Fate's Choice: Livestream at the Start Summoning Billions of Ravens

It was exactly 10:00 AM.

Chen Jianguo opened the inquiry outline on the tablet, paused for a second on the first line of the title, and looked up at Mirror One.

"Let's begin. Part One: The Reasons for Surviving in Tokyo Bay."

His tone was different from when he was on the Tanyuan; it was businesslike, and the recording equipment was running.

"How did you survive?"

Mirror One picked up the water glass, took a sip, and when he put the glass back on the table, the bottom of the glass pressed down on a corner of the blank paper.

"I made a choice when I rushed into the exploding Holy Grail."

His voice was neither fast nor slow, as if he were telling someone something he had already figured out.

"The energy released by the collapse of the mirror world is not entirely destructive; some of it consists of fragments of rules."

The sound of the recorder's keyboard rang out on the left.

"It's the underlying code that constitutes the physical laws of that world; you can think of it as the basic formula that the mirror world relies on when it runs."

He raised his right hand and drew a circle on the table.

"At the last moment, I used four abilities simultaneously to create an extremely thin buffer layer, absorbing a portion of the fragments of the rules into my body."

Chen Jianguo drew a mark on the tablet with the tip of his pen.

"The water element field that Funina maintains on the sea surface forms a second layer of envelopment from the outside."

Mirror One placed its hand back on the table, its five fingers spread out.

"The two layers of buffers prevented me from being completely erased, but I was scattered into a state between matter and energy, and it took more than forty days to recombine into a physical form."

Chen Jianguo raised his head.

Is the process of "cohesion" active or passive?

"The first thirty days were passive."

Mirror One's response came quickly, as if it had anticipated this follow-up question.

"Like fragments being attracted by a magnet, they automatically gathered together. My consciousness was blurred at that stage, and time seemed to pass very slowly."

He tapped his index finger lightly on the table.

"The last ten days or so were proactive. After my consciousness recovered to a certain extent, I began to guide the fragments back into place. Funina's actions of purifying the abyssal remnants outside accelerated this process."

Behind the one-way glass, the director of the physics laboratory brought his mouth close to the ear of the deputy director of the Ministry of Science and Technology next to him, speaking in a voice so low that only the two of them could hear.

How credible is this description?

The deputy director shook his head slightly.

000 remained expressionless in the last row.

Chen Jianguo drew a dividing line on the tablet and flipped to the second part.

"What did you see underwater during your time in the deep sea?"

Mirror One took a second sip of water.

"A cocoon."

His voice dropped half a tone, as if he were describing something that weighed heavily on him.

"It's black, 300 meters tall, and about 250 meters in diameter at the base. Its outer shell is made entirely of abyssal debris."

"What's inside?"

"A fish."

Chen Jianguo's pen stopped.

"Reddish-gold color, about sixty meters long, the scales are still glowing, the rhythm of light and dark is synchronized with that 0.07 Hz signal, like breathing."

His gaze met Chen Jianguo's.

"The symbols engraved on the fins belong to the same system as the unknown symbols on the base of the Libra."

The keyboard clicks of the recorder on the right noticeably increased.

Chen Jianguo's voice was off by half a beat.

Is it conscious?

Mirror One nodded.

"have."

There was a two-second silence in the conference room.

"It is not a mass of energy, nor a geological phenomenon; it is a sentient being."

His finger slowly traced a circle on the inside of the cup.

"It's very ancient, older than human civilization. It was calling for help, and it cried for a long time. I stayed next to it for over a month and could feel its exhaustion."

Behind the one-way glass, the two major generals exchanged a glance.

000's gaze shifted from Mirror Number One's face to his hands on the table, then back to his face.

Chen Jianguo flipped to the third section, paused his finger on the screen for a moment before swiping over it.

"Changes in abilities."

The core round of "Three Turns and Four Shocks".

Mirror One's response was a beat slower than the previous two parts, the slowness was not obvious, but Chen Jianguo noticed it.

"The types of abilities have not increased or decreased."

He looked into Chen Jianguo's eyes and said.

"Still those four types."

Chen Jianguo waited.

"The improved precision control capabilities may be an adaptive growth resulting from forced high-intensity use in the extreme environment of the deep sea."

He drew a small circle on the table with his index finger.

"I'm still figuring out the specific parameters myself, so I can't give you precise numbers."

Chen Jianguo's pen hovered over the tablet for three seconds before he ultimately didn't ask any further questions.

He knew that at this critical juncture, every additional word he pressed would thicken the enemy's defenses, and once those defenses were in place, questioning would no longer be the solution to dismantle them.

He rowed to the last section.

"Our attitude and demands toward China can be stated in one sentence."

Mirror One's response was so brief that the two recorders almost stopped typing as soon as they started.

"I am Chinese, and my mother still lives in Villa No. 7 of the Xishan Nursing Home."

His tone relaxed, and a slight smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.

"If I really wanted to pledge allegiance to someone or make a deal with someone, I wouldn't be sitting at this table letting you ask me."

He picked up his water glass and took another sip, this time very slowly, as if giving himself pause for his next words.

"My only request remains the same as before."

The cup fell back onto the table.

"Absolute freedom in the content and format of live streaming."

000 stood in the back row of the observation room for nearly forty minutes without moving once, not even adjusting the way his hands were clasped behind his back.

After saying this last sentence, Mirror One gently pressed his right thumb on the back of his left hand.

Just this once.

Chen Jianguo glanced at the time on the tablet.

"Halftime, fifteen minutes."

He stood up and walked towards the door, glancing back at Mirror One before pushing it open.

"If they run out of water, ask them to get more."

The door closed.

In the corridor, Chen Jianguo had only taken seven steps when a plainclothes officer emerged from behind the door of the duty room and blocked his way, speaking in a very low voice.

"Director Chen."

"What is it?"

An officer in plainclothes handed over a mobile phone; the screen displayed an urgent internal notification from the Cyberspace Administration of China.

"Photos of A-001 being picked up by military vehicles have been taken from the Sanya naval port and are already circulating on overseas social media platforms."

Chen Jianguo took the phone and swiped down two screens with his thumb.

The photo was taken from a high-rise residential building on the outskirts of the port area, using a telephoto lens. The image isn't very sharp, but it's clear enough to make out the outline of a black trench coat and a pale face.

The caption was in English.

The translation is four words.

The Chinese military secretly abducted the Crow God.

Chen Jianguo stood at the end of the corridor, holding his phone, with his back against the sound-absorbing wall, his voice so low that only he could hear it.

"Has the source been identified?"

The voice of the duty officer from the Cyberspace Administration of China on the other end of the phone was clearly anxious.

"The account was registered on an overseas forum, and the server bypassed two layers of proxies. The first layer pointed to a data center in Singapore, and the second layer is still being traced."

How many times did the photo go viral?

"Overseas platforms forwarded the content more than 80,000 times within 40 minutes, and some people in China have already reposted it to Weibo and Tieba. The keywords 'Ya Shen' and 'Sanya Naval Port' are trending in the top 20."

Chen Jianguo closed his eyes for a second.

"Pressure".

"We can't suppress it, Director Chen. The source overseas is not within our jurisdiction, and the military vehicle number in the photo matches the active duty sequence, so it is highly authentic. Debunking this rumor would be extremely costly."

Chen Jianguo hung up the phone and then dialed the Ninth Bureau's Public Opinion Center.

Within four minutes, he made three phone calls, each time confirming the same thing: who took the photo, from where it was taken, and to whom it was taken.

The answer was so vague that it made his teeth clench.

He put away his phone, pushed open the conference room door, and saw Mirror One sitting in its original position, its water glass empty, and a raven with outstretched wings drawn in pencil on a white paper in front of it, the lines so simple that there were only seven strokes.

Mirror One did not raise its head.

"I know about the photos."

Chen Jianguo stood at the door, his hand still on the doorknob.

How did you know?

Mirror One tapped the desktop with the tip of a pencil.

"My shadow crow dwells in the shadows of the pipes; it can hear conversations in the corridor."

He put down his pencil and looked at Chen Jianguo.

"I can help you look it up."

Chen Jianguo didn't move.

"Raven's search efficiency is faster than any of your reconnaissance methods. It doesn't require satellites, databases, or waiting for layers of proxy links to peel back the layers."

Mirror One's tone was no different from that of someone chatting casually.

Give me ten minutes.

Chen Jianguo stared at him for three seconds, his gaze sweeping over the seven-stroke raven on the table and then over the direction of the one-way glass.

He knew there were eleven people standing behind him.

He knew that those three seconds of hesitation were being weighed by everyone's eyes.

"Can."