While working overnight to fix a P0 outage, outsourced operations engineer Su Qingzhao accidentally glimpses the threads of causality underlying the world. It turns out that the fate of every living being is merely a parameter that can be altered in a simulated universe.
Her fellow disciple Lu Zhiyan wields the power to adjust those parameters. Determined to rewrite the baseline of fate and erase all suffering from the world, he fails to realize that even well-intentioned changes can trigger cascading secondary disasters.
Su Qingzhao follows the precepts her grandmother left her: investigate alerts, and change variables with caution. Applying the mindset of an operations engineer troubleshooting system failures, she repairs one causality bug after another. Along the way, she meets Pei Yu of the Quantum Research Institute.
One observes the threads of fate; the other models the laws of physics. Together, they trace the source of the anomalies and face an ideological struggle over compassion and its cost:
Is a perfect world without suffering worth sacrificing everyone's freedom to choose their own fate?
