"Nothing," Cheng Xiaoshi lied. Then, softer: "Did we ever lose someone? Before Qiao Ling? Before the studio?"

The pub door burst open. Not wind. Not a person. A glitch—pixels falling like black snow. And from the center of the corruption stepped a figure wearing Qiao Ling’s face, but with eyes like null pointers, empty as a deleted file.

"Then I’ll go alone," Cheng Xiaoshi declared, and clicked.

And then—a whisper. Not Lu Guang's. His own, from a throat he hadn't used yet:

"Some links aren't meant to be clicked. Some are meant to be broken."

Behind him, the glitch-thing howled with Qiao Ling’s stolen laugh.

"The download wasn't for you," it said, in Qiao Ling's voice but no warmth. "It was a retrieval request. You're the missing data, Cheng Xiaoshi. And I'm the recycle bin."

The screen didn’t flash. The room didn’t shake. But Lu Guang’s hand shot out, too slow, grasping air where Cheng Xiaoshi’s wrist had been a second ago.

Cheng Xiaoshi’s finger twitched over the mouse. The file name cut off mid-word, as if the very data was too impatient to be contained. Beside him, Lu Guang’s silver lashes were low, his face a placid lake hiding drowning depths.