From a second-floor window at the back, Tang Coco slipped into the hotel like a shadow skimming water.

She moved along the corridor; no one, only shrapnel glinting like fish scales and brass casings cold as seeds.

A firefight had washed through here like a sudden squall.

She angled for the stairs, then froze at the head like a cat before thorns.

Two masked men stood guard with guns, planted like stakes, and charges studded the supports like barnacles.

They meant to seal the stairs, a throat to choke.

Force it, and they’d blow the spine.

An elevator is a well mouth easier to defend.

Using the Armor’s “invisibility,” she drifted up the stairwell like mist curling up a cliff.

Floor by floor, finding the delegation should be simple, like following smoke.

Hit each landing and sweep heat; the captive floor would swarm like a hive.

But the result chilled her like night rain; she reached the top, and nothing of the delegation appeared.

Only a dozen masked figures, scattered like crows across floors.

She’d watched their rhythms and saw mercs, not Abnormals.

"Optical camo: 1 minute remaining," the System chimed, a drop of cold water on stone.

Irritation flared first, then thought set like a whetted blade.

She moved forward, a quiet reed bending to wind.

She stepped into a top-floor room and called Ningxin, the phone a thin lamp in the dark.

"Coco? Why are you calling? What happened?" Ningxin picked up at once, her voice a quick spark.

"I didn’t find the delegation," Tang Coco said flatly, a net lifted empty.

"How?" Ningxin breathed, a bowstring drawn tight. "We’ve watched the hotel the whole time; no one left."

"Remember the bracelet with the locator you gave me?" Tang Coco asked, voice still as a pond.

"I remember. It’s how I track you—why?" Ningxin said, confusion tilting like a bird’s head.

"Send me the frequency for that locator." Tang Coco’s words snapped like dry twigs.

"Uh?" Ningxin sounded puzzled, a sparrow startled.

"Now." Tang Coco’s patience cracked like ice.

"Oh... sent," she said, the line rustling like leaves.

Tang Coco ended the call the instant the data arrived, a blade sheathing.

"Optical camo disengaged," the System intoned, a candle guttering out.

"System, track the source for this band," she said, her gaze on the red HUD like banked embers.

"Locating..." the System replied, gears spinning like ants.

"Signal found: ten meters east, five meters up," it reported, words neat as stacked bricks.

"Huh?" Surprise nipped her like frost; they were that close.

"That spot should be the roof," she thought, a drum behind a wall. "So why can’t anyone outside see it?"

She lifted her chin and looked; the thermal view showed nothing, a pond with no ripples.

"What kind of Abnormal can hide this well, a fox under snow?" she frowned, her brow a knot.

"Fine," she decided, the corner of her mouth hooking like a fishhook. "Come out on your own."

Sight shifted to a hidden space, a lobby like the hotel’s reflection in still water, every fixture mirroring the real.

At the center, a dozen people huddled, squatting or sitting like a ring of fallen leaves.

Suits and uniforms mixed, the Huaguo delegation clustered like cranes caught in a net.

Along one side lay several special devices, metal altars; five technicians worked them, fingers moving like knitting needles.

Beside them lounged ten men and women in varied dress, Abnormals in clashing seasons, two of them women, lazy as cats in sun.

"Boss, how long do we have to wait?" a boy barely in his teens whined, impatience buzzing like a gnat.

"Wait a bit more," the leader said, a man in his thirties built like a wall, voice low as thunder behind hills.

"If no word comes, we withdraw." He kept it simple, a knife kept oiled.

"The money’s in already; staying feels unsafe, even with Aim’s space holding us, so caution’s best, like walking on thin ice."

As he spoke, he looked toward a long box of a machine, a coffin of light.

Inside lay a bald boy, eyes closed, his body tied by tubes like vines to the device.

"Sigh... it’s Aim’s first time keeping a ‘parallel space’ this long," the younger boy murmured, worry pooling like rain.

"I hope it won’t hurt him much," he added, a wish tossed like a pebble.

"So boring," another woman drawled, beauty lacquered and sharp like a blade.

"Bring her down, let me play a few rounds," she said, eyes lifting like hooks.

She looked up at the lobby’s crown, where a girl hung like a torn banner—Li Muyan, who’d come with the delegation.

Her wrists were bound and fixed under the chandelier; her clothes were ragged like bark, and wounds mapped her skin.

She squinted, despair misting her eyes, staring at her father below like a lone lamp.

Among the seated cluster, Li Shoujing sat protected in the center like an ember in a brazier; he was their aim.

When danger rushed him, Li Muyan moved first, a hawk dropping.

She could fight, but against Abnormals she was a moth to flame; she fell fast.

Stubborn, she kept throwing herself forward, bleeding yet unbowed, shielding her father like a willow in storm.

At last, when they raised hands to kill her, Li Shoujing yielded, his heart cracking like lake ice.

He pretended to cooperate to save his daughter’s life, a farmer saving seed for spring.

They spared Li Muyan, yet bound her and hung her beneath the chandelier like a captive star.

Li Shoujing sat straight on the floor, spine a spear, eyes locked on his daughter like iron to a magnet.

Tears slipped from his eyes, slow as dew at dawn.