At minute fifteen, the line dipped below 20% durability. Li Wei held his breath. At minute thirty, the Taimen jumped. For a single, perfect frame, its bronze-and-silver flank eclipsed the gray sky. It was longer than a man. Its jaw was a cruel hook.

"Come on…" Li Wei whispered, his fingers slamming the 'H' key to set the hook.

Wei closed his eyes for a second. He imagined he wasn't in Shenzhen. He was there, on the bank. The cold air burning his lungs. The smell of pine and silt. The weight of a monster at the end of his arm.

His phone buzzed. A WeChat message from his guild leader, "Old_Wang."

Not a tap. Not a nibble. A violent, absolute void where the red-and-white float used to be.

"The biggest one yet," Li Wei said softly. "But there's always a bigger one."

The game’s ambient sound—the groan of shifting ice, the distant bark of a sea lion—filled his room. He adjusted his drag to 4.5 kg. He cast. And he waited.

The fight lasted forty-seven minutes.