidence Chain Fully Exposed, Severely Weakening the Shen Family’s Foundations]
[Points +12,000]
[Current Points: 85,800]
Almost simultaneously—
Her phone started vibrating like crazy.
Not calls, but a deluge of news push notifications. One, two, ten, twenty… her screen was flooded with alerts, each headline more shocking than the last:
[BREAKING! Half-Century-Old “Eye-Opening Plan” Human Experiment Records Finally Exposed!]
[Shen Group Suspected of Major Economic Crimes; Offshore Money Laundering Routes Fully Public!]
[Twist! Original Evidence of Jiang Mian’s Parents’ Death Case Released, Raising Many Questions!]
[Exclusive: Complete Evidence Chain of Shen Yanxin’s Academic Fraud and Contracted Assault!]
Jiang Mian closed her phone and picked up the now lukewarm tea. She took a sip.
Bitter, but with a lingering sweetness.
She walked to the window and opened the blinds. Morning sunlight poured in without obstruction, bathing her in warm gold. On the street below, reporters ran with cameras, and several police cars, lights flashing, were heading toward the Shen family estate.
The chaos had begun.
The blood-red countdown was still glaring in the sunlight:
22:41:19
22:41:18
Jiang Mian glanced at the numbers, then toward the Shen estate in the distance, and said softly:
“Twenty-four hours.”
“Enough.”
She turned back to the living room, opened the second layer of files, and began preparing for the next round.
The war had only just begun.