Part I
After the storm, the city lights shimmered like a mirage. Lin Xi stood before the floor-to-ceiling windows on the second level of the exhibition hall, watching as the crowd gradually filtered into the main gallery. She wore silver skeletal earrings and a tailored black haute couture gown—its hem as fluid as ink, catching the light with a subtle metallic sheen. Fastened at her waist was a transparent resin brooch shaped like a rose—the central symbol of this exhibition's theme.
She had designed it herself, yet for some reason, it stirred in her a vague, unsettling sense of dissonance.
The exhibition's centerpiece, Fractured Reflection, dominated the hall: a hemispherical structure assembled from three hundred hand-polished shards of broken glass cups. Suspended inside was a holographic meteorite, casting webs of shadow across the floor as light refracted through the prism-like dome. Like fragmented memories stitched and shattered over and over again—sometimes lucid, sometimes delusive.
An elderly collector lingered in front of the piece, murmuring, "Beautiful… and dangerous."
Lin Xi turned with a polite smile to respond, but as she tilted her head, her earring emitted a faint electric buzz. Her brow twitched. She stepped calmly into a backstage corridor and silently withdrew a blade disguised as a wristwatch from her right arm.
With practiced precision, her fingers brushed the nape of her neck. Hidden just beneath her hairline, she found a slight protrusion—something cold and unfamiliar, yet unmistakable.
Bioceramic. Lin family bio-authentication ceramic.
Her stomach dropped.
They were still watching her.
Suppressing the chill crawling up her spine, she swiftly ripped open a seam in the lining of her dress and extracted a sliver of a sensor. The intricate laser-engraved circuits were unmistakable—this was the type of sequence code she had once encountered in her early research days.
She slipped the device into her clutch. By the time she looked up, her expression was composed once more.
"You don't seem to like being watched," a low voice said behind her.
She didn't turn. "And you are?"
"Lu Yan."
The man emerged from the far side of the display. Tall, sharply dressed in a charcoal suit with unbuttoned jacket but a meticulously knotted tie, he was a different presence from the one she remembered in the studio—cool, measured, radiating a quiet, electric intensity.
"You recognize the listening device?" she asked, probing.
He didn't answer. Instead, he stepped closer, his movements calm but unmistakably dominant. Reaching up, he unfastened his tie and gently cupped the nape of her neck with one end, as if to cover a tear in her gown—yet his fingers brushed precisely over the implant.
"The real transmitter's under your skin," he murmured. "The one on your dress? Just a trigger."
"You touched the back of my neck?" Her tone turned icy, gaze razor-sharp.
Lu Yan gave a low chuckle. "I touched the technology."
As he spoke, the ring on his thumb pulsed with a near-invisible electromagnetic wave. Lin Xi felt a sharp jolt at her neck—an electric sting. The implant went dead instantly, a burning numbness spreading across her nerves.
"You—" Her voice faltered, but her chest suddenly flushed with heat.
Lu Yan undid the top two buttons of his shirt and turned slightly. On the left side of his chest, a black rose tattoo glowed faintly in bio-luminescent blue. At the same moment, the rose birthmark just below Lin Xi's collarbone flared, warming uncontrollably—emitting the same spectral hue.
She stumbled back, voice trembling. "What are you?"
"My mother told me before she died," he said solemnly, "her daughter had a rose on her left shoulder."
Lin Xi's pupils constricted. A cascade of fragmented images surged through her mind—
A white crib shrouded in gauze, the burning prick of needles, a woman whispering, "Subject Seven…"
The gallery lights abruptly cut out.
A shrill alarm pierced the silence, followed by a suffocating hush.
Then—
A bullet tore through the air, whistling past from above the lighting rig, aimed directly at them.
"Down!" Lu Yan tackled her behind a sculptural installation. Glass shards shattered around them as Lin Xi instinctively drew a compact pistol concealed in the folds of her dress and fired back.
"You're armed?" Lu Yan raised an eyebrow, suddenly more alert.
Lin Xi's gaze was glacial. "Who said artists can't shoot?"
Her hands were steady, mechanical in their efficiency. Three shots drove the sniper from their perch, forcing a shift in position. She muttered, "They knew exactly where to find us."
"They're tracking the implant in you," Lu Yan replied, flicking open a metallic card from his sleeve. It unfolded midair into a shimmering energy shield.
"Who are they?" Lin Xi asked between breaths.
He didn't answer. Instead, his eyes locked onto the glowing mark on hercollarbone. "Your tattoo—it's reacting."
She looked down. The mark pulsed beneath her skin, moving as if alive, glowing with a haunting blue light—something inside her was waking up.
"That's no tattoo," Lu Yan whispered. "It's a biological tag."
As the lights flickered back on, an intrusive vision surged into her mind—
A sterile white laboratory. Suspended in nutrient fluid, children slept inside giant incubation tanks. Cold fluorescence bathed her younger self. And on the ceiling above—etched in shadows—was the mark of the rose.
She clutched her forehead, face pale.
"You saw it?" Lu Yan steadied her by the shoulder.
Lin Xi shook her head. Her voice was barely audible. "That… wasn't my memory."