The Eve of the Final Battle

After Lin Shen walked into the passage, the three people in the control room faced their true test. Jiang Fei checked all the weapons and deployed the tactics. Lin Shen of the A-Line asked her a question he had always wanted to ask: Why did you come? There's nothing in it for you. Jiang Fei's answer was only one sentence—Su Wan once helped me, and now it's my turn to repay her. Outside, Lu Yan's Correctors had already begun cutting through the metal door.

The light ring of the transport pod trembled violently the moment Lin Shen stepped inside, then stabilized. The energy curve on the control panel jumped twice like an electrocardiogram, and Su Wan of the A-Line's pupils contracted and dilated in sync with those two curves.

"A-Line stable," she said into the intercom, her voice very low, "energy output at ninety-eight percent, passage maintenance time... twenty-seven minutes."

No one answered her. Only continuous static noise came through the intercom system—Lin Shen had already entered the Crevice, and communication was completely cut off by the curvature of space. From now until the transport was complete, the people in the control room would never hear his voice again.

"He'll come back," said Lin Shen of the A-Line.

Su Wan of the A-Line didn't turn around, but her fingers paused on the keyboard for an instant. That instant was so brief that no one noticed except herself. Then her fingers resumed dancing—faster than before.

The hole in the lower right corner of the metal door was getting bigger.

A pair of hands reached in, gripping a hydraulic spreader whose jaws bit into the edge of the hole, creaking and groaning as they pried it open. The metal skin of the door curled outward like peeled orange rind. Through the curling gap, flashing tactical flashlight beams and black combat uniforms could be seen outside.

"Six people at the front," Jiang Fei said, crouching against the wall and peeking through the gap. "Behind the hydraulic spreader, two more are preparing for breaching. Lu Yan is standing at the very back—there's a bulge on the left chest of his coat, maybe a ballistic plate." She pulled her head back and looked at Lin Shen of the A-Line. "Once the door breaks, I'll charge out first and draw their initial attention. You climb out through the left window of the control room—there's a maintenance ladder there. Go up two levels, and you can circle around behind them."

"Circle behind and then what?"

"Take down Lu Yan." Jiang Fei's voice was flat, as if stating an already-determined outcome. "He brought twelve people, didn't he? I'll hold off eleven from the front. You talk to Lu Yan alone. Whatever's between you two, settle it yourselves."

"You're going to hold off eleven by yourself?"

Jiang Fei patted her bandaged left arm. "Last time I fought five-on-one, this hand was still hit by a bullet. Eleven divided by five—I won't even need half my grip strength." She chuckled lightly after saying this, the sound like sandpaper scraping across wood.

Lin Shen of the A-Line looked at her. This woman—from the very first moment she appeared before him, no, from the very first time he "saw" her in another Lin Shen's memories—seemed like someone who shouldn't belong anywhere. She came from Mirror B, trusted no one, and habitually instrumentalized all relationships. When she helped Lin Shen find the passage, it was initially only so she could return too. When she pushed Lin Shen into the transport pod, it was because she knew the passage could only accommodate one person—she chose to give up.

Now she had come again. Chasing from one world to another, not to go back—she was a crosser from Mirror B. The A-Line wasn't her destination, and neither was the Original Line. There was nowhere left for her to return to.

"Why did you come?" Lin Shen of the A-Line asked. "There's nothing in it for you."

Jiang Fei spun the dagger in her hand once, blade inward, spine outward. She tapped the wall with the spine of the blade—three taps in a group, the exact same rhythm as Lin Shen.

"Su Wan helped me," she said. "Three years ago, when I first got projected from Mirror B, I didn't even have an identity. No money, no acquaintances, no records of any kind. I slept on a park bench for three days. On the fourth night, a girl walked over and placed a cup of hot milk tea on the bench. She said, 'You don't have anywhere to go, do you?'—not in a condescending tone, but very flat, like asking 'What day is it today?'"

"That person was Su Wan?"

"Your Su Wan. Not this one—" She tilted her chin toward Su Wan of the A-Line. "Back then, she hadn't been in your world long and was still trying to adapt herself. But she could tell. I don't know how she figured it out—probably because we're the same kind of people. Not people from the same world, but people who 'don't belong to any world.' She gave me a set of her clothes: three T-shirts, two pairs of jeans, one jacket. All old, but washed very clean. I asked her why she was helping me, and she said: 'Because if someday you meet another person sitting on a park bench, you'll know what to do.'"

Jiang Fei placed the dagger on her knee. The blade reflected the cold white light strips in the control room.

"Later, I found work as an independent investigator—making fake IDs, researching the correction mechanism, looking for passages. When I helped Lin Shen, I really did want to use him at first. But the moment the passage opened, I gave him the transport chance—not because he needed it more than I did, but because I asked myself a question: If Su Wan were sitting on a park bench right now, would she give that stranger a cup of milk tea? The answer was yes. So I pushed him."

A harsh screech of tearing metal came from outside. The hydraulic spreader had pried open another large section of iron sheet. The hole was now big enough for a person to squeeze through sideways.

"Now it's my turn to repay," Jiang Fei said, tucking the dagger back into her boot. She picked up the gun from the floor and pulled the bolt. "If I survive—"

"You won't die," Lin Shen of the A-Line interrupted.

Jiang Fei looked at him. That look—Lin Shen of the A-Line would still remember it long afterward. Not moved, not sentimental, but a strange kind of relief. As if she had finally found a fight worth finishing, even if the outcome had nothing to do with her.

"I didn't say I'd die," she said. "I'm saying, if I survive—ask him for me. Ask him if he found her in the Crevice. I'm not asking him to forgive me for using him back then—that kind of stupid question isn't my style. I just want to know the result."

"Okay."

The hydraulic spreader was suddenly pulled out from the outside. On the other side of the broken door, all tactical flashlights went out simultaneously, leaving only the pallid light of emergency lamps shining in from the end of the corridor. Then, a voice pierced through the gap in the metal door:

"Lin Shen, come out and surrender. I won't kill you."

It was Lu Yan. His voice had regained its calm—the momentary loss of composure when Lin Shen of the A-Line had struck a nerve was over. Now the Corrector leader stood outside the door, not the man who had lost his wife.

Su Wan of the A-Line's fingers stopped on the keyboard. Not out of fear—because the calibration was complete. All the parameters on the screen had turned green. The passage curve was as stable as a stretched steel ruler.

"Transport stable," she said, her voice soft and steady. "Passage maintenance time—twenty-one minutes."

Jiang Fei stood up.

"Twenty-three minutes ago," she shouted toward the door, "you told me the rift was sealed and we couldn't go back. Let me tell you—that rift wasn't just sealed by your advance team. You sealed it yourself. Because you were afraid to follow. You were afraid of seeing someone succeed in the passage—while you didn't."

Silence from outside lasted about three seconds.

"Breach it," Lu Yan said.

A low, muffled boom sounded from outside—a directional breaching charge. Not to blow the door, but to blow the door frame. The metal hinges deformed under the high heat, and the welded joints of the frame began to rupture. A few seconds later, the entire metal door crashed inward, hitting the ground with a deafening roar.

Dust rose, obscuring the view.

Jiang Fei charged out the moment the dust billowed. Her left leg launched first—the combat boot sole was nearly split, but she had already calculated the angle of force, pushing off with the intact side. Her whole body, like a taut spring suddenly released, lunged out from the right side of the doorframe, her first kick landing on the stomach of the nearest Corrector.

Gunfire exploded.

Lin Shen of the A-Line didn't watch Jiang Fei. Before the door collapsed, he had already turned and run toward the left window of the control room—a narrow ventilation window, just wide enough for one person to squeeze through sideways. The glass shattered. He grabbed the rusty maintenance ladder outside the window frame, climbed over, and went up.

The maintenance ladder led to the second floor of the hydropower station. The walkway there circled around the generator units, with an abandoned control panel at the end, directly above the main entrance. From there, he could see Lu Yan's back.

Lin Shen of the A-Line ran hunched over on the narrow walkway. The iron plates buzzed dully under each step. He passed two abandoned generator units, a set of rusted distribution boxes, and a row of empty control cabinets. Then he stopped at the corner, pressed against the wall, and peered out halfway.

Lu Yan stood on the right side of the entrance, his back to him. Beside him, an adjutant was reporting: "The breaching team blasted through the inner wall. Third squad is engaging the target. Only one person on her side—female, suspected to be the crosser Jiang Fei."

"Jiang Fei." Lu Yan repeated the name, as flat as reading a file. "Mirror B crosser. Stranded for three years. Assisted the original target in escaping—this woman's combat record is longer than all of your squads combined. Twelve of you against her alone, and she's still held out this long." He paused. "Call fourth squad for reinforcement. Find the other Lin Shen."

The adjutant turned and ran.

Lin Shen of the A-Line stepped out from the corner. His footsteps were light, but he didn't hide. He needed Lu Yan to hear him.

Lu Yan heard him. He didn't turn immediately. His shoulders tightened slightly—from the side, two fine creases appeared on his dark suit at the shoulder blades. Then he slowly turned around.

The distance between them was about five meters. One was the Corrector leader, his silver-gray hair tousled by the smoke, the burn scar on the back of his right hand faintly pink under the emergency light. The other was this world's Lin Shen, wearing a light gray trench coat, holding a light sidearm, his eyes as calm as a lake's surface.

"The things you said inside the door," Lu Yan spoke first, "about me stopping myself. About my wife waiting in the Crevice for ten years. About me only spending time stopping others—how do you know all that?"

"From Old Zheng."

Lu Yan's expression didn't change, but a tiny muscle above his brow twitched.

"You didn't kill him," Lin Shen of the A-Line said. "You did fire. But the bullet wound on his body wasn't in a lethal spot—it hit above the shoulder blade, avoiding the aorta. You're the Corrector leader; your aim couldn't have missed. You deliberately left him alive."

Lu Yan didn't deny it.

"Old Zheng said you've gone crazy. Actually, you haven't. You know exactly what you're doing better than anyone. You just need a reason to keep going—because if you stopped, you'd have to face a fact: your wife's death wasn't the fault of the correction mechanism, nor the fault of the crossers. It was caused by an accident in your own experiment. The Corrector organization doesn't exist to maintain order—it exists to atone for your sins." Lin Shen of the A-Line paused. "But you've been atoning in the wrong direction. You should be opening the passage to bring her back, not stopping others from opening it."

Lu Yan's lips moved, but no sound came out.

Intense gunfire erupted from downstairs. Jiang Fei was still fighting. Alone on the rubble of the blasted metal door, she had driven back a third Corrector with her dagger—the man's ballistic plate strap slashed open, his entire arm exposed, forcing him to retreat. In the smoke, she sidestepped and repositioned. The bandage on her left arm had come loose, blood seeping out and dripping down the back of her hand, but her movements showed no hesitation.

"Every time you succeed in stopping someone," Lin Shen of the A-Line continued, "you prove it once more—you weren't wrong. You're not the one who caused your wife's death. You're maintaining the order of the universe. But what if someone succeeds? What if, inside that transport pod downstairs, someone walks into the passage, finds their loved one, and brings them back? Then ten years of your persistence would all be wrong."

"Are you saying all this," Lu Yan finally spoke, his voice hoarse, "to make me spare the person in the transport pod?"

"No," Lin Shen of the A-Line said. "I'm saying this to ask you a question. Ten years. Do you want to try again?"

Lu Yan fell silent. The gunfire continued downstairs. The sound of Jiang Fei's dagger striking ballistic armor, the clang of the Amit crashing against the metal door panels, the Corrector's intercom calling for reinforcement—all the noises blended together into the battlefield's backdrop outside the control room. But within this five-meter distance, everything was quiet.

"I've tried," Lu Yan said.His voice had changed. It wasn't the usual icy, precisely calculated way of speaking. It was more like a person talking to himself in front of a mirror late at night—very low, very slow, each word like peeling back a scab that had been healed for a long time.

"The first year after the accident. I went through all the data, all the materials, every corner I couldn't believe I hadn't searched. The Mirror Plan algorithm was written by me, the underlying logic of the passage was built by me—I thought I could find a loophole. But I couldn't. Once the membrane is shattered, it's shattered. Once the fissure collapses, it's collapsed. She was inside, and I was outside. And there was a wall I built myself between us."

He raised his right hand, the burn scar on the back of it facing A-Line Lin Shen.

"This scar is from that day. I reached in to pull her out, and all the fragments of the membrane burned into me at once. I grabbed her hand—her fingers were cold. Then the fragments threw me back out, and she stayed inside."

He lowered his hand.

"So I stopped others. Not because of jealousy—at least not entirely. Because I know that wall is only one layer of skin away, but once it breaks, there's no turning back." He glanced at A-Line Lin Shen. "Can they succeed?"

"Yes."

"How do you know?"

"Because this door has already shattered once," A-Line Lin Shen said. "Su Wan's projection was an accident, the same as your wife's. But her membrane didn't shatter completely—it only cracked. The correction mechanism is healing it, but not fully. So what we can use isn't a new passage—it's an old crack. The last time this crack opened, it dropped one Su Wan and one Lin Shen. Today, I just want to swap them back."

The gunfire downstairs suddenly paused for a second. Then Jiang Fei's voice: "A-Line Lin Shen—are you done chatting up there?! My leg got grazed by fragments again—not bullets—but it hurts!"

A-Line Lin Shen didn't move. He looked at Lu Yan.

Lu Yan looked back at him.

"How much time do you have left?" Lu Yan asked.

"Less than twenty minutes."

Lu Yan reached into the inner pocket of his suit jacket. He pulled something out and tossed it to A-Line Lin Shen. It was an old-fashioned data storage drive, its casing worn shiny, corners bearing traces of transparent tape.

"Mirror Algorithm first edition, unmodified. Contains the stabilization formula for passage fissures—can buy an extra ten minutes. If the transmission times out, use this."

A-Line Lin Shen caught the drive. He looked down at the faded label on its surface—"RS-01 / FOR HER"—the ink had already bled, as if touched by water droplets. Not one droplet. Many.

"You—"

"Don't ask why." Lu Yan turned, facing the direction of the stairwell. "Squad Four, full withdrawal. Mission change—"

He didn't finish. Urgent footsteps came from the stairwell. Not one person—five or six—Corrector reinforcements. But the person running at the front had a peculiar gait. Too urgent. Not a trained combat rhythm—more like someone who had encountered a problem.

"Chief Lu—" The adjutant appeared at the stairwell, face pale, "—the passage... the passage monitor shows a third person has entered—"

"What?"

"Not Lin Shen. Not Su Wan. Entering from the original line direction—identity recognition shows—"

The adjutant didn't finish. Because Jiang Fei lifted her head from the rubble and shouted upward: "A-Line Lin Shen—whether that storage drive is real or fake can wait—Lin Shen said before entering the passage that he sensed another signal inside the fissure—not his Su Wan's—someone else's—"

Then everyone heard it—a low vibration from the direction of the transfer pod. Not an explosion. Not gunfire. It was a low-frequency hum, like an extremely long string being pulled tight from both ends and then suddenly released.

Something had gone wrong in the passage.

A-Line Lin Shen tossed the storage drive to A-Line Su Wan in the control room: "Verify this! Now!"

A-Line Su Wan caught it, her fingers already sliding into the interface. Data jumped out—lines of dancing numbers and curves. Her pupils darted rapidly between the data and the screens, her lips silently mouthing something.

"It's real," she shouted. "Passage stabilization formula—can add ten minutes. But it needs synchronized energy input—Jiang Fei, come back and help me!"

Jiang Fei scrambled up from the rubble, tossing aside her already-blunted dagger, and ran barehanded toward the control room. Her left leg was really bleeding—not a fragment scratch, but a burn mark from a grazing bullet. But she didn't slow down.

A-Line Su Wan's ten fingers began that impossible data race again on the keyboard. The curves on the screen started recalibrating according to the new algorithm—nearly twice as fast as before.

"Stabilized!" she shouted. "Passage expanded—twenty-five minutes left!"

A-Line Lin Shen turned to Lu Yan.

Lu Yan had already reached the stairwell. He stopped, his back to A-Line Lin Shen.

"The formula on that drive," he said, "took me ten years to modify. It wasn't meant for you. It was waiting for her. If that third person who entered the passage—" He didn't finish.

A-Line Lin Shen understood.

The third person entering the passage from the original line—the only person with motive to go in from that direction—was Lu Yan's wife. Or rather, the last trace of her energy remaining in the fissure.

And the storage drive Lu Yan had kept in his suit jacket inner pocket for ten years—it was never meant to stop the passage from opening. It was waiting for someone to open the door for him.

"Thank you," A-Line Lin Shen said.

"Don't thank me." Lu Yan didn't turn around. "I'm not doing this for you. I'm repaying what I owe myself."

He walked down the stairs. His black combat boots struck the metal steps, each landing with authority.

Downstairs, Jiang Fei burst into the control room, shoved aside the chair next to A-Line Su Wan, and helped her steady the backup power cable on the console with one hand. "How long have you been holding this alone?"

"Too long." A-Line Su Wan's voice was trembling, but she smiled.

The countdown numbers on the screen stabilized again. Green numbers, pulsing. Like a heartbeat.

The control room door had already been blown open. The Correctors outside were still there, but they no longer charged. Their chief was walking down the stairs.

And in the direction of the transfer pod, the ring of light was still rotating. The blue-white glow reflected on the walls of the control room, like a little sun drawn by someone with a ballpoint pen.