Lin Yue didn't sleep that night.
She stared at her ceiling in the sterile Med-Tech dorm, the room filled with blinking monitors and artificial calm. Her hands trembled long after the lights stopped flickering. The words on her screen kept replaying in her head:
"I remember the way you lied."
She kept telling herself it was a glitch.
A virus. A prank.
But her heart knew better.
There were things no virus could fake. Like the voice she'd buried six feet beneath guilt.
Su Chen.
"It's impossible," she whispered. "You're dead. We shot you."
Her voice cracked on the last word.
She didn't cry.
Not yet.
Because part of her still believed she was right.
Until the second package arrived.
MED-TECH TOWER – 0600 HOURS
The delivery drone dropped a black envelope with no sender, no stamp, no data tag.
Inside?
A photo.
Not digital.
A real photo.
Lin Yue stared at it like it was a ghost in paper form.
The image was grainy — a picture of her and Su Chen from three years ago, before the Collapse. Before the walls. Before Zhang Wei. They were standing under a cherry blossom tree.
She had her arms around his neck, laughing.
He was mid-sentence, mouth open, about to say something. Probably something stupid. Probably something real.
On the back, written in dried blood:
"That day, you said I was your forever.""Liar."
She dropped the photo.
Her legs buckled.
And for the first time since the betrayal, Lin Yue cried.
Across the city, Su Chen watched the feed. Her face. Her tears. Her silence.
[Target Status: Emotionally Unstable][Guilt Level: 21% ↑][Trauma Link: 73%][New Ability Unlocked: Memory Echo (Active)][Effect: Project selected past memory into target's mind for 10 seconds. Can trigger paralysis, confusion, or emotional collapse.]
"System," he said calmly, lighting another cigarette, "load the memory from that night. You know the one."
[Memory Loaded: Confession Sequence – Rainfall | Yue: 'I'll never leave you.']
He exhaled, smoke swirling into the ash-grey sky.
"Send it."
LIN YUE'S MIND – 0603 HOURS
She blinked.
And suddenly she was there again.
Rain pouring. Su Chen standing soaked but smiling like a fool. Her hands around his waist. The warmth of him, the scent of burnt coffee on his breath.
"I'll never leave you," she whispered into his chest.
Then she blinked again—
—and the office lights returned.
The rain was gone.
So was he.
Only her guilt remained.
She screamed.
Back in a dead sector of the ruins, Su Chen stood beside a pile of corpses he hadn't even bothered to search.
Raiders. Idiots. Fodder.
He wasn't here for them.
He stared into the shattered glass of a bus stop ad — one of the few that still played old commercials.
"Want to start over? Rebuild yourself? Love again?"
Su Chen grinned.
"No thanks. I've got other plans."
[System Update: Level Up Available][Level 3 → Level 4][New Trait Gained: Cold Vengeance (Passive)][Effect: Immune to emotional manipulation. Increases damage against former allies by 20%.]
[New Directive Added: Expand Target List Based on Emotional Imprint Logs][Current List: 5 People Identified – Including Mentor Huang, Commander Ren, and Yue's Sister Lin Mei]
Su Chen raised an eyebrow.
"Her sister too, huh?"
[She cried at your funeral. She told Lin Yue to let you go.]
"Then she let her go too soon."
Later that night, Su Chen stood across from Lin Yue's apartment tower — ten blocks away, just close enough for Shadow Walk to keep him hidden. He stared through her 23rd floor window as she curled into herself.
Crying.
Alone.
Afraid.
"She's breaking," he murmured.
[Correction: She's beginning to understand.]
"Good."
He watched her shake and whimper and clutch the photo again like it was a piece of her soul she lost and never knew how to ask back for.
Then he whispered, like a lullaby through the airwaves:
"I'll see you soon, Yue."
"And this time… I'll let you say sorry."
End of Chapter 3