By midnight, the campus was almost silent.
A thin mist rose from the wet pavement outside Liang Shen's dorm, curling like ghosts around the streetlights. Inside, only the glow of his laptop illuminated the room. Yan Fei had left hours ago, but her notebook sat open on the desk — a map of betrayal and opportunity.
Liang's fingers hovered over the keyboard. The Lotus Engine whispered in perfect rhythm with his pulse.
Pattern complete. Access corridors unlocked.
He'd seeded the Glass Pulse app through three universities now. Within 48 hours, it would cross public transport networks, bank ATMs, and low-security cameras. Not hacking — cultivating. Like planting ivy along the cracks of an old wall until it becomes its own living structure.
He opened a new file titled: Blueprint Zero.
The screen filled with a three-dimensional city grid: towers, transit lines, hidden tunnels. But unlike any real city, this one pulsed with faint golden light. It was half physical, half metaphysical — a simulation he had never dared to attempt in his previous life. This time, the Lotus Engine fused code with what he could only call spiritual geometry.
The city is breathing, he thought. I'm not just mapping it. I'm birthing it.
A chime broke his concentration. A secure message appeared:
Unknown Sender: You're moving too fast. Slow down, Architect.
Liang froze. No one should have been able to reach this address.
He typed back, fingers steady:
Architect: Identify yourself.
A pause. Then:
Unknown Sender: We built Glass before you did. We are still here.
For a moment the screen flickered, and a sigil appeared — a silver serpent biting its tail, but coiled twice, not once. The mark of The Deep Circle, a faction even Yan Group feared, a secret society hidden in the architecture of the city itself.
The Lotus Engine inside him pulsed a single word: Convergence.
Liang shut the laptop and sat in darkness. The board had shifted again.
He wasn't just fighting Yan Group anymore.
Something older was already moving its pieces.