The smell of solder flux clung to Lin Zichen's fingertips like incense, metallic and sharp in the humid Guiyang evening. He bent over the radio chassis spread across their kitchen table, its copper innards gleaming under the single bare bulb. The short-wave set was destined for export—another anonymous brick that would carry Voice of America to some distant shore—but tonight it served a different purpose.
"Almost done," he murmured, not looking up as his wife Li Wenyue settled beside him with two cups of jasmine tea. Her shadow fell across his work, but he didn't mind. Six months of marriage and he still felt lucky when she chose to sit close enough for him to catch the scent of her hair oil.
Wenyue watched his hands move with practiced precision, tweezers picking at circuits barely visible in the dim light. "The factory supervisor won't notice you borrowed this?"
"Supervisor Chen thinks I'm stupid enough to take home defective units for practice." Zichen's smile was wolfish. "He's not entirely wrong. This one had a blown capacitor—would have failed quality control anyway. But now..."
He made a final adjustment and clicked the power switch. Static hissed from the speaker, then cleared into the unmistakable opening notes of Teresa Teng's "The Moon Represents My Heart"—broadcast from Hong Kong and technically illegal to receive on the mainland.
Wenyue's hand found his shoulder, squeezing gently. "Little Lin, you're going to get us both sent for reeducation."
"Let them try. I married an accountant. You'll have our food expenses calculated down to the fen before they finish reading the charges."
She laughed, the sound bright against the radio's warm crackling. Outside their one-room apartment, the night market was coming alive—vendors hawking everything from steamed buns to knock-off watches, their voices weaving together into the symphony of a country learning to want things it wasn't supposed to have.
Zichen reached for his tea and froze. Wenyue's reflection wavered in the cup's surface like heat shimmer, but the evening was cool. He glanced at her, then back at the tea. Normal. When he looked up, she was staring past him at something he couldn't see.
"Wenyue?"
Her pupils had dilated despite the light, and she swayed slightly in her chair. For a terrifying moment he thought she might be having some kind of seizure. Then her hand pressed against her still-flat belly, and understanding struck him like a wrench to the chest.
"The baby," she whispered. "Something's... different."
"Different how? Should we go to the clinic?"
But she was rising, drawn toward the small mirror hung beside their bed. Her fingers traced its surface as if it were liquid, and Zichen could swear he saw ripples follow her touch.
"There's light," she said. "Behind the glass. Can you see it?"
He saw only their reflection—himself half-risen from his chair, her face pale with wonder or fear. "Wenyue, you're scaring me."
She pressed harder against the mirror's surface. Her hand should have stopped at the glass. Instead, her fingers disappeared up to the second knuckle, as if the mirror were made of cold water.
"I can feel air," she breathed. "Moving air, from somewhere else."
Zichen lunged forward to grab her wrist, but she was already stepping through. The mirror's surface parted around her like a curtain, and Li Wenyue—his wife of six months, carrying their first child in a country that would allow them only one—vanished into silver light.
The radio kept playing Teresa Teng while he stood there, hand outstretched toward empty glass, wondering if he'd finally lost his mind to too many nights breathing solder fumes.
Then the mirror went dark, and all he could hear was static.
The first thing Wenyue noticed was the smell—not the familiar cocktail of coal smoke and cooking oil that hung over Guiyang, but something green and wild, like the mountains after rain. The second was the cold. Wind cut through her cotton jacket as if it were made of paper, carrying scents she couldn't name and the distant sound of... bells?
She stood on cobblestones worn smooth by countless feet, surrounded by buildings that seemed to lean toward each other conspiratorially. Paper lanterns swayed overhead, their light painting everything in shades of amber and gold. The architecture was wrong—not wrong exactly, but old in a way that made her think of dynasty-period dramas, all upturned eaves and carved wooden screens.
A child's scream cut through the evening air.
Wenyue turned toward the sound, her accountant's mind automatically cataloging details: narrow alley, poor lighting, multiple escape routes. A little girl, maybe seven years old, cowered against a wall while three older boys circled her with sticks. The girl's clothes were little more than rags, her face streaked with dirt and what looked like dried blood.
The boys were laughing.
Something hot and protective flared in Wenyue's chest—the same feeling that had made her step through an impossible mirror. She moved before conscious thought could intervene.
"Hey!" Her voice cracked like a whip across the alley. "Get away from her!"
The boys turned, sizing up this strange woman in odd clothes. The largest one, perhaps twelve, sneered and raised his stick. "Mind your own business, foreign sow."
Foreign. That was interesting. Wenyue filed it away and kept walking toward them, her hands loose at her sides. Six months of marriage to Zichen had taught her that confidence could bridge a lot of gaps, and right now she felt more confident than she had any right to be.
"Last chance," she said mildly. "Walk away."
The boy swung his stick at her head.
The world seemed to slow. Wenyue watched the wood arc toward her and felt something shift inside her chest—not her heart, but something deeper, like gears engaging in a machine she hadn't known she possessed. Her left hand moved without her permission, catching the stick mid-swing. Her right hand found the boy's throat.
She wasn't holding him hard enough to hurt, but he couldn't move. None of them could move, she realized with distant amazement. They stood frozen like figures in a photograph, eyes wide with shock that was rapidly shading toward terror.
"I said walk away." Her voice was still mild, conversational. "I won't say it again."
She released the boy and stepped back. He stumbled, gasping, then turned and ran with his friends close behind. Their footsteps echoed off the alley walls until distance swallowed the sound.
Wenyue looked down at her hands. They looked the same as always, but she could swear she felt something flowing beneath the skin—warm currents that definitely hadn't been there an hour ago.
The little girl was still pressed against the wall, staring up at her with eyes like dark coins. When Wenyue knelt down, the child flinched.
"It's all right," Wenyue said gently. "They're gone. What's your name?"
The girl's mouth moved, but no sound came out. After a moment she pressed her lips together and shook her head.
"You can't speak, or you won't?"
A pause, then the girl pointed to her own throat and shook her head again. Can't.
Wenyue felt her heart clench. This thin, dirty child reminded her so powerfully of the baby she carried that it was almost physically painful. A baby that would grow up in a world of quotas and permissions, where having a second child could mean fines, job loss, forced sterilization.
Where children disappeared into state institutions and emerged broken.
"Well," she said, settling more comfortably on the cobblestones, "I'm Li Wenyue. And I think I'm very lost."
The girl's eyes flickered with what might have been sympathy. She pointed down the alley, then at herself, then mimed walking.
"You want to show me around?" Wenyue smiled. "I'd like that. But first, are you hurt?"
The girl shook her head, though Wenyue could see bruises forming on her arms. Then, hesitantly, the child reached out and touched Wenyue's hand. Her skin was fever-warm and callused beyond her years.
Something passed between them at that touch—not words exactly, but understanding. This girl was alone in a way that went deeper than just being orphaned. She was forgotten, discarded, left to fend for herself in a world that saw her as less than worthless.
Not on Wenyue's watch.
"Come on then," she said, rising and offering her hand again. "Let's find out where we are. And maybe get you some proper food."
The girl took her hand with the solemnity of a treaty being signed. As they walked toward the mouth of the alley, Wenyue felt that strange warm current pulse stronger in her chest. Whatever was happening to her body, whatever this place was, she would figure it out.
She had a family to protect now. Both the child in her womb and this silent girl walking beside her.
The bells kept ringing in the distance, calling her toward a destiny written in script she couldn't yet read.
[System Notification]
Border-Walker Rank achieved through spatial turbulence exposure.
Body Method: Mortal Strengthening initiated.
Dao Slots available: 1
Congratulations, Cultivator. Your journey begins now.
The translucent blue panel flickered at the edge of Wenyue's vision for exactly three seconds, just long enough for her to read it and wonder if pregnancy hallucinations were more vivid than she'd expected. Then it vanished, leaving her with nothing but the warm feeling in her chest and a child's small hand in hers.
Behind them, the mirror-portal shimmered once in the mouth of the alley, then faded to ordinary stone.
In Guiyang, Lin Zichen sat alone with a cooling cup of tea and a radio that had started picking up signals from places that weren't supposed to exist.