Shanghai, three days later.
A cheap business hotel in Pudong, 19th floor, cash paid under a false name.
Lin Kexin sat cross-legged on the carpet, laptop balanced on a pillow, left boot off. The missing little toe had already scarred; the foot looked strangely neat, like it had always been that way. She had stopped limping yesterday.
The television looped footage of the "miracle" at Dongjiadu Wharf: a container lifted by "unknown construction equipment that vanished before authorities arrived." The police were calling it a corporate publicity stunt. She let them.
She had not slept more than two hours at a stretch since the accident. Every time she closed her eyes she reached for the hole where sixteen minutes of Yunnan used to be and felt the system watching.
Time to change the rules of engagement.
She opened a blank text file and typed with deliberate calm.
Definition package – simultaneous manifestation:
1. Liquid capital: exactly 50,000,000 RMB in cash, legally clean, deposited this morning into an account at ICBC Pudong Branch under my real name, Lin Kexin, with full documentation trail showing legitimate source (overseas medical-consulting settlement, already taxed and declared to SAT).
2. Complete technical documentation and reproducible prototype data for a second-generation solid-state lithium-metal battery:
- energy density 620 Wh/kg
- charge rate 6C sustained
- cycle life 3000+ at 100% DoD
- operating temperature –40 °C to +120 °C
- no thermal runaway under nail penetration or overcharge
All patents pre-filed internationally yesterday under my name through a reputable Beijing IP firm, priority date locked. Physical samples (ten 4680 cells + testing equipment) to appear in a leased clean-room warehouse in Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park, keys and access codes in my possession.
3. A legitimate private limited company:
Name: 零界能源科技有限公司 (Null Boundary Energy Technology Co., Ltd.)
Registered owner and legal representative: Lin Kexin, 100% equity
Registered capital: 50,000,000 RMB (fully paid)
Business scope: new-energy materials and battery systems
All approvals, licenses, tax registration, social insurance accounts already completed and backdated to yesterday morning.
Constraints:
- Do not remove or damage anything biologically essential to me.
- Do not remove core personal memories (family, military service outside the already-taken cluster, identity).
- Prefer extraction from large, impersonal systems that will not trace back to me.
She read it twice, every character exact, then pressed Enter in her mind.
The air did not shimmer this time. Reality simply updated.
Her phone buzzed—ICBC app notification:
Incoming transfer 50,000,000.00 RMB
Remark: Overseas settlement final payment
A new app appeared on her home screen: 国家企业信用信息公示系统
She tapped it. Null Boundary Energy Technology Co., Ltd. was already listed, green checkmark, established 2024-11-21.
A heavy envelope materialised on the bed: warehouse keys, access cards, a USB drive labelled "Null-B v0.9 – Master".
Then the white text.
Manifestation complete.
Total energy debt settled by random extraction:
Lake Donghu (Hubei Province) – complete freshwater volume removed.
Current status: dry basin. Cause listed as "unexplained geological subsidence event."
No human casualties. Ecological impact classified Level IV, under observation.
She exhaled through her teeth.
An entire lake. Forty cubic kilometres of water, gone in the same clinical instant her bank account filled.
The news app on the television cut from the wharf story to breaking news: aerial shots of a cracked, empty lake bed in Hubei, fish flopping in mud, scientists already shouting about karst collapse.
She closed the laptop.
Fifty million in cash, world-leading battery technology, and a registered company, all hers, all legal.
The price: one lake civilization would notice but never trace.
She stood up, slid the warehouse keys into her pocket, and looked at the reflection in the dark window: pale, black-haired, one toe short, eyes older than twenty-six.
"Fine," she told the city lights. "We'll play on my terms now."
End of Chapter 2