Three days after the Sky Tear, Floating Life City returned to normal.
At least, on the surface.
The void in the plaza was fenced off with rough timber. Incense burned beside it day and night. People called it "Heaven's Punishment Pit." Rumors spread—anger of gods, hidden demons, omens of war.
Only Lu Chen knew.
No god was angry.
A line had simply been deleted.
He no longer stood on rooftops counting deviations.
Now he sat in silence, eyes closed.
Not sleeping.
Listening.
The old Daoist had said: "To perceive the Line is not to see. It is to hear the deviation."
At first, he did not understand.
After the Sky Tear, he did.
There were faint rhythms beneath reality.
Like metal scraping behind walls.
Thin.
Distant.
But real.
He waited.
Because he knew—he had been marked.
And what marks always returns.
Midnight.
A subtle tremor snapped across his awareness.
A line had been cut.
Not severed by death.
Withdrawn.
He moved.
In a narrow alley in the south district, a basket of vegetables lay on the ground.
Fresh.
Dew not yet formed.
But the person who carried it—
Gone.
Two pedestrians passed by without pause.
"Was someone here?" Lu Chen asked.
"No."
No fear.
No memory.
Only a smoothed-over gap.
"You can see."
The voice came from ahead.
Not through air.
Through structure.
At the end of the alley stood a figure in black.
Its body clear.
Its face blurred.
As if unrendered.
"Who are you?" Lu Chen asked.
"Unit 0713."
"Function: Retrieval of redundant data."
The tone was flat.
Procedural.
"Redundant?"
"Entities no longer aligned with current operational trajectory."
"Flagged. Retrieved."
Cold spread down Lu Chen's spine.
"Are we data?"
"All is structure."
"You as well."
The air shifted.
Colors drained.
Sound stretched thin.
Reality entered edit mode.
0713 raised a hand.
Space flattened.
A white plane swept forward.
Where it passed—walls ceased.
Ground ceased.
Not destroyed.
Removed.
Lu Chen did not leap.
He closed his eyes.
The sweep was not force.
It was command.
He pulled his Line.
Just slightly.
The plane grazed him.
Part of his sleeve vanished.
His skin remained.
But something inside felt erased.
"Anomaly confirmed," 0713 said.
Above them, the sky blurred.
Behind it—
A white room.
A desk.
A figure before a luminous board.
Countless Lines.
One blinking red.
Name: Lu Chen.
Status: Unstable.
The figure tapped the board.
Proposal: Level Two Intervention.
The sweep expanded.
If caught, he would not die.
He would never have been.
Lu Chen inhaled.
He did not pull himself this time.
He touched 0713's Line.
Hard.
But it existed.
He tugged.
Just enough to disrupt rhythm.
0713 stalled half a second.
The sweep misaligned.
It struck the wall behind.
Space fractured.
The white room became clearer.
The figure looked up.
No anger.
Only assessment.
Risk Level: Increased.
The fracture sealed.
0713 stepped back.
"You exceed baseline classification."
"Congratulations."
"You are now a variable."
"Who stands above you?" Lu Chen asked.
No reply.
0713 faded.
"Next encounter will not be experimental."
It vanished.
The alley returned to night.
Lu Chen stood alone.
Above him, the sky looked normal.
But he knew—
It had layers.
And above the layers—
Someone writes.
That night, the final log updated:
Subject Lu Chen – Continuous Surveillance Activated.