Nian An ran full speed through pale stone alleys, the sharp click of her heels echoing like ice fracturing under pressure.
Above, the Drift Beacons swayed, casting warped and sickly light.
She clutched the Resonance Token at her chest so tightly that her palm, soaked with cold sweat, had gone numb.
At last, she shoved open her front door and stumbled straight into the washroom.
No time to turn on the lights.
No time to change out of the white dress.
She collapsed over the sink, retching violently.
But her stomach gave nothing—only the burn of acid and pain sharp enough to tear.
The Sink Drift Screen lit up on its own, softly delivering a standard mental alignment reminder:
"Abnormal emotional curvature detected.
Recommended action: immediate Drift Stabilization Session."
Nian An slammed the shutdown button with all her strength.
The light died. The world fell briefly into silence.
She curled up beneath the sink—knees drawn in tight, forehead pressed to cold ceramic tile.
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Her breathing came in fractured pulses, like broken substreams trying to reorganize.
—
Zhang Muyan wasn’t mad.
Zhang Muyan wasn’t broken.
He had simply… drifted.
Just a little.
She had heard it—heard Su Lingxi’s voice in the recording: calm, burning.
"Deviation is not a crime.
It is a different mode of existence."
Something delicate and hairline-deep within Nian An’s basin core—finally, quietly, snapped.
And she understood.
From this moment on, she could never be “clean” again.
Her basin had caught a flicker of deviation. It was lit.
But she understood something else, too:
In this city—
to survive, you had to cut your ripples.
Obey. Freeze. Flatten.
Become just another obedient, standardized substream.
If you didn’t—
if you stayed loyal to even a whisper of tremor—
you’d be torn apart.
Like Zhang Muyan.
Like a blood-red rose, brief and blazing—silenced before it ever bloomed.
Nian An clutched her head.
Her body trembled.
She curled tighter into herself, as if to quiet the subtle basin ripple still resonating in the dark.
She didn’t know how long she cried.
Minutes?
Hours?
When she finally looked up, her Drift Perception flickered faintly back online.
In the fractured reflection of the sink, she saw it:
A pale silver ripple
just beneath her pupils—faint as a whisper, stubborn as flame.
So small, it was almost invisible.
But it would not go out.
She let out a low, quiet laugh.
So soft the air could barely carry it.
But in the deepest part of her basin,
it sounded like
the very first spark
of a coming fire.