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

The orange speedboat slowed down 300 meters away, and the searchlight on the bow swept over, shining white light on 73 upturned faces.

The Italian Coast Guard's loudspeaker broadcast messages in Italian, then switched to English, and then to Arabic.

"This is the Italian Coast Guard. We are approaching. Please remain calm and do not stand up."

The Somali woman knelt in the cabin and began to cry, covering her face with her hands and her shoulders shaking violently.

Amir opened his eyes and watched the orange speedboat get closer and closer.

The rescue team on the speedboat was already preparing ropes and lifebuoys. A young man in an orange life jacket stood at the bow, holding a walkie-talkie, his eyes scanning the number of people on the inflatable boat, his lips moving, presumably reporting to base.

Amir noticed a detail.

As the speedboat approaches, the spray from its bow becomes unusually gentle when it touches the unseen area surrounding the inflatable boat. It doesn't disappear, but it's weakened, as if something is shielding the dilapidated inflatable boat from any external forces that could cause it to rock.

He glanced down at the bottom of the boat.

The light blue luster is no longer visible.

But he still remembered the sensation in his palm. Underwater, in his last moments before losing consciousness, something had supported his hand. Warm, pulsating, like an unseen hand reaching up from the depths.

The speedboat was attached to the side of the rubber dinghy. Rescue workers began transferring passengers one by one.

Amir was the last to be transferred. When he stood up with the little girl in his arms, his legs were almost numb from being submerged in cold water for so long, and his knees buckled twice before he could stand.

A rescuer reached out to take the little girl.

Amir hesitated for a second, then handed her over.

The little girl woke up the instant the handover took place. Her big, dark eyes stared blankly at the unfamiliar face, and her lips trembled as if she were about to cry.

Amir spoke softly in Tigris. The little girl didn't understand the language, but she heard the direction of the voice and turned to look at him.

He nodded at her.

The little girl did not cry.

Rescuers wrapped her in a blanket and carried her away. As Amir climbed over the gunwale and onto the speedboat deck, he felt the solid metallic texture beneath his feet.

He glanced back at the now-empty rubber boat.

The deflated airbags, the ruptured hull, the seawater-filled cabins—according to all the laws of physics, this ship should have sunk to the bottom of the sea three hours ago.

It's still floating.

It floats empty in the Mediterranean morning light, like a fallen leaf gently supported on the water's surface by something.

The speedboat's engine restarted, and the bow turned northwest, heading towards Lampedusa Island.

Amir sat on the deck wrapped in a blanket, his gaze traveling across the increasingly distant sea before settling on the rubber boat that was gradually shrinking.

He saw something flash in the morning light on the sea surface around the rubber boat.

Very pale, aquamarine, fleeting.

And then there was nothing left. Only the calm, grey-blue surface of the Mediterranean Sea and the silhouette of another refugee boat slowly moving in the distance.

The ship was also moving towards Lampedusa.

There was no engine sound.

.....

Rome, 6:17 a.m.

Jiang Ming stood before the suite's floor-to-ceiling window, holding a half-cold cup of espresso. A panel floated to his right, three blue coordinates slowly flashing along the Mediterranean shipping route, each marked with a green checkmark.

The voice of Mirror 2 came from behind, devoid of emotion, consisting only of data.

"All three boats are stable. The first rubber boat, with 73 people, has been taken over by the Italian Coast Guard. The second wooden boat, with 47 people, is moving towards Lampedusa and is expected to reach the rescue area within two hours. The third boat, with 68 people on board after the traffickers were pushed away, is in stable condition and its course has been corrected."

Jiang Ming placed the coffee cup on the windowsill and tapped the three coordinates on the panel one by one with his finger.

"Where are the two human traffickers?"

"Pushed by ocean currents towards the Italian Coast Guard's night patrol line, it is currently floating on the surface of the sea, with a normal body temperature and no risk of drowning. It is expected to be spotted by a patrol boat in forty minutes."

"Zero deaths?"

"Zero deaths. All 192 people survived."

Jiang Ming switched the status indicator of the last coordinate from orange to green, and the three dots went out at the same time, restoring the Mediterranean route to a normal gray background.

"The fifth nail is in place."

His tone was no different from when he was checking off a regular account.

Mirror 2 didn't pause and immediately moved on to the next report. The panel refreshed, and the emotion value calculation page popped up; the numbers jumped for two seconds before freezing.

"First-day sentiment value revenue: 14 million."

Jiang Ming glanced at the number, his expression unchanged. Fourteen million was nothing compared to the hundreds of millions earned on the first day of the first four weapons projects—it was a drop in the ocean.

"reason?"

"The incident occurred in the central Mediterranean, between 2:00 AM and 5:00 AM local time. No direct video footage has been released. Currently, only an unusual report has been intercepted in the Italian Coast Guard's internal communications, and it has not yet entered the public discourse. The 14 million yuan is mainly due to the emotional distress of the rescued individuals and the shock experienced by the Coast Guard rescue personnel after witnessing the unusual phenomenon."

Jiang Ming closed the settlement page.

"This isn't a viral campaign; the emotional impact will come a little later."

He picked up the coffee cup from the windowsill, found it was completely cold, and put it back.

"But once a person dies, there's no time for public opinion to take hold."

Mirror 2 did not respond to this statement. It didn't need to. This wasn't a sentimental remark, but a technical assessment of the timing window. The death window for maritime smuggling is measured in minutes; by the time public opinion builds and the weapon is deployed, the body will have long since sunk to the bottom of the sea. Therefore, the design logic of the fifth weapon was never intended to create a sensation, but rather to contain people before the sensational event occurs.

Emotional value is a byproduct. Living, breathing people are the anchor.

Living people can speak, they can be interviewed, and they can describe that azure light to the camera in the refugee camp. One hundred and ninety-two living witnesses, more enduring than any aerial video.

Jiang Ming turned and walked to the sofa, the panel following him. He swiped the Mediterranean monitoring page aside, and the global heat map of suffering was re-unfolded.

As Mirror 2 sat down, a new layer of data popped up, overlaying the heatmap.

"Additional report: In the past 48 hours, the communication density of major intelligence agencies worldwide has increased by 340 percent."

Jiang Ming's finger stopped at the edge of the heat map.

"distributed?"

"Seventy percent of the communications involve keywords related to conceptual weapons manufacturers. The US's Hunter Project, the UK's MI6, the French General Directorate for External Security, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, and the Chinese Ninth Bureau operate independently without overlapping."

Which path leads to Rome?