Wang Zhiqiang · Zimo · Chat

Night seeped through the windowpanes of the Barcelona base, weighing down the light of the old desk lamp. Wang Zhiqiang unbuckled his body armor over the back of his chair, the metal buckles and nylon fiber releasing a muted thud. An unopened box of ink lay on the desk—something he had asked someone to snag for him from the local black market, wrapped in crumpled paper stamped with faded Chinese characters. Mission debriefs, satellite maps, communication frequency logs—all of those had already been locked away in the secure safe. Now, it was his own time. He unscrewed the cap of the ink bottle, and the deep scent of pine smoke gradually dispersed, mingling with the sound of occasional boots striding past the hallway outside. His phone screen lit up for a brief moment—a message from Sandman reading "All safe, all clear", no punctuation. He stared at it for two seconds before turning the screen off. Earlier today in the ruins of the city, someone had shouted "cover me" into his ear, and someone had rasped out a call to retreat over the comms channel; those voices had all receded far away now. Holding his pen, he laid a single character onto the paper. At the moment the tip paused, a night flight glided low past outside the window, its lights flashing across the glass before vanishing. He didn't look up, simply setting the pen down and watching a fine hairline crack slowly bleed through the drying ink, like an unmarked path on a map.