Act One: Transparency in the Dark
There was no time deep in the tunnel.
Only darkness—thick, impenetrable darkness—and the faint, cold glow of a screen, like a firefly flickering in the void.
Pei Yuyan curled up in a corner, his back pressed against the cold, damp concrete wall. The chill seeped into his spine, but he felt nothing—or rather, all human sensations were fading away. First his body temperature, then pain, now touch.
His left hand began to turn transparent from the fingertips upward, like a drop of ink slowly dissolving in clear water.
He stared at his hand.
Veins, bones, textures remained beneath the skin, but through a frosted glass-like barrier—the contours blurred, the substance seeming unreal. When his fingertips brushed the wall, there was no “hard” feedback, only emptiness, as if touching air. He tried to make a fist; the movement of closing his fingers was stiff, sluggish, like rusty joints.
The stabilizer in his right hand displayed a number, jumping with each heartbeat:
Stability: 15.7%
15.6%
15.5%
Every 0.1% drop pushed the transparent boundary one inch further up. Now it had crossed his wrist and was climbing his forearm.
Pei Yuyan closed his eyes.
It wasn’t fear—an observer’s emotional threshold was very high; fear was a low-dimensional experience that had to be simulated deliberately. What he felt now was more like… calculation. Calmly computing how long the anchor could hold, how far Jiang Mian had advanced, how much of the twenty-four-hour countdown given by Rong Xubai remained.
Then he heard footsteps.
Not the usual drip of water, wind, or the scuttling of rats in the tunnel. Human footsteps—clear, steady, approaching from afar, echoing faintly in the hollow tunnel.
He opened his eyes.
A flashlight beam cut through the darkness, swinging closer and closer. The light was blinding, and he couldn’t make out the face, only a blurred silhouette, running fast, breath amplified, choked with suppression.
“Pei Yuyan!”
It was Jiang Mian’s voice.
The light finally fell on the corner, illuminating his curled-up form and his left hand, slowly turning transparent.
Jiang Mian stopped abruptly, three meters away.
The flashlight trembled slightly on his arm.
She saw his pale face, the faint golden scar on his chest dim like ashes about to die, the bright numbers on the stabilizer screen clenched in his right hand:
Stability: 14.3%
But the most striking was his left hand.
From fingertips to wrist, it was almost completely transparent. Skin, nails, joints—all seemed to have melted into the air, leaving only a blurry, watery outline. Light passed through it; she could see the wall behind his palm.
“Your hand…” Jiang Mian’s voice trembled.
Pei Yuyan gave a faint twitch of his mouth, a curve that wasn’t a smile:
“It’s okay. Still holding… for now.”
He tried to lift the hand to show her he could still move it, but it only quivered weakly, failing to rise.
Jiang Mian rushed to the corner and knelt. She tossed the flashlight aside; its beam slanted across the wall, illuminating a small patch of mottled concrete. She reached with both trembling, warm hands and grasped his transparent left hand.
The sensation was strange.
Holding it felt like not holding it. She could feel the contours of his palm but not the texture of skin—like holding a shapely mass of warm water. She looked down; her fingers seemed to sink into his hand. The unreal sensation made her chest tighten.
“Why… is this happening…” Her tears fell onto their joined hands.
They passed through his transparent palm, dripping onto the ground.
Pei Yuyan looked at her, his deep gray eyes like dusted stars in the darkness:
“The anchor is loosening. My forced attachment to this world is failing. Transparency is only the surface; the essence is… my existence is being rejected by this dimension.”
He spoke calmly, as if stating an objective fact.
Jiang Mian’s tears flowed even more fiercely.
She remembered Rong Xubai’s words—“like erasing pencil marks with a rubber; not a trace will remain.”
“No,” she gritted her teeth, holding his hand tighter, as if she could keep him this way. “I’ve already activated all the evidence. The Shen family’s money laundering network is exposed. Gu Changfeng is implicated. The police are arresting Shen family members citywide… Twenty-four hours—no, only twenty-two left. I will…”
“Jiang Mian.” Pei Yuyan interrupted her.
His voice was light, yet it instantly quieted her.
“Look at me.”
She lifted her tear-blurred eyes to meet his gaze.
“You don’t need to do anything for me,” he said, a strange warmth in his voice. “From the day I chose to intervene in your world, this was my choice. All consequences… are mine to bear.”
“No!” Jiang Mian shook her head, tears flying. “You didn’t ‘intervene’—you saved me! Without you, I’d be dead already, long gone—”
“If I weren’t here,” Pei Yuyan said quietly, “you might never have been pushed to that point by the Shen family. The observer’s existence itself disturbs the world line. How much of your suffering, your struggle, your despair—is amplified by my ‘observation’?”
Jiang Mian froze.
She had never considered it from this angle.
“The butterfly effect,” Pei Yuyan said, looking into the endless darkness of the tunnel. “Minor interference in the high-dimensional world can trigger a tsunami in the low-dimensional one. I’ve always calculated the risks, but… emotions interfere with calculations.”
He turned back to her.
“So, if I truly vanish from this world, don’t feel indebted. Don’t feel regret. It’s merely… the cost an observer pays for their own choice.”
Her lips trembled.
She wanted to say “No, it’s not like that,” wanted to say “You’ve saved me so many times,” wanted to say “I’d rather never have met you than have you disappear”—but all words lodged in her throat, turning into even more flooding tears.
She could only bow her head, resting her forehead on their joined hands, her shoulders trembling violently.
The tunnel fell silent.
Only her suppressed sobs and the faint electronic beeps of the stabilizer screen:
Stability: 13.1%
13.0%
12.9%
Pei Yuyan lifted his right hand, the only one still moving, and gently placed it on her trembling back. He felt the ridges of her spine, the warmth beneath her thin clothes, the vigorous pulse of living, breathing life.
In that moment, he suddenly understood why Rong Xubai had set up this test.
Not to verify whether Jiang Mian was worth it.
But to verify himself—whether an observer truly understood the weight of “existence.”
“Jiang Mian,” he called softly.
She lifted her head, tear-streaked, eyes swollen red.
“If…” he paused, voice even softer, “if the final moment comes, and the anchor collapses, and I vanish from this world… you must promise me something.”
She shook her head frantically, refusing to listen.
He continued:
“Do not try to find me. Do not attempt to ‘remember’ me in any way. Just treat me as a long dream in your life. When the dream ends, move forward.”
His fingers brushed against her wet cheek:
“Take the first path. Let Rong Xubai erase your memory, and then… live well.”
Jiang Mian’s tears stopped.
She looked at him. Her gaze shifted—from collapsing sorrow to a hardened, almost cold resolve.
“No.” Her voice was hoarse but clear.
Pei Yuyan frowned. “Jiang Mian—”
“I won’t choose,” she interrupted him, word by word. “I choose the third path. Twenty-four hours, completely end the Shen family, secure the Eye-Opening Project records, and preserve your anchor.”
She stood, towering above him:
“So what you need to do now isn’t to leave last words. It’s to hold on—wait for me to return.”
Pei Yuyan froze.
He looked at her standing in the flashlight’s glow, back straight, chin slightly raised. Tear-streaked as her face was, her eyes shone frighteningly bright, like a blade tempered in fire.
At that moment, she resembled the Jiang Mian he had first seen in the consciousness space years ago—in the bright spotlight, eyes void of fear, only near-cold calculation.
Some things, he realized, never change.
Suddenly, he smiled.
Not a gentle, restrained smile, but a real one, tinged with bitterness yet free:
“Alright,” he said. “I’ll wait for you.”
Jiang Mian bent to pick up the flashlight, the beam illuminating the tunnel again. She cast him one last glance, her eyes falling on his transparent hand. Her Adam’s apple moved slightly, but she said nothing.
She turned and walked in the direction she had come from.
Her footsteps echoed, growing fainter.
Pei Yuyan leaned against the wall, listening as her footsteps faded into the tunnel’s darkness. Then he lifted his gaze toward the shadow above the tunnel:
“Show’s over—come out now.”
Act Two: The Observer’s Sigh
From the shadow above, a pale golden glow rippled like water.
Rong Xubai “emerged” from the void, his feet touching down silently. He still wore the dark gray trench coat; his eyes behind the gold-rimmed glasses glimmered faintly in the dark.
He walked to Pei Yuyan, looking down at the stabilizer screen:
Stability: 11.2%
“Dropping faster than expected,” Rong Xubai said calmly. “Her emotional fluctuation is affecting your anchor significantly.”
Pei Yuyan didn’t look at him, gaze still fixed on the direction Jiang Mian had left:
“The images you showed her… choice one, choice two. Too cruel.”
“This is necessary test pressure,” Rong Xubai crouched opposite him, meeting his gaze. “Observer-00 wanted to know, between ‘completely forgetting you’ and ‘losing you forever,’ which path she would take.”
“Now you know,” Pei Yuyan finally turned his head to him. “She chose the third path. The hardest, most unlikely path.”
Rong Xubai was silent for a few seconds.
From deep in the tunnel came the distant drip of water—tap, tap, tap—like a ticking second hand.
“You knew from the start, this wasn’t a real monitoring procedure, right?” Rong Xubai asked.
Pei Yuyan nodded lightly:
“From the first time you appeared before her, singing ‘Morning Mist and Anchor.’ That line in the lyrics, ‘The observer glimpsed eternity across billions of light screens’—I wrote that poem three hundred years ago in the high-dimensional observation station. Only one other person knows besides me.”
He paused:
“My mentor, Observer-00, Director of the Dimensional Monitoring Bureau.”
Rong Xubai removed his glasses.
The gesture instantly softened the inhuman, observer-like aura around him. He rubbed his brow, then looked up, eyes now complex—full of resignation, relief, and a trace of guilt.
“So you were acting with me,” he said. “Pretending you were about to collapse, pretending the anchor was failing, only to… give her maximum pressure, see how much potential she could unleash.”
Pei Yuyan did not deny it.
He lowered his gaze to his transparent left hand. The hand’s outline was now fuzzy, like a mist about to vanish.
“Not entirely acting,” he said. “The anchor is indeed loosening. Forcibly staying in the low-dimensional world is against the rules. Transparency is real, the stability drop is real. But…”
“Just not to the breaking point,” Rong Xubai interjected. “Observer-00 granted you the highest-permission ‘dimensional descent’ application. Once you pass the final test, you can permanently remain in this world, becoming a real human—living, aging, dying.”
Pei Yuyan smiled, weary:
“The cost is giving up all high-dimensional privileges, eternal life, the perspective of overseeing billions of worlds.”
“Is it worth it?” Rong Xubai asked softly.
Pei Yuyan didn’t answer immediately.
He lifted his right hand, still functional, and traced a line in the air—habitual, an observer’s gesture. Nothing happened. No data streams, no light screens, only the tunnel’s damp air flowing through his fingers.
He once could see the river of time in one glance, walk along the paths of stars, construct entire universes in his mind.
Now, lifting a hand drained all his strength.
“You know,” he said softly, “in the high-dimensional world, time isn’t linear. Past, present, future—spread out like a map. We can go to any point to observe.”
“But you can only see, not touch,” Rong Xubai said. “Observers cannot interfere, cannot alter, only record. Eternal boredom.”
Pei Yuyan nodded:
“Until one day, I arrived at her time point.”
He closed his eyes, recalling:
“I saw her tilt her face toward the bright light, eyes void of fear, only near-cold calculation. In that moment I thought—if all points on this map are destined for tragedy, at least this one, I want to try shifting it slightly.”
“Then you broke the rules,” Rong Xubai said. “First violation, second violation… thirty-seventh violation.”
“Every violation,” Pei Yuyan opened his eyes, deep gray irises gleaming in the dark, “I felt… more real. Not the lofty, detached reality of an observer, but the realness of living, feeling pain, laughing, worrying.”
He paused:
“This realness… is worth everything.”
Rong Xubai studied him for a long time.
Then he sighed, putting his glasses back on. The observer’s aura returned, but something else lingered in his eyes.
“Jiang Mian’s final evaluation report is out,” he said. “Willpower: SSS. Logical reasoning: SS. Emotional purity: SSS. Overall: Exceptional.”
Pei Yuyan’s breath caught.
“And your report…” Rong Xubai paused, “…observation professionalism: S (reduced due to emotional interference), rule compliance: F (violated thirty-seven times), emotional investment: SSS.”
He lifted his head and looked at Pei Yuyan:
“Overall rating: Unqualified (as an observer). But Observer-00 added a note at the end of the report—”
He reached out and tapped in the air.
Pale golden text appeared in the darkness, each character seeming carved from light:
[Recommended Action: Approve dimensional descent request. Allow permanent residence in this dimension as an ordinary lifeform, to live together with the sample Jiang Mian. Observer-01, henceforth, permanently decommissioned.]
Pei Yuyan stared at the line of text, motionless.
The tunnel was silent enough to hear his own heartbeat—heavy, slow, belonging to a body of flesh and blood.
“So…” His voice was hoarse. “The test… passed?”
“The first stage passed,” Rong Xubai waved, and the golden text faded. “She chose the most difficult path. You are willing to give up everything for her. This already proves the ‘purity’ and ‘strength’ of your mutual bond.”
“But the second stage hasn’t started,” Pei Yuyan said.
Rong Xubai nodded:
“The twenty-four-hour countdown, the deep-sea prison, Shen Huaishan’s Eye-Opening Project records, and… possible hidden counterattacks from the Shen family. This is the final real-world test.”
He stood and looked down at Pei Yuyan leaning against the wall:
“I can temporarily stabilize your anchor, letting you last until the end of the test. But the cost is—her twenty-four hours must be shortened to twelve.”
Pei Yuyan’s head shot up. “What?”
“Conservation of energy,” Rong Xubai said calmly. “The more I intervene, the harder the test becomes. Originally, she needed twenty-four hours to end the Shen family. Now—she must obtain the original record from Shen Huaishan before noon.”
He glanced at the stabilizer screen:
Stability: 8.3%
“This is the limit I can maintain. 8.3% stability will keep you alive for twelve hours. After twelve hours, if she hasn’t returned with the record…”
He left the sentence unfinished.
But on the tunnel wall, a new countdown appeared:
11:59:59
11:59:58
Blood-red numbers, like a wound bleeding in the darkness.
Pei Yuyan closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
When he opened them again, he nodded:
“Alright.”
“You agree?” Rong Xubai asked, somewhat surprised.
“I trust her,” Pei Yuyan said, his voice soft but filled with undeniable conviction. “Twelve hours is enough for her to do anything.”
Rong Xubai studied him deeply.
Then he raised his hand. A warm golden light formed in his palm. The glow floated toward Pei Yuyan’s chest, seeping into the faint scar there.
The scar brightened for a moment, then dimmed again—but now with a faint glimmer.
The stabilizer screen stopped dropping.
Stability: 8.3%
Frozen at that number, no longer changing.
Pei Yuyan felt that the floating sensation of being rejected by the world had eased slightly. His transparent left hand was still translucent, but the dissipation had paused.
“Thank you,” he said.
Rong Xubai shook his head:
“No need to thank me. This was Observer-00’s order, and… a bit of my own personal bias.”
He turned to leave, then paused and looked back:
“By the way, there’s something you should know.”
“What?”
“Shen Huaishan in the deep-sea prison isn’t holding the Eye-Opening Project record key,” Rong Xubai said. “It’s a miniature signal transmitter. He’s calling for help.”
Pei Yuyan’s eyes instantly grew cold. “Who’s he calling?”
“Unknown for now,” Rong Xubai said. “Most likely the remnants of the ‘Red Scorpion,’ or… some hidden Shen family forces.”
He paused:
“So Jiang Mian going to the deep-sea prison isn’t just a negotiation. It could also be… a prison break and counterattack.”
With that, his figure gradually faded, melting into the darkness.
The tunnel fell silent again.
Only the blood-red countdown on the wall ticked:
11:45:22
11:45:21
Pei Yuyan leaned against the wall, staring at the numbers.
He remembered Jiang Mian leaving with a straight back, her eyes shining frighteningly as she said, “Wait for me.”
Then he smiled.
A light, almost inaudible smile in the vast, empty tunnel:
“Go, Jiang Mian,” he said into the darkness. “Let me see… what miracle you can create.”
Act Three: The Warmth of Parting
At the tunnel entrance, Jiang Mian met Rong Xubai returning.
The sky had brightened. Morning light slanted into the tunnel, casting a glaring streak on the ground. Rong Xubai stood at the boundary of light and shadow, half his face in sunlight, half in darkness.
“He’s going to die, isn’t he?” Jiang Mian asked, her voice eerily calm.
Rong Xubai looked at her swollen eyes, her tightly pressed lips, at her fingers clutching the phone so hard that her knuckles were white.
“Stability 8.3%,” he said. “I’ve stabilized him temporarily, but only for twelve hours.”
Jiang Mian’s pupils contracted slightly.
“What happens after twelve hours?” she asked.
Rong Xubai didn’t answer directly. Instead, he said:
“You now have two options. One: stay here with him for the final twelve hours. Two: go to the deep-sea prison and obtain the Eye-Opening Project record before noon—that’s the only thing that could reverse anchor collapse.”
Jiang Mian hesitated barely at all.
“How far is the deep-sea prison?”
“Three hours and forty minutes by helicopter,” Rong Xubai said. “I’ve arranged a plane. Fu Chenyu and Zhou Jian are already on it waiting for you. They used Gu Changfeng’s political resources to get special visitation permission, but it’s only for thirty minutes.”
He paused.
“Also, Shen Huaishan demands to see you alone. No recording devices, no third party allowed.”
Jiang Mian nodded. “Understood.”
She turned to leave, but Rong Xubai called after her:
“Jiang Mian.”
She stopped, but didn’t look back.
“There’s something you need to know,” Rong Xubai’s voice came from behind her. “What Shen Huaishan is holding may not be the record key. Our prison intel shows it’s a signal transmitter.”
Jiang Mian’s shoulders stiffened.
“He’s calling for help,” Rong Xubai said. “So what you’re walking into may not just be a prisoner. It could… be a trap.”
Jiang Mian was silent for about five seconds.
Then she turned to look at Rong Xubai:
“Will you protect Pei Yuyan?”
The question came suddenly.
Rong Xubai was momentarily stunned, then slowly nodded:
“Within my authority, I will.”
“That’s enough,” Jiang Mian said. “As for the trap…”
She lifted her head. The morning light lit her profile. Her face still bore tear stains, but her eyes were like steel tempered in fire.
“In the past twenty-odd days, have I not already walked through enough traps?”
Rong Xubai watched her for a long, long time.
Then he smiled—not the inhuman smile of an observer, but a real smile, filled with complex emotions:
“Go,” he said. “The plane is waiting.”
Jiang Mian cast a last glance toward the depths of the tunnel.
It was pitch black; nothing could be seen. But she knew Pei Yuyan was there, in the darkness, teetering at the edge of 8.3% stability, waiting for her.
She turned and strode toward the morning light outside the tunnel.
The sunlight was blinding. She squinted but did not slow her pace.
Her phone vibrated—a message from Fu Chenyu: “The plane is ready. Zhou Jian has accessed Shen Huaishan’s latest surveillance. He’s on his fourth day of hunger strike, in bad condition, but his gaze is fierce. Are you sure you want to meet him alone?”
Jiang Mian typed back: “Yes.”
Sent.
Then she opened her contacts and found the number saved as “Pei”—Pei Yuyan’s emergency contact. She knew he might not even have the strength to pick up now.
She hesitated for a few seconds, then dialed.
The phone rang for a long time.
Just when she thought no one would answer, a voice came through—not Pei Yuyan’s, but Rong Xubai’s.
“He’s resting,” Rong Xubai said. “Stability is temporarily maintained, but he’s very weak. What’s the matter?”
Jiang Mian gripped her phone:
“Let him hear me. Even if it’s just for a second.”
There was silence for a moment.
Then she heard faint, nearly imperceptible breathing.
“Pei Yuyan,” she said into the phone, her voice low, as if afraid to disturb anything. “I’m going to the deep-sea prison. Before twelve o’clock, I will bring back the record.”
No response came from the other side.
Only the faint breathing, proof that he was still alive.
“So you have to hold on,” Jiang Mian continued, tears welling again, but she held them back. “Wait for me. This is an order.”
Then she heard a very light, almost hallucinatory laugh.
And then Pei Yuyan’s voice, weak, drifting from far away:
“Alright…”
Just one word.
But it was enough.
Jiang Mian hung up and clenched the phone tightly in her hand, her fingertips white from pressing.
Outside the tunnel, the helicopter had already started. The rotor wind whipped her hair. Fu Chenyu waved at her from the door, Zhou Jian was performing final checks in the cockpit.
She cast one last glance at the tunnel.
In the sunlight, the tunnel entrance looked like a black mouth, swallowing all the light.
And swallowing the person she loved.
But she knew she had to go in—not into darkness, but into an even more brutal battlefield, and take the light back.
“Wait for me,” she said to the darkness.
Then she turned and ran toward the helicopter.
The cabin door closed. The helicopter rose, flying toward the East Sea.
On the ground, Rong Xubai stepped out of the tunnel, looking up as the helicopter became a tiny black dot in the sky.
He took off his glasses, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
“Observer-00,” he said to the air, “the second stage of the test begins.”
A voice came through the air that only he could hear, calm and undisturbed—the voice from the higher-dimensional world:
“Record: Sample Jiang Mian has entered the final real-world test stage. Countdown: 11 hours 38 minutes. Observer Pei Yuyan stability: 8.3%.”
“Begin assessment: Can love truly create miracles?”
Rong Xubai put on his glasses again and turned back into the tunnel depths.
Inside, Pei Yuyan leaned against the wall, eyes closed, seemingly asleep. But the stabilizer screen stubbornly remained at:
8.3%
Like a tiny, fragile hope.