"It's waking up."
The moment Shen Xiaohe said it, one of the pale blue ring-lights around the isolation bench brightened by a single notch.
Not all at once.
Not in a flash.
It was more like a breath rising slowly from the bottom of deep water—something very far below pushing upward, gently, for the first time.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
The indicator lights across the dark silver companion chamber began blinking at a slow rhythm. Behind the cracked observation panel in the center, the pale blue liquid that had been resting still was starting to ripple outward in thin circles.
As if something inside had turned over.
Nobody in the store moved.
Rain tapped against the glass. Outside the barrier was nothing but wet black cold.
Only the lights inside Mist Convenience remained glaringly bright.
Lin Wu checked the system first.
[Companion Chamber Two activity rising.][Current State: Low-Level Awakening][Warning: Do not subject to violent impact. Do not breach by force. Do not allow direct contact with Sample One.]
Good.
For once, the system was not giving her unknown.
It was giving her three clear prohibitions.
That meant this was still negotiable.
"No one touches it," Lin Wu said.
Her voice wasn't loud. But the moment the words landed, Qin Zheng—who had already shifted half a step forward on instinct—stopped.
Professor Zhou's forehead was slick with sweat. His eyes were locked on the chamber, his voice dry.
"It's not fully awake. It should only be… sensing the anchor."
The moment the word anchor landed, Qi Ye looked at Lin Wu once.
Pei Wan said nothing.
At this point everyone in the store understood what that anchor meant.
Not somewhere else.
Not abstractly.
This store.
Or more precisely—
some already-formed system of rules inside this store.
Shen Xiaohe clutched her sleeve tightly. Her voice was quiet, but shaking badly.
"It was definitely dormant just now."
"Because Sample One has already been taken in." Professor Zhou stared at the observation panel, throat tightening. "They're a pair. Distance doesn't stop them from searching for each other."
Halfway through the sentence, he seemed to realize something and suddenly turned toward the Special Goods Cabinet behind Lin Wu.
The faint silver silhouette behind the gray mist was no longer resting as quietly as before.
It rose once.
Slightly.
Like an answer.
Lin Wu's eyes lifted.
This didn't feel right.
Not a simple response between cargo and cargo.
It felt more like Sample One inside the cabinet and Companion Chamber Two inside the chamber were trying to reconnect something that had once belonged together—
with her store standing in the middle.
She lowered her eyes to the system again.
[Resonance increasing.][Current Result: Controllable.][Notice: If resonance continues to rise, the Special Goods Cabinet may trigger "Display."]
Display?
Lin Wu's gaze sharpened slightly.
At a moment like this, that word sounded nothing like a good sign.
"Professor," she said, lifting her eyes. "If it keeps waking up, what happens?"
Zhou's lips moved once, as though he deeply disliked the answer he was about to give.
Then he gave it anyway.
"In the worst case…"
"…it begins calibrating on its own."
Qin Zheng's voice dropped.
"What does that mean?"
"It means it starts searching for the most suitable door by itself." Zhou's voice grew rougher with every word. "And if it can't find one…"
"…it'll force a try."
The store fell silent for a beat.
But Lin Wu understood immediately.
Force a try translated very simply into—
it would try to use this store as the keyhole by impact.
She tapped the counter once.
Just once.
"Is there a way to make it go back to sleep?"
Professor Zhou started to shake his head—
then stopped halfway.
"There is. But not completely."
"Say it." Lin Wu's voice remained steady.
"Low-temperature suppression can stall it. The injector can stall it. With the isolation bench added in, in theory we can hold it down a little longer." Zhou kept staring at the chamber. "But the only thing that would actually calm it…"
"…is not force."
He swallowed.
"It needs confirmation that the other half is still here."
The instant those words landed, Qin Zheng's face darkened.
Pei Wan frowned too.
"You want Sample One taken back out?" she asked.
"Not taken out!" Zhou reacted like he'd been stabbed with a needle. "It doesn't need physical contact. Sample One just needs to give it a response!"
As soon as the sentence left his mouth, he himself froze—as if only then realizing how insane it sounded.
Hours ago, he wouldn't have believed any of this either.
Sample One had already been "swallowed" into a black cabinet by a convenience store.
And now he was asking for the thing inside that cabinet to respond to the chamber outside.
Lin Wu did not reject the idea immediately.
Because the system had not turned red.
Which meant at the very least, Zhou's line of thought was not suicidal.
She was about to push further when the chamber suddenly made a sound.
Click.
Small.
But enough to pull every nerve in the room taut.
Inside the observation panel, the layer of pale blue liquid slowly shifted aside, revealing a clearer section of the structure within.
It wasn't a person.
Not a corpse.
What it looked like—
was some kind of silver-white framework fixed upright in the chamber's center.
Very narrow.
Very long.
Covered in tiny ring-like metallic joints.
Like a key that had been only half assembled—
and was somehow still breathing.
Su Yu glanced at it once and tightened her hold on Sui Sui immediately.
She had no idea what she was looking at.
That only made the cold in her stomach worse.
Sui Sui was half-awake now and whispered, "Mom… is that a fish?"
Su Yu's lips had gone so pale she couldn't answer at all.
But the moment Professor Zhou saw that internal outline clearly, his face changed again.
"…Damn it," he said hoarsely. "This isn't low-level awakening. It's identifying."
"Identifying who?" Qin Zheng demanded.
Zhou didn't answer at once.
Because right then, the silver-white key skeleton inside the chamber shifted—very slightly—toward a direction.
Not toward Qin Zheng.
Not toward Zhou.
Not toward the Special Goods Cabinet.
It turned toward—
the register.
More precisely—
Lin Wu behind it.
At once, every gaze in the store landed on her.
The air tightened so fast it was almost audible.
Qi Ye stood fully upright.
Inside the rest pod, Xie Lin jerked his head up.
Pei Wan's gaze darkened sharply.
Even Qin Zheng's cold, controlled face changed in a way it had not all night.
Lin Wu herself did not move.
She simply stood there, looking at the chamber, looking at the silver-white framework inside it that had turned like a living thing, and felt nothing but clarity.
Here it was.
She had known all along that before tonight ended, the fire would eventually reach her.
She just hadn't expected it to do so this directly.
The system refreshed rapidly.
[Companion Chamber Two has locked onto primary recognition target.][Target: Store Owner Lin Wu.][Notice: Please proceed with caution.]
Excellent.
Now even the system had stopped pretending.
It named her outright.
"Why is it looking at her?" Qin Zheng's voice had gone completely flat and cold.
Sweat ran from Zhou's temples. His throat worked.
When he finally forced the answer out, it came rough.
"Because it's treating her…"
"…as the door."
The moment the sentence landed, every light in the entire store shivered.
Not a blackout.
Not a failure.
Something subtler.
Like some deeper current running through the building had just been touched by unseen fingers.
At the same instant, the gray mist behind the Special Goods Cabinet flowed faster for a brief second—as if Sample One inside had finally, truly, heard Companion Two calling.
The light in Lin Wu's eyes did not go out.
It grew brighter.
Because by now she understood:
this was no longer a matter of someone wants to seize her or the sample is destabilizing.
It had become something else entirely.
She herself was shifting—
from owner into product.
No.
More valuable than product.
She was the door.
The keyhole.
The place both halves of the key were recognizing.
Qin Zheng took one step forward, and his expression had changed completely.
"Lin Wu."
For the first time tonight, he said her full name.
No longer boss.
No longer seller.
No longer customer.
Now she was a marked target.
Lin Wu lifted her eyes to him, and somehow her tone was still completely even.
"Using my name costs extra."
Qin Zheng: "…"
At a moment like this, Pei Wan still almost laughed. She turned her head just slightly.
This woman was insane in the most stable possible way.
Stable enough that even with the whole situation pressing right against her face, she was still naming prices.
And that very stability kept the scene from truly detonating.
Lin Wu gave no one time to speak again.
She turned first to Zhou Qiming.
"Professor."
"If it recognizes me—"
She glanced once toward the chamber.
"Can I use it back?"
Zhou stared at her.
Qin Zheng stared too.
Even Xie Lin jerked his head up sharply.
In a moment like this, a normal person's first instinct would have been to hide. To panic. To ask whether they were going to die.
Lin Wu asked whether it could be used.
Zhou opened his mouth, but it still took him several seconds before sound came out.
"In theory… if both samples really recognize you, then yes, it may be possible."
He swallowed.
"But that wouldn't be like using a tool."
His voice turned rough.
"It would be more like…"
"…answering a door."
Something in Lin Wu's gaze shifted slightly.
That was enough.
She had heard the part she wanted.
Can use.
Consequences could be priced later.
She looked once at the Special Goods Cabinet, once at the Companion Chamber, and finally lowered her eyes to the monitoring terminal in her hand.
The green status bar that represented her was still there.
Steady.
Not mad.
Not dead.
Still able to quote prices.
Good.
That meant there was still business to be done.
She raised a hand and gently closed the ledger.
"Fine," she said. "Then there's a new rule tonight."
She lifted her eyes and swept them across everyone in the store.
"From this point on—"
"No one gets to treat me like inventory."
"Not before negotiating a price."
Outside, the rain did not stop.
Inside, the store blazed with light.
And on the isolation bench, inside the companion chamber, that silver-white framework shifted the slightest fraction again—
leaning just a little more toward Lin Wu.
As if waiting for her
to truly answer.