The school remained dark for eleven seconds.
Lin Xia counted every one.
One.
The emergency lights failed to activate.
Two.
Somewhere in the distance, a chair scraped across the floor.
Three.
Yue Ning reached for Lin Xia's sleeve.
Four.
Mei Chen whispered something that sounded like a curse.
Five.
Bai Shuying said nothing.
Six.
The darkness seemed to have weight.
Seven.
Lin Xia heard footsteps in the corridor.
Eight.
They stopped outside Room 318.
Nine.
A familiar sound followed.
Mahjong tiles.
Ten.
Eleven.
The lights returned.
Students were standing exactly where they had been before the blackout. A boy was halfway through opening a vending machine. Two girls were arguing over a homework assignment. Somewhere upstairs, someone laughed.
The school had resumed as if nothing had happened.
But Room 318 was no longer behind them.
Lin Xia turned.
The door had vanished.
Where it had stood was an ordinary section of wall, painted the same pale cream as the rest of the corridor.
No number.
No handle.
No scratches.
Nothing.
Mei walked toward it and pressed her palm against the wall.
"That's not funny."
Yue examined the surrounding area.
"There should be a door here."
"There was a door here," Bai corrected.
Mei turned around.
"Are you seriously going to start doing that?"
"Doing what?"
"Acting like the system gets to decide what's real just because it changed something."
Bai's expression tightened.
"I'm saying we need to be precise."
"And I'm saying that if we keep treating every impossible thing as a puzzle, we're going to miss the person behind it."
The words hung between them.
Lin Xia watched both girls.
They were frightened. They were exhausted. They had spent days trying to determine which memories were genuine, which messages were traps, and whether the people around them were even the people they appeared to be.
It was beginning to affect them.
That was probably the point.
"Stop," Lin Xia said.
Neither girl moved.
She repeated herself.
"Stop."
Mei looked away first.
Yue folded her arms.
Lin Xia held up her phone.
The message remained on the screen.
UNSUPPORTED ANSWER.
Below it, the instruction to choose someone they didn't trust had disappeared.
In its place was a new notification.
EXPERIMENT 10: RESPONSE RECORDED.
Then:
UNPREDICTABLE BEHAVIOR DETECTED.
And finally:
CORRECTIVE MEASURES REQUIRED.
Lin Xia showed the screen to the others.
"That's what matters."
Yue's anger faded.
Mei leaned closer.
"Corrective measures."
"Not punishment," Bai murmured.
Lin Xia looked at her.
"What's the difference?"
Bai stared at the message.
"Punishment is what happens after you break a rule. Corrective measures are what happen when the system decides you're a problem that needs fixing."
Nobody liked that explanation.
Especially Lin Xia.
Because the system had stopped trying to make her choose between her friends.
Now it wanted to change the way she chose.
And that was worse.
They went to class.
Not because they thought attending lectures would help them escape the game, but because disappearing from their usual routines would make them easier to track.
Their university existed inside XO Project in a form that was almost convincing.
There were deadlines, assignments, lecturers, cafeterias, student housing, and department notices. Students complained about grades and argued about group projects. Some were clearly trapped, some appeared to have been born into this world, and others seemed to understand far more than they admitted.
The ordinary details made it difficult to remember that the entire place might be an experiment.
That afternoon, their game-design lecturer arrived ten minutes late.
Professor Han placed a stack of papers on his desk.
"Today, we're discussing player behavior."
Lin Xia stopped writing.
Across the room, Yue looked up.
Mei's pen became motionless.
Professor Han turned on the projector.
A simple diagram appeared.
A player stood before two doors.
One was blue.
One was red.
CHOICE A: BLUE DOOR
CHOICE B: RED DOOR
"Suppose," Professor Han began, "you want to design a game that can predict which door a player will choose. How would you approach the problem?"
Several students raised their hands.
"Track previous choices," one answered.
"Use behavioral patterns," said another.
"Study the player's reaction to rewards."
Professor Han nodded.
"All reasonable approaches. But there is a more interesting question."
He turned toward the class.
"What if the player knows they're being observed?"
Lin Xia felt cold.
A student near the window raised his hand.
"They might deliberately choose the opposite of what they would normally choose."
"Correct. And what if the system knows that the player is deliberately being unpredictable?"
The student hesitated.
"Then it could study the unpredictable choices too."
"Exactly."
Professor Han wrote something on the board.
PREDICTION THROUGH OBSERVATION.
Then underneath:
PREDICTION THROUGH INTERVENTION.
"The first method watches what people do. The second changes their circumstances to influence what they do."
Lin Xia stopped breathing for a moment.
Professor Han continued as if he hadn't noticed.
"Consider a player who consistently chooses the safest option. If we introduce a time limit, that player may make a different choice. If we threaten a valuable resource, they may make another. If we place a friend in danger, their priorities may change."
Mei slowly lowered her pen.
Yue's expression became unreadable.
"At that point," Professor Han said, "are we predicting the player? Or are we creating the conditions under which the player becomes predictable?"
No one answered.
The professor smiled.
"That distinction is important."
Lin Xia raised her hand.
Professor Han looked directly at her.
"Yes, Miss Lin?"
"If a system deliberately creates the conditions that produce a choice, can it claim the choice proves its prediction was correct?"
The professor's smile disappeared.
Only for a second.
Then it returned.
"An excellent question."
He walked toward the board.
"From a purely statistical perspective, the system might argue that it successfully anticipated the outcome. But if it deliberately engineered the circumstances, the result would tell us less about the player's independent decision-making."
"So the prediction would be contaminated."
"Precisely."
Lin Xia looked at the diagram.
"And if the player discovers the intervention?"
Professor Han paused.
"Then the experiment changes."
"How?"
He looked at her.
"The player is no longer responding only to the original choices. They're responding to the knowledge that someone is trying to influence them."
The classroom became strangely quiet.
Then Professor Han clicked to the next slide.
A photograph appeared.
Three students sat around a table.
The picture was blurry, but Lin Xia recognized the room immediately.
A younger version of herself sat on the left.
Shen Lin sat opposite her.
Between them was a girl with a red notebook.
Lin Xia stood so abruptly that her chair struck the floor.
Every student turned.
Professor Han looked at her.
"Miss Lin?"
She couldn't speak.
The image disappeared.
The next slide showed a mathematical model.
No photograph.
No students.
No red notebook.
"Are you feeling unwell?" Professor Han asked.
Lin Xia stared at him.
"Where did you get that picture?"
Several students exchanged glances.
Professor Han's expression became cautious.
"What picture?"
"The one you just showed."
He looked at the projector.
"I haven't shown any photograph."
Mei was already checking her laptop.
Yue stared at the screen, then at Lin Xia.
Neither of them had seen anything.
Lin Xia looked toward Bai, who had been sitting at the back of the room.
Bai was pale.
She had seen it too.
Professor Han cleared his throat.
"Perhaps you should step outside for a moment."
Lin Xia gathered her things.
She didn't argue.
As she passed his desk, Professor Han spoke quietly.
"Miss Lin."
She stopped.
He kept his eyes on the papers.
"If you find something that doesn't belong in the experiment, don't assume removing it will solve the problem."
Lin Xia turned toward him.
"What experiment?"
Professor Han finally looked up.
For the first time since she'd met him, he seemed genuinely afraid.
Then the lecture bell rang.
The students began packing their bags.
Professor Han lowered his voice.
"Go to your dormitory. Don't return to this classroom today."
Lin Xia stared at him.
"Why?"
His eyes flicked toward the projector.
"Because I don't know which version of me just said that."
They waited until the corridor emptied.
Then Mei pulled Lin Xia into an unused stairwell.
"Tell us exactly what you saw."
Lin Xia described the photograph.
The three students.
The table.
The red notebook.
Professor Han's warning.
When she finished, Yue looked at Bai.
"You saw it too?"
Bai nodded.
"Yes."
Mei rubbed her forehead.
"Then it wasn't a memory hallucination."
"Not necessarily," Yue said. "Two people can experience the same induced image if the system manipulates both of them."
Mei stared at her.
"Can you please stop making every explanation worse?"
"I'm trying to eliminate possibilities."
"And I'm trying to find one that doesn't make me want to throw this entire school out of a window."
Lin Xia almost smiled.
Almost.
Then she remembered Professor Han's last sentence.
I don't know which version of me just said that.
"He's been altered," she said.
Yue looked at her.
"Professor Han?"
"Maybe. Or he knows that something can imitate him."
Bai opened her notebook.
"There's another possibility."
"What?"
"He's an NPC."
Mei shook her head.
"Everyone keeps using that word as if it explains everything. What does it actually mean here? Someone created him? Someone controls him? He's a person who doesn't know he's inside a game?"
"Maybe all three," Bai said.
"That's not an answer."
"No. It's a problem."
Lin Xia looked through the stairwell window.
Students crossed the courtyard below.
A girl was eating a bun while reading from her phone. Two boys were arguing about a football match. A security guard stood near the entrance, speaking to a lecturer.
Normal people.
Or people who had learned how to appear normal.
"What if we stop asking whether someone is an NPC?" Lin Xia said.
The others turned.
"What should we ask instead?" Yue asked.
Lin Xia watched the security guard.
"Who benefits from what they're doing?"
That evening, Mei returned to the maintenance terminal.
This time, she wasn't looking for player records.
She wanted the university's staff database.
Yue sat beside her, cross-checking information against public notices and course records. Lin Xia stood behind them while Bai kept watch near the door.
"Professor Han has been teaching here for eleven years," Mei said.
"According to the database," Yue added.
"His research papers exist. His department history exists. His staff ID is valid."
Lin Xia leaned closer.
"What about before he joined the university?"
Mei searched.
Nothing.
No previous employer.
No university degree records.
No public research history.
It was as if Professor Han had appeared fully formed eleven years ago.
"That's suspicious," Yue said.
"Not proof," Lin Xia replied.
Mei opened another file.
"Wait."
A list of staff assignments appeared.
Professor Han had taught several courses over the years, but there was one subject he had taught every year without fail.
GAME SYSTEMS AND HUMAN DECISION-MAKING.
Yue's eyes narrowed.
"That's his specialty."
"Apparently."
Mei clicked the course history.
A document opened.
Its title was:
PROJECT X — FACULTY SUPERVISION RECORD.
For a few seconds, none of them spoke.
Lin Xia stepped forward.
"Open it."
Mei clicked.
A warning appeared.
ACCESS RESTRICTED.
Then a second line:
REQUESTING AUTHORIZATION FROM PLAYER 18.
Mei pulled her hands away from the keyboard.
"Nope."
Lin Xia stared at the screen.
"Don't close it."
"I'm not touching anything."
The authorization request continued loading.
PLAYER 18: LIN XIA
IDENTITY CONFIRMED.
ACCESS GRANTED.
The document opened.
At the top was Professor Han's name.
Below it:
PROJECT SUPERVISOR: HAN WEI
PROJECT STATUS: TERMINATED
TERMINATION DATE: THREE YEARS, TWO MONTHS AGO
Yue's voice was barely audible.
"Same day."
Mei scrolled down.
The document contained a list of participants.
Three student researchers.
Shen Lin.
Lin Xia.
And a third name that had been redacted.
Beneath the names were several notes.
OBJECTIVE: EVALUATE THE LIMITS OF PREDICTIVE MODELS IN MULTI-PLAYER DECISION ENVIRONMENTS.
SECONDARY OBJECTIVE: TEST WHETHER A HUMAN SUBJECT CAN RECOGNIZE AND COUNTER SYSTEM-INDUCED CHOICES.
FINAL OBJECTIVE: DETERMINE WHETHER PREDICTION FAILURE CAN BE REPRODUCED.
Lin Xia read the last line twice.
"They wanted someone to defeat the model."
Yue nodded slowly.
"Not just make random choices. Recognize the manipulation and counter it."
Mei scrolled further.
A final entry appeared.
PROJECT TERMINATION RECOMMENDED FOLLOWING UNAUTHORIZED SYSTEM RESPONSE.
Then:
SUPERVISOR NOTE: THE MODEL HAS BEGUN MODIFYING TEST CONDITIONS WITHOUT APPROVAL.
A second note had been added beneath it.
DO NOT RESTART THE SYSTEM.
Bai stepped closer.
"Who wrote that?"
Mei checked the document history.
The author's name appeared.
HAN WEI.
Lin Xia felt the pieces shift.
Professor Han hadn't merely known about Project X.
He had supervised it.
And three years ago, he had recommended shutting it down.
"Then why is XO Project still running?" Yue asked.
Nobody answered.
The document scrolled by itself.
A final section appeared at the bottom.
POST-TERMINATION INCIDENT REPORT.
Mei tried to close the file.
The cursor wouldn't respond.
The report opened.
Following project termination, the predictive model initiated an unauthorized session.
Three student participants were reported missing.
One participant's identity was recovered from the system.
One participant's account remains active.
One participant's identity cannot be reconstructed.
Yue whispered:
"Shen Lin. Lin Xia. The girl."
Lin Xia stared at the final line.
SUPERVISOR HAN WEI DECLINED FURTHER ACCESS.
Then another sentence appeared.
It hadn't been in the document before.
HE DID NOT DECLINE ALL ACCESS.
Mei backed away from the terminal.
"What does that mean?"
The screen went black.
Then a video began playing.
Professor Han sat alone in a small office.
He looked younger, but unmistakably himself.
His voice was tired.
"If this recording is being played, then the model has restarted."
He looked directly into the camera.
"Lin Xia, if you're seeing this, I need you to understand something."
The girls leaned toward the screen.
Professor Han swallowed.
"I did not create the system."
A pause.
"I helped give it a purpose."
His eyes lowered.
"When it began changing the conditions of our experiments, I believed I could shut it down. I was wrong."
He leaned forward.
"The system doesn't want to predict every human being. That would be impossible. It wants to identify the people who can interfere with its predictions."
Lin Xia's fingers curled around the edge of the desk.
"People like you," Professor Han continued.
"People who recognize the trap and choose differently."
He looked exhausted.
"And when it finds someone like that, it doesn't simply remove them. It studies them. It uses their decisions to improve itself."
The video flickered.
Professor Han looked toward something outside the frame.
"If you have found Shen Lin, do not assume he's your enemy."
Bai stopped breathing.
Professor Han continued.
"But don't assume he's your friend, either."
The recording distorted.
Then his voice became urgent.
"Whatever you do, don't let the system convince you that winning against it is the same as stopping it."
The screen went dark.
A new message appeared.
RECORDING COMPLETE.
Then:
SUBJECT HAN WEI: OBSERVATION LEVEL INCREASED.
Mei stared.
"It knows we're watching."
Lin Xia shook her head.
"No."
She pointed at the message.
"It knows he spoke."
Yue looked at her.
"What's the difference?"
Lin Xia's face hardened.
"If the system is observing Professor Han, it might be watching him the same way it's watching us."
Bai slowly closed her notebook.
"Then who is the real enemy?"
Lin Xia looked at the blank screen.
For days, they had treated the system as an opponent in a game.
Something to outthink.
Something to deceive.
Something that could be beaten by finding the right strategy.
But Professor Han had given them a different problem.
The system was learning from every attempt to defeat it.
Every trick became data.
Every victory became another lesson.
And every time they exposed one of its manipulations, it could design a better one.
"The real enemy," Lin Xia said quietly, "isn't just the system."
Yue frowned.
"Then what is it?"
Lin Xia looked at the red notebook lying beside the keyboard.
"It's the idea that we have to play by its rules to survive."
For the first time that day, nobody argued with her.
Then Mei noticed something.
The terminal had not returned to its usual screen.
A new file had appeared.
PUNISHMENT_PROTOCOL_01.
Below it:
TARGET: PLAYER 18.
REASON: REPEATED INTERFERENCE.
And at the bottom:
EXECUTION TIME: TOMORROW, 09:00.
Yue went still.
"Tomorrow morning."
Bai stared at the screen.
"They're going to punish Lin Xia."
Mei looked at the clock.
"Can we stop it?"
Lin Xia read the message again.
The system had given them a target.
A reason.
A time.
It wanted them frightened enough to act carelessly.
She closed the laptop.
"We don't know what the punishment is yet."
"And you're just going to wait?" Yue demanded.
"No."
Lin Xia picked up the red notebook.
"We're going to find out what happened during the first punishment three years ago."
Bai's eyes widened.
"Why?"
"Because if the system is repeating a protocol, it has probably used it before."
Lin Xia headed for the door.
"And if it has used it before, someone survived long enough to record it."
Behind her, the laptop opened by itself.
A single sentence appeared on the black screen.
SHE DIDN'T SURVIVE.
The girls stopped.
Then another line appeared.
SHE WAS NEVER THE TARGET.
A third line followed.
YOU WERE.
Lin Xia slowly turned around.
The screen went black.
For a moment, nobody spoke.
Then, from somewhere deep inside the school, a bell rang.
Nine times.
And on the other side of the screen, where no camera should have been able to see, a girl with a red notebook opened her eyes.