In the Sky Dome era, stand-ins on the outsourced crews didn't even deserve half a second of bandwidth for their names. Xie Wuxuan had been on the roster for three years as number T-73. She had no face, only a back. She was born able to see the colors of emotions in other people. The more pure white she saw, the higher her resonance value. But when too many people were around, fine needles stabbed at her temples until she suffered ringing ears and nausea. At the Echo Training Camp, when she was fourteen, six adults watched her through the glass and wrote down a single sentence: The data can be output, but she can't perform. Now the qualification exam would keep only the top thirty, and the climactic, thirty-seven-step high-altitude stand-in role had fallen to her. The moment the number-one camera turned, she gritted her teeth and suppressed the stiffness in her body. Below the stage, the resonance value was ticking upward, waiting for a flashpoint that would make her blush bright red. But just as she took her seventh step, the gaze from across the stage had already changed color.
