The dorm room smelled of instant noodles, cheap detergent, and damp books.
Liang Shen sat cross-legged on his narrow bed, staring at his battered laptop. Its fan wheezed like an asthmatic. To anyone else, it was a junk computer. To him, it was a gateway.
On the screen glowed the first node of what would become his new empire: a hidden network he called Glass Pulse. It was a crude version of the Glass Net he'd built in his last life, stripped of patents and obvious flags. But it had one advantage this time—he knew exactly where to place the first seed servers and who would bite.
He opened a chat window.
PulseBot: Node ready. Awaiting activation.
Liang typed:
Architect: Activate lattice. Launch decoy program "Shortcuts."
In another dorm across the campus, a student—one of the vendor's nephews—was about to install the free mapping app. Within hours, the system would piggyback on every public Wi-Fi network in the district. Invisible threads, one by one.
Liang leaned back. The Lotus Engine whispered in his head, its digital-spiritual rhythm syncing with his breathing. His mind split like a prism; one part was code, one part was city grid, one part was stillness.
This is not hacking, he thought. This is cultivation of the city itself.
A soft knock at the door broke his trance.
He blinked, shutting down the screen with a swipe. "Who is it?"
A female voice: "Professor Lin sent me. You're the tech genius, right?"
The door creaked open. A girl in a white raincoat stood there, water dripping from her hair. She looked like she'd walked out of another era—calm eyes, quiet posture, a paper notebook clutched to her chest.
"My name is Yan Fei," she said. "I think my family is after you."
Liang's fingers froze on the keyboard. Yan. The serpent family. And Fei… in his past life she had been nothing more than a rumor, a ghost who leaked information from inside the Yan Group.
"Why?" he asked softly.
"Because," she said, stepping inside, "someone told them you're building something that can rewrite cities."
Rain hissed against the window. For the first time since waking up in this timeline, Liang felt the board shift under him—not his move, but hers.