Jiang Fei's Choice

The moment the transport pod sealed shut, Jiang Fei's ears were flooded with a sharp, piercing whine. Blue light spilled from the gaps in the door, like liquid light, shattering on the floor into fine, luminous specks. She turned to face the blasted-open doorway, facing Lu Yan and his six men. There were only three bullets left in her gun. But the corners of her mouth were curved upward.

The fire extinguisher slammed against the door frame, the deafening crunch of metal deformation mixing with the high-pressure water spray.

Jiang Fei stepped back, her back against the transport pod. Water mist filled the control room, the blue light refracting through the droplets into countless tiny rainbows. Lu Yan's men were pushed back a couple of steps by the water jet, but they didn't lose formation. Old Sun's voice shouted, "Hold her! Don't let her damage the equipment!"

Jiang Fei raised her gun, aiming not at the people—but at the main ceiling light overhead. The shot rang out, and the light went out. The control room fell into half-darkness, with only the blue glow of the transport pod flickering.

"Jiang Fei." Lu Yan's voice cut through the water mist, still steady. He seemed unaffected by anything—explosions, water, darkness, gunfire—they were all just variables he needed to manage. "What you're doing is pointless. The passage has already been activated. He's gone. Staying behind to cover for him just means one more person to be Corrected."

"You're going to Correct me anyway," Jiang Fei said. "What difference does sooner or later make?"

Lu Yan walked through the mist toward her. Half of his suit was soaked, silver-gray hair plastered to his forehead, but his pace remained unhurried. He held a gun, but didn't raise it. He looked at Jiang Fei like he was examining a not-too-complicated equation.

"You can avoid being Corrected," he said.

Jiang Fei paused.

"Tell me the resonance frequency of the passage," Lu Yan said. "You have Old Zheng's records. You know the key. What I want isn't Lin Shen—I want to close the passage. Give me the frequency, and I'll let you go."

"Let me go," Jiang Fei repeated. "And then what? No matter where I go, the Correctors will chase me. You people never let any Boundary Crosser off the hook."

"Exceptional circumstances can allow for exceptions."

"Such as."

"Such as helping me close the passage. Once the Membrane between the two worlds is repaired, you can stay in this world as my informant. No Correction. A normal life."

Jiang Fei let out a laugh. Not her usual mocking laugh. It was light, like she'd heard something truly funny.

"A normal life," she said. "Lu Yan, do you know why I came to this world?"

Lu Yan said nothing.

"I was an investigative journalist back there. I was looking into the Mirror Project—the Mirror B side of the Mirror Project. Someone found a set of anomalous energy readings and sent me to investigate. I traced it to the lab, to the passage, to all of it." She paused. "Then the passage activated accidentally. I was pulled in. I didn't come here by choice—I was dragged here."

Silence hung in the mist for a few seconds. Old Sun had already led his men around to the flank, looking for an angle. Jiang Fei knew her time was running out.

"When I was pulled in three years ago, I had nothing on me. No ID, no bank card, no files, nothing to prove that 'I existed.' But I survived. Do you know how?"

Lu Yan watched her. The muzzle of his gun dropped slightly.

"I spent three years building a fake identity. Lived in a basement, scraping by on interviews and selling information. For three years, I only wanted to do one thing—go back." Jiang Fei said. "But tonight, I pushed him through."

"Why?"

"Because he deserved it more than I did," Jiang Fei said. "I'm not a good person, Lu Yan. I helped him because his goal was the same as mine—find the passage. I planned from the start to go through myself once I found it. But then I realized the passage could only take one person. And I thought—why me? Why not me?"

She paused. The blue light danced across her face.

"Then I figured it out. Why you, why not you—that's a question with no answer. The real question is—do you dare to make a choice for someone else?"

She lifted her head to look at Lu Yan.

"Do you dare? Dare to give up your Correction for someone else? Dare to let your wife see what you've become?"

Lu Yan's finger tightened a millimeter on the trigger. Didn't pull. But tightened.

"Don't mention her."

"It's not mentioning her you're afraid of. It's that if she were still alive and saw what you are now—what would she think of you?" Jiang Fei said, her voice not loud, but every word driving in like a nail into wood. "She walked into the passage herself so you could stay outside the control room. She chose sacrifice. And you spent ten years turning into a killer. You killed Old Zheng. You erased Boundary Crossers. You used 'order' and 'balance' as excuses. But you know in your heart—you're not maintaining anything. You're just taking revenge on the world. Revenge for taking her from you."

The water stopped. The punctured pipe had finally run dry. The control room suddenly fell quiet, leaving only the continuous low-frequency hum of the transport pod.

Old Sun raised his gun. Xiao Lu stood behind him; he didn't raise his gun. He was watching Jiang Fei.

"Last chance," Lu Yan said, his voice lower than ever before. "The frequency."

Jiang Fei looked at him. In that moment, she understood—Lu Yan wasn't threatening her. He was begging her. In the only way he knew how. He needed the frequency, not to close the passage, not to stop Lin Shen. He needed the frequency because he wanted to enter the passage. He wanted to find his wife. For ten years, he had filled every day with Corrections and revenge, but he had never stopped thinking about it.

But he didn't dare. He didn't have Lin Shen's courage. He had waited ten years, waiting for a reason. For someone to tell him—you can go.

Jiang Fei suddenly felt he was pitiful.

"No," she said.

Lu Yan's eyes darkened for an instant. Then he raised his gun.

"Then I'll have to—"

A gunshot rang out. But it wasn't Lu Yan's gun.

The bullet struck the floor in front of Lu Yan, kicking up cement dust. Lu Yan instinctively stepped back half a pace. Everyone looked toward the source of the shot.

It was Xiao Lu.

He held his gun, a wisp of smoke still curling from the muzzle. His face was pale, but his hand was steady.

"Enough," he said. His voice wasn't loud, but in the quiet control room, everyone heard him clearly.

Old Sun was stunned. "Xiao Lu?"

"I said enough," Xiao Lu repeated. He looked at Jiang Fei, then back at Lu Yan. "She's right. What are we doing, Chief? First we killed Old Zheng, and now we're going to kill her. Who's next? Lin Shen? Su Wan? How many people are on that road?"

Lu Yan stared at him. In those ice-cold eyes, for the first time, an emotion that could be identified appeared—not anger, not confusion. It was exhaustion.

"Do you know what you're saying?"

"Yes," Xiao Lu said. "I'm saying—when I joined the Correctors, you told us our purpose was to protect both worlds. Not to kill. Not to Correct. To protect. But tonight, with your own hands, you killed a sixty-seven-year-old man. What was his crime? Helping someone who remembered the person they loved."

No one spoke in the control room. The hum of the transport pod shifted pitch—higher. The blue light turned indigo, then pure white.

The transport had entered its final phase.

Jiang Fei seized the moment, turned, and rushed to the control console, entering the last few sets of data. She locked the resonance frequency, confirmed the target coordinates, and set the console to automatic mode—so that once the transport was complete, the passage would close automatically. The Membranes of both worlds would repair themselves. No more Boundary Crossers. No more Corrections.

This was the last thing she could do for both worlds.

The white light from the transport pod became blinding. The entire room was vibrating—not an earthquake, but energy field resonance. The gauge needles on the wall panels swung to their maximum and shattered. Shards of glass flew through the air, illuminated by the white light like floating stars.

"It's too late," Jiang Fei said. She stood before the console, her back to everyone. "The passage is about to close. None of you will get what you want."

Lu Yan watched her. He watched the white light inside the transport pod—that was the passage to Mirror A. The direction he had searched for ten years. The direction where his wife had vanished.

He didn't move.

Jiang Fei glanced back at him. There was no mockery in that look, no pity. Only a very calm acknowledgment—You know it too. You've always known. You just don't dare.

Lu Yan didn't fire. He lowered his gun.

The white light swallowed the control room. Then everything reset to zero.

The transport pod was empty. The blue light was gone. The control room's emergency lights flickered on—orange, dim light. All the screens on the console flashed—system shutdown, passage closed, energy at zero.

Lu Yan stood in the center of the control room, his soaked suit clinging to his body. He looked down at the burn scar on the back of his right hand. The scar looked especially deep under the orange light, like a rift valley.

Old Sun walked over. "Chief. The target has escaped. Should we send people to Mirror A to pursue?"

Lu Yan was silent for a long time.

"No," he said.

He turned and walked out of the control room. His boots crunched over broken glass and puddles, the sound crisp. When he reached the doorway, he paused.

"Correctors. Effective today, cease all active Corrections. All Correction missions currently in progress—cancel them all."

Old Sun was stunned. "What?"

"You heard me right." Lu Yan didn't turn around. His voice echoed back from the corridor, growing fainter. "Correction isn't really about killing. Correction is making it so someone never existed. I only understood today—some people don't deserve to be Corrected."

At the end of the corridor, his footsteps faded away. The rain outside was still falling, but much lighter than before.

Jiang Fei leaned against the console and slowly slid to the floor. Her left arm was still bleeding; now that the adrenaline had worn off, the pain surged in like a tide. She bit her lip and closed her eyes.

Someone walked over. Stopped in front of her.

She opened her eyes—it was Xiao Lu. He wasn't holding his gun. He crouched down and pulled a roll of bandage from his pocket.

"You need to stop the bleeding," he said.

This was the first time Jiang Fei had heard Xiao Lu speak. His voice was very low, but very clear.

She looked at him. A twenty-five-year-old young man, stone-faced, efficient, almost no lines. But his hands were shaking—not from fear, but from the aftereffect of what he had just done.

"Aren't you afraid of getting fired?" Jiang Fei said.

"He's not my chief anymore," Xiao Lu said as he wrapped the bandage around her arm, his movements surprisingly gentle. "The Correctors are disbanded."

Outside, the heavy rain had turned to drizzle. Inside the control room, the orange emergency lights illuminated two people—a woman with ash-gray short hair, and a young man who had never spoken before.

"Do you know what's on the other side of that passage?" Xiao Lu asked.

"No," Jiang Fei said.

"Then why did you help him?"

Jiang Fei looked at the empty transport pod. All that remained was a faint ring of scorch marks, nothing else.

"Because he said something," she said. "He said—'At least she won't be alone.'"

Xiao Lu said nothing.

"I haven't seen anyone from Mirror B in three years. Over there, probably no one remembers me anymore." Jiang Fei looked down at the bandage on her arm. Xiao Lu had wrapped it tight, but neatly. "But I still want to go back. Even if no one remembers—that's still my world. There are traces there that I existed. Even if only I remember, that's enough."

Xiao Lu stood up and extended his hand to her.

"I don't know what it's like over there," he said. "But if there's still someone in your world waiting for you—you should go find them."

Jiang Fei looked at his outstretched hand. She hesitated for two seconds. Then she took it.

"Maybe not this time," she said. "The passage is closed. But Old Zheng said—the passage is bidirectional. If Lin Shen succeeds over there, maybe one day, the passage will reopen."

"Will you wait?"

"Yes."

Xiao Lu pulled her up. Jiang Fei straightened herself and glanced at the console—a line of green text blinked on the screen:

Passage closure complete. Membrane repair rate—ninety-seven percent. Estimated full repair time—three months.

Three months. The passage would be fully repaired in three months. By then, traffic between the two worlds would be completely severed.

But if Lin Shen succeeded over there—if he found Su Wan, if he found a way to open a bidirectional passage—three months would be enough.

"Let's go," Jiang Fei said.

Xiao Lu nodded.The two walked out of the control room, crossed the dark corridor, and took the service elevator back up to the ground floor. The iron door on the first floor had been washed clean by the rain. Moonlight streamed in through the broken windows, and the moss on the ground glistened with moisture.

Outside, the downpour had stopped.

The moon emerged from behind the clouds, illuminating the entire Yingzui Cliff Reservoir. The water's surface reflected the silver moonlight like a giant mirror.

Jiang Fei stood for a moment, then took the crushed cigarette out of her pocket. This time, she lit it.

The smoke rose in the damp air after the rain and was quickly scattered by the wind.

"Three months," she said to the moon. Then she turned and followed Xiao Lu toward the car parked in the shadows. The engine started, the headlights came on, illuminating the muddy mountain road. The two beams of light gradually receded into the distance, disappearing into the night.