Guarding the Hidden Line

A war is being fought in places you cannot see.

In 2038, the Anglo Sphere (A.C.) rules the global market of ideas through algorithmic dominance. Its “Formatting Plan” uses AI as its blade, altering historical texts, deepfaking ancient books, conditioning aesthetic standards, and wiping out cultural diversity. Its aim is not to conquer land, but to make a civilization forget who it is.

The Huaxia Sphere (S.C.) is on the defensive. On the surface, it retreats again and again. But it has one trump card, known to only a handful of people.

It is a system passed down for 2,300 years.

It is called “The Keepers.”

Four people, four different identities, with nothing to connect them.

Su Ci: a top-tier star online for her cybersecurity expertise, and the Ministry of Public Security’s most trusted outside technical consultant. Her IQ is close to 150, and her capacity for empathy is nearly zero. She lives alone, suffers from insomnia, and trusts only code.

Gu Chuan: one of the youngest senior police inspectors in the Ministry of Public Security’s Criminal Investigation Bureau. Tough as iron. Five years ago, her mentor died in a “traffic accident” while investigating the smuggling of ancient books. She has never believed it was an accident.

Lu Zhian: an analyst in the Ministry of State Security’s counter-economic espionage division. Her file says she died in the line of duty. She is alive in the shadows, writing encrypted annotations for the Classic of Mountains and Seas.

Han Ling: a captain in the Strategic Support Force’s cyberspace operations bureau. From a military family, she entered the National University of Defense Technology at sixteen. During one operation, she almost succeeded. Only the final step remained.

Then one day, each of them received a letter from “The Nameless One.”

No one knew who the Nameless One was.

They did not know if the sender was a man or a woman, or what they had been through