In Boston's Morning Light and Before Sony's Blueprint

Spring came to Boston a little later than it did to Paris.

When Su Jin stepped off the private jet, frost from the previous night still lingered on the tarmac at Logan Airport, glittering in the morning light like tiny fragments of diamond.

What she wore today was entirely different from what she had worn in Paris: a cream-white, chunky-knit cropped sweater from Acne Studios, its hem resting just above her waist and revealing a narrow strip of flat midriff;

Below it were light camel, high-waisted wool shorts from The Row, with wide legs that reached mid-thigh and swayed gently as she walked, like two leaves lifted by the wind;

On her feet were dark brown lace-up leather shoes from Church's, thick-soled, with the laces tied loosely enough to show a length of white cotton sock.

Her hair was pulled into a high ponytail and tied with a light camel velvet ribbon, revealing her whole face and the pair of minimalist silver hoops on her earlobes.

A pair of Celine aviator sunglasses sat on her nose, their gold frames and brown lenses concealing half her eyes and brows. But the half they couldn't hide-her cheekbones, nose, and lips-was enough to make several ground crew members on the nearby tarmac forget their work.

Today she wore a subtle Western-style makeup look.

It was neither the bare-faced freshness she had worn at MIT nor the precision Geneviève had painstakingly sculpted for SNL, but something between the two, a beauty with a hint of aggression.

The tails of her brows angled slightly upward, each hair brushed into place with brow gel for a full but orderly texture.

Her eyeshadow was an extremely pale gray-brown, swept only into the creases to deepen the contours of her eyes.

The eyeliner was the focus of the look: a short, crisp curve flicked upward at each outer corner, like a bird at the moment before it left a branch. Her lashes were curled high and coated with two layers of lengthening mascara, each one distinct, casting fine shadows in the sunlight.

Her lips were a matte nude earth tone, creating a subtle harmony of spring and summer with the pale golden color the sun had given the little strip of exposed midriff.

Fang Ying followed behind her, carrying a Goyard tote containing three pairs of Roger Vivier shoes brought back from Paris.

The two walked out of the arrivals hall one after the other and climbed into the black Mercedes-Benz van waiting by the curb.

Su Jin took off her sunglasses, leaned back in her seat, and pulled out her phone.

Little Golden Egg squeezed out of the air and floated before her, its wings fluttering faster than usual, like a bee that had caught the scent of nectar.

[Host! You're wearing eyeliner today! This system noticed! The upward angle of that line is exactly fifteen degrees! The golden ratio! Your eyes were already the finest amber specimens, and now with that eyeliner-this system's optical sensors are almost overloaded!]

Su Jin ignored Little Golden Egg and looked down at the schedule on her phone.

[And you're showing your waist today! This system scanned your waist and abdominal measurements-seventeen percent body fat, a fifty-eight-centimeter waist, and ab-line symmetry of ninety-nine point two percent!

Those figures would be top-tier on any human! But this system knows you still have room to improve! Just keep up your daily core training, and in another three months-]

"Can you say something useful?" Su Jin asked without looking up.

Little Golden Egg's wings stopped for an instant, then began fluttering again. Its tone shifted from starstruck to serious, though a little of the excitement it hadn't managed to put away still lingered beneath the seriousness.

[Of course, Host! Today's schedule: at ten a.m., online auditions for three candidates, all newly signed talents at Huace Starlight. They're auditioning for a supporting actress role in the suspense drama She Comes from the East, the next project after the new film Winter Harbor.

At two p.m., a video meeting with Sony Interactive Entertainment producer Takeshi Yamamoto to discuss game development.

At four p.m., Geneviève, who's in Boston, has brought three Berlin outfits for you to try on-one each for the red carpet, the premiere, and the awards ceremony.

Tomorrow morning, Los Angeles, Disney headquarters. CEO Bob Iger has invited you for coffee.]

Su Jin nodded.

She put her phone away and watched the Boston streets pass outside. The redbrick townhouses on Commonwealth Avenue stood in two neat rows in the morning light, with boxwood and hydrangeas planted outside every one. The hydrangeas had yet to bloom; only the dried flower heads left from the previous winter hung from the branches, surrounded by tender new leaves.

The car stopped outside number 217. She pushed the door open and got out, with Fang Ying following behind.

She climbed the five granite steps, took out her key, and opened the black oak door.

At ten that morning, Su Jin sat in a chair in her study, three video windows lined up on the screen before her. Three young women were at Huace Starlight's branch offices in Beijing, Shanghai, and Hengdian, each with a computer and an open script in front of her.

Su Jin was dressed casually today in a gray Ralph Lauren crewneck sweatshirt. Her hair was down, loose over her shoulders, and she still wore the subtle Western-style makeup from when she'd gone out. The short, clean flicks of eyeliner at the corners of her eyes remained sharp in the screen's cold light.

She hadn't changed clothes or removed her makeup. She simply sat there, like a director who had just hurried back from a set, still carrying the lingering warmth of the previous shot.

The first to come in was a round-faced young woman, twenty-four, a graduate of the Central Academy of Drama. Her résumé said she "excelled at playing gentle yet resilient female characters."

Su Jin asked her to read a passage from She Comes from the East: a Chinese American journalist in a Los Angeles police station, trying to explain her missing sister's life in China to an American police officer.

The young woman read it well. Her voice was gentle, and her eyes reddened, but no tears fell.

Su Jin listened, then was silent for two seconds. "Have you cried?" she asked. The young woman froze for a moment, then shook her head.

"Then why are your eyes red?" The young woman opened her mouth but said nothing.

"This character doesn't cry," Su Jin said. "Her sister has been missing for three months, and she's cried for a hundred days. By the hundredth day, her tears have dried up. There are no tears in her eyes now, only fire. Go back and read it again. When you're done, tell me what color fire you see."

The young woman nodded, and her window went dark.

The second to come in was a tall, slender woman, twenty-five, a graduate of the directing department at the Shanghai Theatre Academy. She hadn't trained as an actress, but she had played supporting roles in three art films.

Her beauty wasn't sweet or pleasing in the usual way. It had sharp edges that made people want to look again: high cheekbones, a sharply angled jaw, and thin lips whose corners turned down slightly when pressed together, as if she were holding something back.

Su Jin asked her to read the same passage. After she finished, the young woman was silent for a long time, then said, "Red fire. Not a bright, crackling red, but a smothered red that can't catch. Like charcoal. Gray on the surface, hot underneath."

Su Jin looked at her for about five seconds.

"What's your name?"

The young woman said, "Zhou Di."

Su Jin wrote her name in her notebook.

"Zhou Di, go back and read the complete script. In three days, tell me whether you'll take the role."

The young woman nodded, and her window went dark.

The third to come in was a pretty young woman with long hair falling over her shoulders and features as delicate as a porcelain doll's. She habitually tilted her head slightly when she spoke. Su Jin asked her to read the passage, and when she finished, Su Jin said, "Thank you. We'll be in touch." The young woman left.

Su Jin closed the screen, leaned back in her chair, and drew a circle beside Zhou Di's name in her notebook.

At two that afternoon, Su Jin changed rooms.

The light in the study was too harsh for a video meeting.

She went to the living room and sat on the dark gray suede sofa, with a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows behind her. Outside stood the old oak tree in the back garden, its new leaves already grown in. Their tender green was almost transparent in the afternoon sun, like slices of thinly cut jade.

She changed into a light blue cotton shirt from Loro Piana, with two buttons undone at the collar, revealing her collarbones and the pendant of her Buccellati Opera necklace. She still wore the light camel, high-waisted wool shorts from The Row, but had changed into a pair of white cotton socks. She sat cross-legged on the sofa with her laptop on her knees.

Fang Ying brewed a pot of jasmine tea in the kitchen and brought it over to the coffee table. The fragrance spread through the air, carrying a faint sweetness of honey.

The screen lit up.

Takeshi Yamamoto sat in his Tokyo office, an entire wall of game-character designs behind him: samurai, ninja, and mechanical armor, all in vivid colors and sharp lines.

He was in his early forties, wearing a black polo shirt. His hair was cut very short, with a few white strands at his temples, and he wore rimless glasses. As he spoke, he habitually tapped his fingers on the desk, making the screen tremble slightly with every tap.

"Ms. Su," he said, his English carrying the rhythm of Japanese, every syllable pronounced clearly, as though measured with a ruler before being released,

"Ethan told me about your idea. Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, AAA, global release. I'm very interested. But I need to know-why do you want to make this?"

Su Jin leaned back on the sofa and tapped her fingers lightly on her knee, matching the rhythm of his earlier tapping exactly.

"Because Liaozhai isn't a collection of ghost stories,"

she said. "Liaozhai is stories about people. Pu Songling wrote about foxes, flower spirits, painted skins, and corpses coming back to life, but those things were never what he was writing about. He was writing about people. Scholars who failed in the imperial examination system, women bound by Confucian propriety, ordinary people too poor to eat their fill who still dreamed in broad daylight.

"He wrote people as ghosts and ghosts as people.

"That reversal, that metaphor, that deepest insight into human nature hidden beneath tales of the supernatural-I want the whole world to see it."

Takeshi looked at her, his fingers stilling on the desk. "You've read the original?"

"I have. More than once. The first time I read it for the stories, the second for the people, the third for Pu Songling. The third time, I cried."

Takeshi raised an eyebrow.

"Which story?" he asked.

Su Jin lowered her head, her fingers unconsciously tracing circles on her knee.

"'Nie Xiaoqian.' Not the love story from the film, but the Nie Xiaoqian in the original.

"She was forced by a monster to harm people. She didn't want to, but she had no choice. She met Ning Caichen, a poor scholar who was neither greedy for money nor lustful. He spent the night sitting under her painted eaves. She tempted him with gold, but he refused it; she tempted him with her beauty, but he was unmoved.

"Later, she told Ning Caichen, 'You're the first person to treat me like a human being.' A ghost only came to life when someone treated her like a person.

"What Pu Songling wrote in that story wasn't love. It was dignity."

Takeshi was silent for a long time.

On the other side of the screen, the sky outside his window in Tokyo had already darkened. The game-character designs behind him gradually blurred in the dusk, leaving only their vivid colors faintly visible.

"How do you want to do it?" he asked.

Su Jin shifted the laptop a little on her knees and leaned forward slightly.

"Three protagonists. Not three stories, but one story from three perspectives.

"The first protagonist is a Ning Caichen-style scholar-a destitute village teacher who has spent his life sitting the imperial examinations without passing a single one.

"He meets a female ghost who doesn't harm him but helps him instead. He thinks it's love, then discovers that she helps him because she sees herself in him. Both are trapped in some kind of system, both want out, and neither can escape.

"The second protagonist is a Nie Xiaoqian-style female ghost-a woman her family offered to a powerful man. After she died, she became a ghost still controlled by that same powerful man.

"She wants to escape, but she doesn't know where she could go if she did. She meets a scholar who covets neither her money nor her beauty and simply spends a night sitting under her painted eaves. That night, for the first time, she feels like a person.

"The third protagonist is a Yan Chixia-style Daoist-a man who has spent his life catching ghosts. Then one day, he suddenly discovers that those ghosts are more human than many of the people he's met.

"He begins to question whether what he's doing is right or wrong.

"Three perspectives, three threads, intertwining, colliding, and separating within the same story.

"In the end, the scholar doesn't pass the imperial examinations, the ghost isn't reincarnated, and the Daoist doesn't give up catching ghosts.

"But when the three of them are together, in that ruined temple, beneath that oil lamp on the verge of going out, they know there are things in this world more important than the examinations, reincarnation, or catching ghosts."

Takeshi's fingers began tapping the desk again.

This time it wasn't an unconscious rhythm. It was the kind of tapping that came when someone was thinking, their fingers running in place of their brain.

Once, twice, and again.

"This story," he said, "isn't a conventional AAA game script. AAA games need combat, leveling, equipment, and skill trees. What does your story have?"

The corners of Su Jin's lips curved slightly.

"There's combat. The scholar and the ghost fight their inner demons; the Daoist fights his own beliefs.

"There's leveling. The scholar goes from 'Why can't I pass?' to 'Why do I need to pass?' The ghost goes from 'I want to come back to life' to 'I want to live like a person, just once.' The Daoist goes from 'All ghosts are evil' to 'A good ghost deserves to live more than a bad person.'

"There's even equipment. The scholar's equipment is his brush, the ghost's is her memories, and the Daoist's is his sword-but that sword isn't for killing ghosts. It's for cutting through the hesitation in his own heart.

"I have skill trees too. What the scholar learns isn't magic, but how to see; what the ghost learns isn't the art of seduction, but how to trust; what the Daoist learns isn't stronger sword techniques, but compassion."

Takeshi looked at her for a long time.

Outside, Tokyo had gone completely dark. The game-character designs behind him disappeared into the dusk, leaving only Su Jin's face on the screen-her light blue shirt, the platinum necklace at her collarbone, and the eyeliner she had applied that morning, still unsmudged.

"Why do you make games?" he asked. "For money? For fame? To prove you can?"

Su Jin thought for a moment.

Sunlight filtered through the leaves of the old oak outside, casting scattered, shifting flecks of light across her shirt.

She lowered her head and watched those flecks for a while, then looked up.

"So that someone will play it and then go look at the original text of Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio. Not for scholarship, not to write a paper, but just to see what Pu Songling actually wrote.

"Then he opens it and discovers the original is even better than the game. Then he turns to the second story, the third, the fourth.

"Then he discovers that three hundred years ago, there was an old man from Shandong who was dirt poor and spent his whole life failing the imperial examinations, but wrote some of the finest stories in the world.

"Then he thinks, maybe failing the examinations isn't such a big deal. Maybe being poor isn't such a big deal either. Maybe I can write something too."

Takeshi's fingers stopped.

He leaned back in his chair, took off his glasses, rubbed the bridge of his nose, and put them back on.

"Ms. Su," he said, "are you making games to change the world?"

Su Jin shook her head.

"Not to change the world. To change one person. That person sits in front of a screen for thirty hours, finishes the game, and then goes and opens a book. That's enough."

Takeshi was silent for a long time.

Then he smiled, very faintly, the corners of his mouth curving like someone striking a match in the dark: a hiss, a flash, and then gone.

"All right. Let's make it," he said.

"I'll go back and write the proposal. I'll show it to you in three months."

Su Jin nodded.

"I'll be waiting for your proposal."

She paused. "Oh, and for the game's music, I want to use traditional Chinese instruments. Guqin, pipa, dizi, xiao. No orchestra underneath it, no Hollywood-style epic feel. This story doesn't need to feel epic.

"What it needs is the sound of someone sitting in a ruined temple while rain falls outside and the oil lamp is nearly out, writing by its light a story no examiner will ever see.

"That kind of sound. Lonely, quiet, but you know it will live a long time. Longer than the examiner, longer than the imperial examinations, longer than that dynasty."

Takeshi looked at her and nodded. The screen went dark.

At four that afternoon, Geneviève appeared at the door of 217 Commonwealth Avenue on time.

She wore a black Maison Margiela work jacket with several combs and a pair of scissors tucked into its pockets, and carried an enormous black suitcase. Its wheels rumbled heavily and rhythmically over the granite steps.

Fang Ying opened the door for her. Geneviève pushed the suitcase into the living room and opened it, revealing three outfits wrapped snugly in black velvet garment bags.

Su Jin had changed and was waiting for her on the living-room sofa.

She had taken off the light blue shirt and put on an oatmeal-colored knit cardigan from The Row. She still wore the light camel shorts and the same white cotton socks.

She sat cross-legged on the sofa, a cup of jasmine tea that had gone cold on her knees, her hair loose.

The eyeliner was still there. After a full day of oxidation, its color had darkened somewhat since morning, changing from pure black to a warm-toned charcoal gray, like a mark left when a finger smudges charcoal pencil on paper.

Geneviève took the three outfits out of their garment bags one by one and hung them on a rack.

The first was a silver-white beaded gown from Chanel's haute couture atelier, designed by Virginie Viard and cut by Madame Lefèvre herself. Four hundred hours of work had gone into it. Tiny crystals and pearls were embroidered across the silver-white satin, scattered like stars in the night sky, clustered into a Milky Way in some places and sparse as an empty wilderness in others.

The neckline was asymmetrical, with a slender strap on the left and a bare shoulder on the right. The curve from collarbone to shoulder blade was fully exposed, like a carefully composed photograph in which the empty space had more power than the filled.

The A-line skirt flared out from the waist to the ankles. Crystals and pearls refracted tiny points of light under the lamps, as though a whole gownful of stars were moving. This was the red-carpet gown.

The second was a long black velvet gown, a reproduction from Dior's 1947 New Look collection. Madame Lefèvre had borrowed it from the Dior archives, solely for the Berlin premiere.

Its fitted waist was cinched extremely narrow, while the skirt spread wide as an inverted flower, reaching the ankles. A deep V-neck plunged below the bust, exposing a broad expanse of skin and her collarbones.

Under the lights, the black velvet had a deep sheen, like the darkest part of the night made solid.

This was the premiere gown.

The third was a white silk-satin suit jacket with matching wide-leg trousers, from Saint Laurent's bespoke atelier. The jacket had sharp shoulders, a tightly fitted waist, and a slightly flared hem that formed a crisp bell shape;

The wide-leg trousers had straight creases and fell to the tops of the feet, paired with silver, slender-strapped high-heeled sandals.

The whole look was as clean as a sheet of paper that had never been written on, but it wasn't the cleanness of emptiness. It was the cleanness of a page filled and then erased, leaving only a faint pencil mark.

This was the awards-ceremony outfit.

Su Jin stood and walked to the rack, looking over each outfit in turn.

She stood before the long black velvet gown for a long time, gazing at its deep V-neck and imagining herself wearing it on the premiere red carpet in Berlin, her collarbones and chest exposed to the cold February wind. But she wouldn't be cold-Geneviève would have a shawl ready for her, one that wouldn't appear in any photograph but would be draped over her shoulders just when she needed it.

"Silver-white for the red carpet," Geneviève said, standing behind her with her arms folded.

"Black for the premiere, white for the awards. That order can't be changed."

"The red carpet is about making an appearance; you want people to remember your face, so silver-white suits your complexion best. The premiere is about the film; you want people to forget your face and remember only Lin, so black draws you into itself. The awards ceremony is a summing-up. White-means a fresh start."

Su Jin nodded.

She did not try them on. She simply stood there, watching the three gowns shine with their own silent, quiet light beneath the lamps.

She knew they would fit.

Madame Lefèvre had taken her measurements, and Geneviève had studied her posture. They knew where her body needed to be held close, where it needed room, and where to leave an opening so her breath could flow freely in and out.

She did not need to try them on. She only needed to stand there and let them look at her.

They looked, they remembered, and then they would wait for her.

Wait for her to step into them beneath the lights in Berlin, to take them from their hangers and put them on, until they became her skin, her silhouette, the way everyone would remember her that night.

Five

Early the next morning, Su Jin's private plane landed at Burbank Airport in Los Angeles.

As she came down the steps, the California sunshine wrapped her whole body in a golden quilt, as though someone had flung it down from the sky.

She wore a white cotton dress by Khaite that day, two finger-widths above the knee, with a square neckline and puffed sleeves. The cotton was soft and limp in the way it only became after many washes, and against her skin it felt like a layer of air steeped in sunshine.

On her feet were white Roger Vivier sneakers, the fluorescent green lines across their uppers especially striking in the California sun.

Her hair was tied in a low ponytail, and she wore no makeup-but in the California sunshine, her appearance had a quality even lovelier than makeup. Sunlight shone through her skin, and a faint blue-gray lay over her cheekbones, left by the overnight flight and jet lag, like a drop of water spilled by accident on xuan paper, transparent at the edges and dark in the middle.

Disney's headquarters stood on South Buena Vista Street in Burbank, an understated modernist building with a grid of glass and gray stone across its facade. There was no Disney logo anywhere, only a small bronze-colored statue of Mickey Mouse by the entrance, perhaps a meter tall, shining in the sun.

Su Jin paused at the entrance and looked down at Mickey Mouse.

She remembered the year she was fifteen, when the orphanage had organized a trip to Shanghai Disney. She had not gone. Places were limited, and the teachers had given them to the younger children.

She had stood behind the orphanage's iron gate, watching the bus drive away as dust swirled in the sunlight, slowly settling over the tops of her shoes.

She looked down at the dust and drew a circle on the ground with the tip of her shoe, then drew two ears inside it-a picture of Mickey Mouse's head.

The wind blew the picture away, and she squatted down and drew it again.

Now, standing in the Burbank sunshine, she looked down at the Mickey Mouse statue, less than a meter tall, and the corners of her mouth curved upward.

Bob Iger was waiting for her in a small conference room on the second floor. It was not a large room: a long table, a few chairs, and a whiteboard covered with charts about streaming user growth.

Iger was thinner in person than he looked in photographs. He wore a light blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his forearms, revealing arms tanned a light wheat color.

He stood, came around the table, and shook Su Jin's hand.

"Ms. Su," he said, "you have a packed schedule. Boston yesterday, Los Angeles today, Berlin tomorrow. I traveled like that when I was young, too. After a year, I was tired of it."

Su Jin sat down across from him.

"I'm young," she said, raising an eyebrow. "I'm not tired."

Iger laughed.

He picked up a folder from the table and opened it. Inside were several pages of printed material.

He slid it in front of Su Jin. "What shall we talk about? Your films? Your games? Your island? Or all your-other things?"

Su Jin glanced at the pages.

The first was a summary of all the assets in her name, from her shares in Poly to her shares in Netflix, from Huace Starlight to Windbreaking Pictures, from her villa in Boston's Back Bay to her estate in Beverly Hills, from the private island in Tetiaroa to the registration documents for her furniture brand.

Each item had a number beside it, ending in a string of zeros.

"Disney wants to work with me," she said. It was a statement, not a question.

Iger leaned back in his chair and looked at her. "Not a partnership. An invitation. We'd like to invite you to join Disney's board of directors."

Su Jin looked at him without speaking.

After a while, she raised her head. "Why?"

Iger rested his hands on the table and interlaced his fingers.

"Because you show up in places where you shouldn't be able to show up at the same time. The board needs that kind of perspective."

Su Jin leaned back in her chair and looked at the sunlight outside the window.

A shaft of light came through the slats of the blinds and fell right across her knee, warm as an invisible hand.

"What does Disney want to do?" she asked.

"Tell Asian stories," Iger said. "Not Asian stories that have been translated, packaged, and 'internationalized.' Real, homegrown stories that make Asians feel, 'This is about us,' and make people in Europe and America feel, 'So their stories can be this good, too.'

"We have the people, the money, and the channels for global distribution. But we don't have you."

Su Jin lowered her head and looked at the warm patch of light on her knee.

She reached out and placed her fingers in it, watching the thin layer of pink on her nails glow translucent in the sun.

"I don't do boards," she said.

"I make content. Let me make content, and I'll stay. Put me on the board, and I'm going back to Boston."

Iger looked at her and fell silent for a long time.

Then he smiled faintly, the corners of his mouth curving upward.

"All right. You make content. What shall we make?"

Su Jin drew her fingers out of the patch of light, placed both hands on the table, and leaned forward slightly.

"An animated film. Based on ancient Chinese mythology.

"Not Kung Fu Panda, not Hua Mulan-those are all scraps from the edges of Chinese culture.

"I want the core.

"Nüwa Mending Heaven, Chang'e flying to the moon, Yu the Great taming the floods.

"A person facing the collapse of the sky, the moon, the floodwaters-what she thought, what she chose, how she survived.

"Then, after children all over the world have seen it, they'll know China has more than kung fu and pandas. It also has a woman who mended the sky, a woman who flew to the moon, and a man who tamed the floods.

"And those people who stand between heaven and earth, between gods and humans, between despair and hope."

Iger looked at her for a long time.

Outside the window, the California sunshine filtered through the slats of the blinds, casting parallel bars of golden light across her white dress like an open golden fan.

He nodded.

"All right. Let's do it."

He held out his hand, and Su Jin took it.

Their hands clasped in the afternoon sunlight, the grip neither too firm nor too light, the moment neither too long nor too short. Then they let go.

Su Jin stood, picked up her bag, and walked to the door. She turned back.

"Oh, and the animated film-I don't want a voice actress for the heroine. I'll play her myself."

Iger stared at her.

"It's an animated film. How are you going to play her?"

The corners of Su Jin's mouth curved upward. "You'll find out when the time comes."

She pushed the door open and walked out.

The corridor was quiet. Sunlight poured in through the floor-to-ceiling window at the far end, turning the whole corridor into a golden tunnel.

She walked through that tunnel, her footsteps absorbed by the carpet, as quiet as a stroll through a world where no one was awake.

[Host! Just now, when you said, "You'll find out when the time comes," this system detected that the corners of your mouth rose fifteen degrees! Exactly the same angle as yesterday's eyeliner! This system now suspects your mouth and your eyeliner are connected to the same network!]

Su Jin ignored it and put her phone away.

[And today you wore a white dress and white sneakers to Disney headquarters to talk to the CEO about Nüwa Mending Heaven!

This system thinks you're more like a Disney princess than a Disney princess! Not the kind who waits to be rescued, but the kind who-mends the sky when it falls, flies to the moon when it's far away, and tames the floodwaters when they come!]

Su Jin reached the end of the corridor and pushed open the door leading outside.

The California sunshine rushed toward her, turning her white dress a dazzling, blinding white.

She stood in the doorway, squinting at the distant hills. A solitary oak tree stood on one of them, its crown swaying gently in the wind.

[Host, what are you thinking about?]

She stood there for a while, then spoke.

"That island. Marlon Brando's island. He lived there for thirty years, planted coconuts, raised sea turtles, and wrote an autobiography that he stopped writing halfway through. On that island, he learned not to prove himself.

"I'm wondering when I'll learn."

[You won't.]

Su Jin lowered her head and looked at the round, winged golden icon on her phone screen. "Why?"

[Because you're the kind of person who never stops. But that's all right. This system won't stop either.

This system will follow you all the way, watching you Mending Heaven, watching you fly to the moon, watching you tame the floods.

Watching you turn everything impossible into "You'll find out when the time comes."]

Su Jin looked at the line of text, and the corners of her mouth curved upward.

She slipped her phone into her pocket, walked down the steps, and got into the car waiting by the curb.

As the car door closed, she took one last look at the glass doors of Disney headquarters. The Mickey Mouse statue by the entrance, less than a meter tall, shone in the sunlight.

The picture of Mickey Mouse's head she had drawn on the ground with the tip of her shoe when she was fifteen had been blown away by the wind.

This one wouldn't be.

It stood in the Burbank sunshine, behind her, in the place she was about to leave. After she had gone far away, it would still stand there, remembering for her

-that she had been here, and that she was going to those games that had yet to be made, those films that had yet to be shot, those stories that had yet to be written.

To the place she meant to go.