The "Red Zone" of Shengli University's server room was a place few dared to enter after hours. It was a labyrinth of humming black towers, pulsing with the neon green and blue of data packets—the very heart of the school's digital existence. For Lin Xia, it was a playground; for the Student Council, it was a trap.
Jiang Ruyu had been fuming since the "Integrity Audit" disaster. She stood in the surveillance wing, her eyes narrowed at the monitor. "If we can't expel her for planting a jammer, we'll catch her in the act of a Tier-1 security breach," Ruyu hissed to her council lackeys. "Lock the magnetic seals on Sector 4 once she enters. Let's see how her 'scholarship' survives a trespassing charge."
Lin Xia moved through the rows of servers, her footsteps silent. She wasn't there to cause trouble; she was tracing a ghost signal that had pinged her Nebula account earlier that evening—a signal that felt like it belonged to the prototype her roommate, Yu, was so protective of.
Just as Xia reached the central console, the hum of the cooling fans changed pitch. Clack-thud. The heavy electromagnetic doors slammed shut, the red emergency lights flickering to life. Xia rushed to the door, her fingers flying over the keypad. Locked. Encrypted. Level 4 clearance required.
"Found a backdoor yet, top student?"
Xia spun around. Emerging from the shadows of a cooling vent was Gu Yanchen. He looked as bored as ever, his hands shoved into the pockets of his dark trousers.
"You?" Xia gasped, her heart rate spiking. "What is a 'barely-passing' student doing in the high-security server room?"
Yanchen tilted his head, a lock of dark hair falling over his obsidian eyes. "I could ask you the same. Looking for extra credit, or just lost on the way to the library?"
He didn't look worried. In fact, he looked like he was exactly where he wanted to be. He walked toward the console, his presence filling the cramped, glowing space. The intimidating scene was amplified by the red emergency lighting casting sharp shadows across his face.
"The Student Council locked us in," Xia said, trying to keep her voice steady while she worked her phone's terminal. "They're probably calling Campus Security right now. If we don't get out in five minutes, we're both finished."
"Five minutes is a long time," Yanchen remarked, leaning against the server rack right next to her. He was close—close enough that Xia could smell the faint scent of rain and cold ink. He looked down at her phone screen, which was a blur of scrolling green code. "That's a lot of syntax for a 'poor scholarship girl' who's just supposed to be good at math."
Xia froze. "I... I like to be prepared."
"So do I," Yanchen whispered. He reached past her, his arm brushing hers, and tapped three keys on the physical console.
The screens didn't flicker. The doors didn't open. But Xia noticed a subtle change in the server's rhythmic pulse. He hadn't just typed a password; he had injected a silent command that was currently rewriting the door's firmware from the inside.
He was The Architect, though Xia only saw a student who seemed to have a "lucky" knack for tech.
"How did you do that?" she asked, her eyes wide.
"Glitch in the hardware," Yanchen lied smoothly, his eyes never leaving hers. "The Student Council buys expensive locks, but they don't pay for the best software. Just like them—flashy on the outside, hollow on the inside."
A mile away, in the dark cellar of the Lin Estate, Lin Yu sat up abruptly. Her fingers, stained with solder, gripped a small transmitter. She had detected a spike in the university's frequency. Her sister was in trouble.
Yu didn't have a computer. She didn't have a phone. But she had a circuit board and a copper wire. She closed her eyes, feeling the "pulse" of the city.
Resonate, she thought, pressing a wire to a battery.
Inside the server room, the magnetic seal on the door groaned and retracted.
"Go," Yanchen commanded, pushing Xia toward the opening. "I'll wipe the logs. If Ruyu finds both of us here, she'll make up a story neither of our mothers would want to hear."
Xia hesitated, looking back at the "mediocre" student who was currently standing in a sea of red light like a dark king. "Why are you helping me?"
"Because," Yanchen said, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous hum, "the game is more interesting when you're still in it."
As Xia vanished into the hallway, Yanchen turned back to the screen. He watched a secondary trace—one he hadn't seen before—originating from a residential district far from campus. A hardware signature.
"Titan," he whispered to the empty room, a predatory smile touching his lips. "So there's a third player on the board."