Before the rain, the air in Taipei’s Dihua Street was as stifling as a water-logged sponge, pressing heavily against the red-brick rooftops. Even the breeze from the Tamsui River carried a salt-slicked, restless heat.

  By the riverbank embankment, Old Joe sat on moss-mottled stone steps. Beside him stood a boy of seven or eight—the neighbor’s kid from the grocery store. Joe was using a dry twig to trace chaotic yet mathematically rhythmic geometric lines into the parched mud. His voice was low, rasping like an ancient gramophone.

  "Look here," Joe’s finger traced a path through the dirt. "Before the Tamsui River exits through Guandu, it makes a sharp curve right here. In Feng Shui, we call this 'Embracing Water'—a reverse-flow formation. Water is wealth, but it is also Qi—energy. The city’s heart pulses deep beneath Taipei Main Station, but its respiration... is right here, in this blind spot beneath our feet."

  The boy tilted his head, staring at the complex diagrams that looked to him like nothing more than a tangled mess of yarn. He wiped his nose, glancing up at the lead-heavy clouds where a faint, eerie violet glow pulsed. He had no idea what the old man was talking about.

  Seeing the boy’s blank expression, Joe smirked self-deprecatingly and wiped the markings from the mud. "I suppose you wouldn't understand. Forget it. Go home. If the rain catches you, your mother will be chasing you with a broom again."

  Bracing his hands on his knees, he pushed himself up slowly, brushing the dust from his trousers and reaching for the heavy black umbrella leaning against the stone. The boy waved and skipped away toward the end of the alley. Standing alone against the silhouette of that umbrella’s heavy brass handle, Joe looked solitary, ancient.

  He wandered back toward Dihua Street. The Lunar New Year market was in full swing; the narrow lanes were choked with stalls. The scents of Chinese herbs, dried goods, and sweets fermented in the humid air. As he passed near the Xiahai City God Temple, a sudden, crude commotion erupted from the crowd.

  "Thief! Stop that thief!"

  A dark figure shoved through the throng, stumbling toward Joe. As the man lunged past, Joe’s hand holding the umbrella didn't flinch. Instead, his left hand rose in a casual arc, a slip of yellowed paper—faintly fluorescing—clamped between his fingertips.

  If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

  Snap.

  The paper slapped precisely onto the back of the thief’s neck. Immediately, a sharp, microscopic hiss—like a high-voltage capacitive discharge—cut through the air. Zi—

  The thief froze mid-stride. One foot remained suspended in the air, his body forcibly locked by a physical law. A look of terror was calcified on his face; despite his internal struggle, even his eyelashes were immobilized.

  Across the street, at the entrance of the City God Temple, Old Xie was reclining lazily in a tattered rattan chair. Squinting, he smirked. "Tsk, tsk. Using that 'Stasis Method' again, Joe? Careful, or the Eyes Above might lock onto you."

  Joe retracted his hand, not even glancing at the frozen thief. "Watch your temple, Xie. If your City God glitches, we’re all in trouble."

  "Heh, don't you worry about me," Xie chuckled, waving his folding fan.

  Joe didn't respond, turning into a desolate, deep alleyway.

  Watching Joe’s silhouette vanish, the laziness faded from Xie's face. He rose slowly and paced back into the main hall, circling behind the statue of the City God. He reached out, his fingers tapping the mottled back of the deity with a precise, rhythmic frequency. From within the statue came the muffled, metallic snick of gears engaging—ka-tack.

  A faint, ethereal light shimmered. A low hum vibrated through the air as if the entire altar had transformed into a massive, running mainframe.

  In the shadows of the empty shrine, a complex grid of precision circuitry flickered onto the statue's surface. Pale blue light pulses throbbed like veins beneath the stone skin. Simultaneously, the incense smoke in the hall swirled into tiny spirals, as if a data stream were being extracted from the air. Xie looked at the perfectly functioning lines and whispered with a satisfied hum: "Well, I am the City God, after all..."

  At that moment, the sky finally broke.

  Boom— Thunder rolled deep within the clouds. Raindrops the size of beans began to lash the cobblestones of Dihua Street with a frantic patter-patter. Joe snapped open his heavy black umbrella. The fabric tightened with a resonant thump, walling out the deluge.

  He continued deeper into the maze. At the end of the alley stood a two-story house—a blend of Japanese and Western architecture. Its washed-stone walls and dark green wooden window frames were cold and understated, possessed by a texture that felt disconnected from the surrounding space-time.

  Joe looked at the rain-slicked red bricks. To him, the decay and rebirth of these bricks, the rise and fall of this entire city, were but a flicker in a time-lapse. He had stayed in this "Bright Line" for too long—so long he could barely distinguish if he were here to observe the apocalypse, or to grow old alongside it.

  He stopped at the door. Rain dripped from the edge of the sign with a crisp ding-ding. Through the dim curtain of rain, the iron sign bore two words carved in elegant, Slender Gold calligraphy:

  [Momentary]