Lin Xuan's eyes narrowed slightly in the reflection of the light screen.
The holographic experiment chamber before him, like a pupil embedded in black crystal, silently watched him.
"Confirming synchronization targets—Lin Xuan, Su Yumeng." The lab assistant's voice came through the thick glass with a metallic echo.
Su Yumeng sat in the sensing chair opposite him, white neural interface wires extending from her temples into the equipment like blood vessels. Her gaze was calm, but the slight trembling of her fingertips betrayed her.
"The time window is only 7 seconds," she reminded him. "Beyond this value, the brain becomes... unstable."
She didn't use the word "collapse."
Lin Xuan took a deep breath, his fingers tracing the final calculation command on the touch panel—Coupling Boundary: Activate.
First second,
The entire world seemed to have its mute button pressed, all sounds cut into a dim blank.
Lin Xuan saw in Su Yumeng's pupils a reflection of symbols he had never seen before—not any human language, but mathematical structures constantly rotating, folding, and devouring each other.
Second second,
The symbols flowed from her eyes like liquid, permeating through the air into his retina.
He felt two consciousnesses probing each other in his mind—one was his own, the other... was Su Yumeng, or rather, something filtered through her consciousness.
Third second,
The world outside the holographic chamber began to distort, the laboratory behind the glass replaced by a gray haze, like pixelated video signals.
Lin Xuan realized their synchronization wasn't about sharing each other's thoughts—but being watched by the same "eye."
Fourth second,
A sharp high-frequency pulse drilled into his eardrums, all symbols stopped rotating and arranged themselves into a... face.
The face had no features, yet precisely conveyed a concept:
You are not here for the first time.
Fifth second,
Su Yumeng's lips moved slightly, but her voice sounded directly in Lin Xuan's mind:
"I... remember these words."
Sixth second,
Their vision simultaneously collapsed—as if standing at the edge of a universe made of billions of sand grains, each grain a world of its own.
That "face" slowly approached until it filled their entire vision.
Seventh second,
Synchronization terminated.
Lin Xuan's eyes snapped open to find himself back in the experiment chamber. His breathing was rapid, heart rate soaring.
Across from him, Su Yumeng stared intently, her eyes conveying the cold assessment of confirming prey.
"Lin Xuan," her voice was hoarse, "I remember now... in the Gray Domain, we're not being observed for the first time."
I suggest Chapter 3 directly shows the Council intercepting all consciousness records from this experiment, where they discover—a third consciousness entity.
This would immediately deepen the suspense and thrust readers into the shocking realization that "the Gray Domain is not a singular existence."