Behind a thick pane of reinforced glass, Shen Yan saw X-13 for the first time—
A girl.
She looked around fourteen, with boyish short hair that didn't suit her age, dressed in standard prison garb, eyes lowered as if she'd never learned how to meet anyone's gaze.
"My name is Shen Yan," he began gently. "I'm here to help you."
She gave no response, as though she hadn't heard him.
"I've read the full case file," Shen Yan continued. "Your father never appeared in court. Why did you take the fall for him?"
Her eyelids finally flickered. She whispered, "I didn't take the fall. I did it."
"You're lying."
The air dropped a few degrees colder.
Shen Yan didn't press further. Instead, he opened the fate script on the desk and read aloud in a low voice:
> "None of the fingerprints at the crime scene match yours. The murder weapon was too tall for your reach. The key testimony was submitted anonymously by your neighbor. The trial concluded in less than three hours—
Now you tell me. Does that sound reasonable to you?"
For the first time, her eyes trembled.
"…What if I say I wanted to?" she murmured. "He's my father."
"You're saying it's reasonable to go to prison for a murderer?"
"He… he just wanted to protect my little brother. I didn't want him to become a monster too."
Shen Yan froze.
"Your brother?"
She nodded. "He's five. He saw everything. Dad killed someone in front of him. I was afraid that if my brother got dragged into this, he'd learn to solve things with violence… I'd rather carry this fate alone."
For a moment, it felt as if a sigh echoed from deep within the judgment system.
> [Core belief extracted from subject:
"I took the fall for my father so my little brother wouldn't become a monster."
Belief density: High
Fate adhesion level: A-grade]
In Shen Yan's earpiece, Lin Lan's voice chimed in:
> "Damn it. Her fate is self-solidifying. If you don't intervene soon, even if we find an alternate route, her belief will be locked in and uneditable."
Shen Yan glanced down at the script. Sure enough, the "Intervention Permission" line had changed:
Access Level: Restricted – C-grade
He remained silent for three full seconds before standing up.
"I will find real evidence of the murder and overturn this trial."
"You're not taking the fall for your father," he said. "You're taking the fall for fate. But fate is not something you were ever meant to carry."
With that, he left the visitation room, leaving the girl wide-eyed for the first time.
In her gaze was shock—
And something else, a long-buried spark beginning to ignite.
---
[System Notification – Script Backend]
> "Fate Evidence Editing Terminal" Unlocked
Available editing nodes:
— Night of incident (X-13 case)
— Original anonymous testimony from neighbor
— Internal police call log
System Tip: One-time edit permission granted. Use with caution.
---
Meanwhile, in the control chamber, Lin Lan returned to the main console.
She loaded the city's surveillance stream from the night of the incident.
"Let's see where the truth is hiding."
Her irises lit up with a faint blue glow, like circuit lines scanning the neural map of the city.
Several minutes passed. Then she pointed at a frame.
"Here. The murder weapon wasn't found in the girl's kitchen. It was brought over by the father—
to the neighbor's house."
Shen Yan: "So the anonymous testimony… was manipulated."
Lin Lan nodded and brought up a synced timeline.
"Look at this. In the call recording before the neighbor reported the crime, there's a cut segment where someone says, 'He knows too much.' It was deliberately removed from the final audio."
—Someone wanted her to take the blame.
—Someone trimmed the truth into a trap.
Far away, in a shadowed corner of the Fate Editing Bureau, Yinan sat alone, flipping through a different script.
He smiled, muttering to himself:
"So you chose this script after all, Shen Yan."
He turned to the final page.
There, a line was written:
> "No matter how far you run, you'll never rewrite your own fate."
The next page was a file.
Shen Yan's file.
Already—silently—edited by someone else.