W said, "I just ran a facial recognition scan. Cross-checked it with the Blackwell Federal Citizen Database. This person's name is Nai Yan, a sophomore at Night Sea University. Majoring in Finance."
Pei Ran thought: The Silence has leveled up.
And yet W's signal transmission with Blackwell still functioned normally.
He was a robot from the Department of National Security—no doubt equipped with specialized military-grade communications that differed from the disrupted civilian networks.
Unlike the wristbands, this metal sphere didn't display information on a screen. Everything was processed internally, then sent out using unrestricted military signals. Perfect.
By comparison, her method of using green light to write in her mind—could that also be considered safe in this upgraded version of the Silence?
At that very moment, in front of the turnstiles, the student named Nai Yan didn't feel like he was sleepwalking at all.
When the Silence had begun two days earlier, Nai Yan had been jogging on the university track.
It was afternoon, most people were in class, and there were only a handful of runners. Not far from him, a stocky guy was running in the same direction. They didn't know each other, but couldn't help subtly competing.
Nai Yan had only done two or three laps, barely sweating, when a deafening boom rolled across the sky.
The ground shook—the track itself trembled.
He instinctively crouched, eyes scanning the area, only to realize it wasn't an earthquake.
Amid the roaring sound, the nearby classroom building exploded—not in a fiery outward blast, but as though it had been rigged with timed demolition charges. In the blink of an eye, the entire structure crumbled into dust.
He'd never seen an explosion like that before—no fireball, no flying debris, just complete disintegration into rubble.
Everyone on the field froze in terror.
The stocky runner didn't even crouch. Still holding a water bottle, he stared blankly at the leveled building, mouth agape, muttering a curse.
Then came a pop.
Blood splattered.
It was the first time Nai Yan had seen someone die just for speaking—and the first time he realized the warning they'd received on their wristbands about "The Silence" wasn't a joke.
Since then, he had been staying with a few fellow survivors, camping out on the field at Night Sea University.
They didn't utter a word. Fortunately, they were still able to communicate by writing—until that stopped working, too. This morning, following new instructions, they switched their wristbands to full visual mode. When they saw a burning sign earlier, they quickly destroyed any personal items containing written text.
Nai Yan was from a small town northwest of here. His parents were still alive.
After the event, he had sent his mom a picture message. She'd warned him not to travel, telling him to stay put and wait for things to calm down.
But Night Sea was no longer safe.
Fires were spreading uncontrollably. The group of students had managed to sketch out a plan: go home.
Nai Yan had ridden Night Sea Line Seven once before, and thought of it immediately. They came to the station, only to find themselves facing a strange, bubbling turnstile.
He had been staring at the turnstile when the smoke suddenly thickened.
The gray fog wrapped around him like a wall, obscuring everything—even the friends who had been standing just a few feet away. Oddly, it didn't feel suffocating.
He could still vaguely see the row of turnstiles. They were only a few steps away.
Too close, actually.
Closer than they had been a moment ago.
At some point, they'd drawn nearer—but when?
Veins of glowing blue-green pulsed along the metal, grotesque and unsettling. Nai Yan took a step back, then another.
But no matter how far he stepped, the distance didn't increase.
It felt like a nightmare.
Cold sweat burst across his body, his skin crawling.
He turned, trying to find his friends—but the smoke was too thick. Not a soul in sight.
He turned to flee.
His legs felt like they weren't his own. Each step was a struggle.
Then, from the mist, something grabbed his arm.
A woman's pale hand—fingernails tinted blue, like a corpse.
Nai Yan panicked and flailed desperately, finally breaking free.
But the turnstile was still right behind him, impossible to shake.
Ghost wall, he thought—the kind of cursed loop from folk legends.
He pushed forward with all his strength, as if trudging through centuries of resistance. Finally, he felt himself gain some distance from the machine.
He sighed with relief—then felt something block his path.
The thick smoke made it impossible to see below his waist. He reached down and touched something solid, cool, and thin. A panel, maybe.
Behind him, the turnstile was catching up again.
This time, Nai Yan didn't hesitate. He raised his leg and stepped over it.
A faint humming sound rang out.
His mind suddenly cleared—like waking from a dream.
The smoke vanished. The world snapped into focus.
Then he heard a sharp buzz in his skull.
He realized—somehow, in trying to escape the turnstile, he had ended up inside it.
That "panel" he stepped over? It was the transparent wing-shaped flap of the turnstile, now positioned right beneath his hips, quivering like insect wings.
How did I get here??
Hair stood on end.
He tried to pull his leg back.
Too late.
The machine emitted a sharp clack-clack-clack.
The metal boxes on either side inflated like balloons, trapping him tightly in the center.
He couldn't breathe. Couldn't move.
His friends panicked. Danger be damned—they all rushed forward, grabbing his arms, his clothes, trying to pull him free.
But then the transparent flaps began to move.
Like insect wings suddenly growing, they elongated and extended.
Silent, razor-sharp, unstoppable—two thin blades slicing upward.
In the final moment of his life, Nai Yan stopped struggling. Only one thought remained:
Mom, I'm not coming home.
The flaps sliced him clean in two.
His friends, still holding his body, stumbled backward as the tension released.
Someone dropped what was in their hands, covered their mouth, and choked down a scream.
The machine returned to its original form.
Metal boxes retracted.
Flaps folded neatly.
Quiet.
As if nothing had happened.
It had just carved a person in half.
The crowd recoiled, horrified.
Many gave up entirely on the idea of boarding Line Seven. They left, fast.
Pei Ran also backed away quietly with the crowd.
This thing isn't a turnstile. It's a guillotine.
She turned and scanned the station.
Surely there had to be another way in. Maybe the only option now was to retreat and access the station through underground tunnels.
W seemed to agree.
"I'm pulling up structural schematics. Only viable route is to circle back outside the city and enter through the underground accessways."
But the fires had spread too fast. Getting out of the city might already be impossible.
The station entrance was right there, gaping like a dark mouth. The turnstile? Its carnivorous teeth.
The Silence had evolved, and she didn't know if the writing-green-light would still be safe to use. She couldn't count on it. Even if it was, it was currently asleep.
Pei Ran slipped a hand into her pocket. Her fingers brushed the hard cover of Shi Geye's sketchbook.
The drawing-green-light was reliable—docile, obedient, and easy to summon or dismiss.
But unlike her writing-green-light, it always appeared visibly at the tip of the pen, glowing bright green for all to see.
And green lights could devour one another.
Revealing hers in front of a crowd would be incredibly dangerous.
She backed away until she reached the corner of a nearby building. Only then did she take out the sketchbook and open to a blank page.
W understood what she was about to do—and wasn't thrilled.
"Want me to sketch a rough version first? You can trace over it."
Pei Ran rolled her eyes.
"I'm not drawing a person. Just a few rectangles."
Nine rectangular blocks for the turnstiles. Eight sets of fan-shaped flaps. Technically zero difficulty.
She pulled the fountain pen from its holder. The green light came immediately, droplet-shaped and lightly swaying at the tip.
Pei Ran glanced toward the turnstile.
"Think the distance will affect whether the drawing works?"
She honestly didn't know. Shi Geye always drew close to his subjects—though maybe that was just his twisted preference for watching people die up close.
W heard her question and silently complained to himself: Does the drawing only fail because of the distance?
Still, he obediently ran a calculation. "It shouldn't matter. Your distance from the gate now is about fifty centimeters closer than when you drew those three pipeline workers."
Good enough.
Pei Ran carefully observed the nearby gates, glancing up, then back down, sketching with steady, straight strokes to form a square.
Drawing shapes like this wouldn't trigger the silent warning—they weren't considered writing. Squares had appeared in the warning images Blackwell distributed, and her wristband displayed them normally without bursting into flames.
She drew another square, then added a few lines to turn it into a rectangular prism.
W watched her draw. He tried to hold back but couldn't.
"Pei Ran, do you want some advice?"
Pei Ran didn't even look up. "Speak."
W: "Are you aware there's a drawing technique called perspective? It's used to depict depth and spatial relationships on a two-dimensional surface, making objects appear closer or farther away…"
"Hm?" Pei Ran had just finished a tidy new block and tilted her head. "You think my gate drawing isn't good enough? I didn't even use a ruler and still got the lines this straight—I'd say it's pretty decent."
Pei Ran, who was never much of an artist, had low standards for herself.
W paused, quietly packing up his talk of perspective and spatial realism, metaphorically placing it in a silk pouch and burying it in the dirt.
"…Yes. Very decent. Very realistic."
Pei Ran finished all nine blocks, then carefully drew the fan-shaped flaps between each pair.
This time, W complimented her unprompted. "That curvature's very clean, and you didn't even use a compass. Impressive."
W reflected: To deal with the gate… is she planning to draw them exploding, breaking, or maybe fracturing the transparent blades?
No matter what, it would be a challenge for her skill level. And once the drawing took effect—if it took effect—there was no telling what might happen.
But Pei Ran simply examined her new drawing with great focus. She didn't make another stroke.
Meanwhile, there was more movement near the gates.
The students who had lost their friend still hadn't left. One of them—a male student—suddenly broke away from the group, eyes dazed, and began walking toward the gate.
Just moments ago, he had been desperately trying to pull Nai Yan out. Now he was moving forward himself, like someone under a spell.
The others panicked. No way were they letting another person die. They worked together, one grabbing his arms, another his waist, refusing to let go.
The boy looked terrified, struggling as if possessed, fighting against them like they were ghosts. He was strong, and soon the group was tangled up, like a messy wrestling match.
A girl in a red knit hat had been clutching his backpack. She suddenly seemed to realize something, let go, wound up her arm, and slapped him across the face.
Smack—
The sharp sound rang out. The boy's eyes immediately cleared.
He looked at the gate, then at his classmates, and started shaking in fear.
While that chaos was unfolding, on the other side of the street, a middle-aged woman also began heading toward the gates.
One after another. Like moths to a flame.
The woman was alone. No one to stop her. Her expression was just like the others—vacant—and she wandered forward, feeling around with her hands. Before long, she reached the gates.
She didn't step through immediately, but bent down, fumbling along the ground as if sleepwalking. She picked something up, held it in her hand, and continued moving forward.
She was at a gate further down, too far for Pei Ran to make out clearly, but it looked like a lanyard with a badge.
W's vision was excellent. "That's a Night Sea Line 7 staff ID."
The ground was littered with all kinds of dropped papers and badges. The staff ID was mixed in among them—not particularly noticeable. No one knew how the woman even spotted it.
There were no other entrances. For Night Sea 7 staff to enter, there had to be some alternate method. Maybe scanning the badge was the trick.
Pei Ran held her breath, curious to see what would happen.
The woman wandered into the gate lane and held the badge up to the scanner on the metal box.
The gate seemed to respond—clanking, groaning—then suddenly, it expanded like something exhaling. In an instant, it clamped down around the woman, and the transparent flaps began to extend again.
No mercy. A staff badge meant nothing.
Pei Ran narrowed her eyes and spun the pen between her fingers.
Just as the gate was about to execute the woman, the swollen metal casing deflated violently, like a balloon pierced by a needle. The elongated transparent flaps snapped back, returning to the harmless shapes of rectangular boxes and fans.
Just like Pei Ran had drawn them.
W: …What?? This works??