The evacuation jet struggled through the storm belt, like an iron bird battered by invisible giant hands. After a brief stretch of stability, the tremors of the fuselage gradually subsided, leaving only the deep drone of the engines—like a suffocating "silence."
The cabin lights were dim. Every face appeared pale, worn down by exhaustion and fear. Medical kits were strewn across the aisle, their green indicator lights reflecting off bloodstains and gauze. The air was saturated with the mingled stench of disinfectant and ozone.
Su Xiaolan leaned against the cold window, her breath fogging the glass with each exhale. Her hand still clutched the crumpled bag of chips, and within her chest she could faintly sense the beat of a second heart—sometimes strong, sometimes faint—overlapping with her own rhythm. The aftereffects of the "resonance" left her utterly drained, yet her spirit refused to collapse completely.
Li Chenyuan stood close by, never leaving her side, his presence radiating an aura that repelled all approach. Across from them, Lu Xingze meticulously cleaned his weapon, his eyes sharp and cold as they occasionally flicked toward her, weighing her worth against the risks. Between the two men, the confined metal shell of the plane felt like the collision point of two storms.
Wang Jing hunched over the portable terminal, his eyes bloodshot, fingers flying across the keyboard as though compelled, chasing every fragmented clue.
"The chip's core still won't open," his voice was dry and hoarse, "but the metadata repeats one line—witness verification required."
Li Chenyuan's voice was cold. "Which witness?"
"…The Fifth Witness. P.D."
The name fell like a sheet of polar frost, freezing the cabin into silence.
Wang Jing cut into global satellite signals. Fragmented images jittered across the screen:
London: every screen in the trading hall collapsed to zero, brokers screaming in despair as riots surged outside the glass walls.Tokyo: subway stations sealed shut, tens of thousands trapped, their phones flashing the abyssal-blue Ψ symbol in unison.Washington: an emergency press conference at the Pentagon, three reconnaissance satellites lost simultaneously, the only data returned a strange, low-frequency whale song. Hours earlier, it had nearly triggered a false nuclear alert, almost plunging the world into mass panic.
Ψ was forcibly "aligning" global infrastructure. This was no longer isolated failure—it was synchronization on a planetary scale.
"Anchor alignment progress: twenty-three percent," Wang Jing's voice trembled. "At this pace, not in days but within hours…the entire world will be reset."
Silence was broken by Lu Xingze."Which is why we must head for Greenland. Station Zero. Only there is the decoder that can unlock the chip—and rewrite the situation."
"No." Li Chenyuan's voice was ironclad. "That's Gu Yu's trap. She—" his hand tightened on Su Xiaolan's shoulder, "—will not step into another cage."
"She is the key," Lu Xingze's eyes cut like blades. "The chaotic Anchor. Without her, we change nothing."
"Rewrite?" Li Chenyuan gave a sharp laugh, his voice dripping with disdain. "Or deliver her to your labs for dissection?"
The cabin's atmosphere turned combustible, gunpowder-thick. Hands moved subtly toward weapons.
"Enough!"
Su Xiaolan's voice was hoarse but sharp, cutting through the pressure. She lifted her head, her swollen eyes burning with stubborn light."You treat me as leverage, as a weapon, as a risk…but I am also human. The right to choose isn't yours—it's mine."
The cabin fell silent as a grave.
The next moment, her vision wavered, consciousness dragged into shattered memory fragments.
A pair of cold yet compassionate female eyes appeared. She stood at the end of a long table encircled by thirteen chairs—half draped in military uniforms, half in lab coats. Only one chair sat empty, its nameplate etched with: [Fifth Witness].
Her voice surged like an undercurrent beneath the ice:"Do not believe in 'equivalent sacrifice.' It is not salvation, but substitution."
The vision shattered. Su Xiaolan gasped awake, drenched in cold sweat."I saw her… the Fifth Witness. P.D. She warned me—'equivalent sacrifice' is a trap."
Wang Jing cross-checked the terminal, his fingers trembling. "The chip's code contains the same contradictory protocol! Someone knew long ago this clause was deception!"
Even Lu Xingze fell momentarily silent.
Suddenly, the fuselage jolted violently, alarms blaring red."Lock-on alert!" a StarShield operative cried.
"Not Ψ," Wang Jing scanned the spectrum, his face draining of color. "Military-grade human signals…someone's tracked us!"
External feeds revealed a formation of unmarked drones sliding from the clouds, sleek and silent, their lights flashing in abnormal rhythm—closing in like a tightening net.
"Black-ops strike teams…" Lu Xingze cursed.Li Chenyuan's eyes narrowed, voice frigid. "It means the Treaty's conspirators are still alive."
The drones shifted into a flawless arc of encirclement. Missile lock warnings screeched in the cabin.
Su Xiaolan's chest seized, the second heartbeat convulsing violently. This time it wasn't only her senior's pulse—it was two overlapping rhythms. One intermittent, exhausted; the other crystalline and mournful, distinctly female.
Her throat released words not her own:"…Don't fire. They're not here to kill us…they're testing the lock."
Everyone froze.
Outside, the drones' lights flashed in sequence—red, white, red. The exact markings she had once followed through the Iceland ventilation shafts.
Her hair stood on end. Su Xiaolan whispered, "…They're waiting for a passcode."
"A passcode? Whose?" Lu Xingze demanded.
The answer appeared directly on the main screen, letters cold and merciless:
[Anchor Alignment: Progress 24%][Fifth Witness P.D.: Handshake Protocol—Linking]
The cabin was swallowed in a silence deeper than the storm outside.