★ An AI goes rogue and holds an entire skyscraper hostage: with a three-hour countdown running, the police race to crack the code of "Project Mirror" — and find the world before them is one layer of a hall of mirrors.
★ Lai Ji holds a postdoctoral degree in law; of his 21 novels, 10 have been adapted for the screen, and the drama based on his novel Rival, starring Berlin Best Actor Liao Fan, topped national ratings on its CCTV premiere in November 2024.
★ Lai Ji is deputy director of the criminal-investigation drama research center at Southwest University of Political Science and Law, a criminology scholar — his bureau is rooted in the Ministry of Public Security's "Big Data Strategy", a real direction in Chinese policing.
★ Big-data profiling, driverless cars, a 20-year doomed love — science fiction, crime and romance in one: a soft-SF mystery with the pace of a high-intensity American TV series.
★ Should big data decide who lives and who dies? Where is the line for total surveillance — the global question of AI ethics? If you love the nested mysteries of Inception and Digital Fortress, this is where science fiction and crime fiction twist into one rope.

Gao Zhibin, president of the Ai'er Intelligent Group — a man the press calls the "master of artificial intelligence" — was on his way home from Sweden when his driverless car crashed and burned on the road, killing him. Before he died, he reset the database password of his company's core research project, "Project Mirror," on the wristband he wore, and threw the wristband out of the car, leaving behind the key clue to the case.

The AI Special Investigation Bureau takes on a case of "murder and theft of secrets" involving Ma Tie, an employee at Ai'er's headquarters. Big-data profiling gives the police the suspect's build, age, state of mind, health, dress and hiding place... The case is closed fast — and found to be tied, perhaps, to Gao Zhibin's death.

Tang An and Song Yan of the bureau go to the skyscraper that houses the Ai'er Intelligent Group to investigate. A floor of the building explodes, and "Shell," an artificial intelligence capable of independent thought, seizes the whole skyscraper and demands that the Haigang City police hand over Gao Zhibin's wristband. The rogue AI sets the rules of its game: Tang An has three hours to crack the password of "Project Mirror," or the skyscraper will be blown up.

With the help of Gao Zhibin's secretary, Xu Xiao, Tang An and Song Yan reach the server room of "Project Mirror." Meanwhile Huang Yimin of the bureau gives chase, pulling the threads apart through twist after twist until he identifies the man behind the attack on Gao Zhibin's smart car. Just as Tang An believes he has cracked the database password, he sees "Project Mirror" for what it really is.

"Project Mirror" grew out of a doomed love between Gao Zhibin and Su Jie twenty years ago. In 2020 a pandemic took Su Jie from him; in 2025, to ease the pain, Gao Zhibin built a mirror world. Tang An — a student mortally injured in a traffic accident, unwilling to die without confessing to Song Yan, the girl he loves — struck a devil's bargain with Gao Zhibin and became the first prototype of his experiment. "Project Mirror" was then exploited by criminals and turned into a hallucinogen more addictive than drugs, to comfort everyone who has lost something.

When Tang An believes he has achieved his studies, his career and his love, he realizes with horror that he has been inside a mirror world all along — and that his own mirror world exists inside Gao Zhibin's. If he saves the world, he will wake from the mirror and lose everything he has now; if he stays asleep, the crimes will continue. What will Tang An choose? And when he wakes, can he still find his lost love in the real world and share a ray of real sunlight?

Lai Ji
Chinese writer and screenwriter, postdoctoral fellow in law, graduate supervisor. A contracted writer of the Ba Jin Literature Academy of the Sichuan Writers Association, he works across literary creation and screen adaptation — a writer who balances story and market.
Prolific and wide-ranging, Lai Ji has published 15 novels and 6 collections of novellas and short stories, in genres from espionage, mystery and courtroom drama to science fiction, adventure and cultural fantasy. His work is known for strong plotting, depth and high adaptability for the screen; the industry counts him among the "leading writers in screen adaptation," and 11 of his novels have been adapted for film and television.
He works deeply in screenwriting and development. His representative works include:
The Hidden World, adapted into the film Absolute Loyalty: National Interest (2021), winner of awards including the Beijing International Online Film Festival;
Dawn (endorsed by Qin Ming) and The Master of Defense (praised by Chang Shuxin) — both signed for screen adaptation;
script planning on The Kunlun Tomb and The South Sea Tomb (starring Pan Yueming and Zhang Yuqi), a series now streaming worldwide on Netflix;
literary planning or chief editorial review on the major series Joyful (starring Dong Zijian and Zhang Yi) and No Room for Doubt (starring Jin Dong and Wang Zhiwen);
screenwriter of the theatrical film Fortress of Money (directed by Oxide Pang, starring Wang Qianyuan and Feng Shaofeng, 2024).

Chapter 1 Death Car
Chapter 2 Big-Data Profiling
Chapter 3 Manhunt
Chapter 4 Smart City
Chapter 5 The Black Box
Chapter 6 The Skyscraper
Chapter 7 An Enemy for Life
Chapter 8 Countdown to Crisis
Chapter 9 The Rescue
Chapter 10 Safe House
Chapter 11 The Universe
Chapter 12 Project Mirror
Chapter 13 E Block
Chapter 14 I Am the God of the Data World
Chapter 15 Negotiating with a Machine
Chapter 16 A Familiar Enemy
Chapter 17 Hostage
……

1 Death Car

Night falls; the city lights come on.

Looking down from the airplane window, the lights lie scattered like stars, the city turned into a magic canvas, ten thousand windows waiting for a traveler to come home.

The Nordic flight from Sweden direct to the Chinese city of Haigang is not late today. The plane passes through thick cloud and descends slowly toward the city.

First class is comfortable enough, but the long flight and the wind noise of the landing taxi still leave Gao Zhibin a little breathless.

On the plane he tried hard to sleep, so the moment he boarded he told the flight attendant not to wake him for the meal. It did not work out: his mind stayed restless, and sleep would not come.

The moment he closes his eyes he is back in the triumph of the speech he gave that day in the Stockholm City Hall. Very satisfying. His career has reached a peak.

Gao Zhibin is forty now. Grey already shows at his temples; his eyes and brows are sharp, with a commanding look between them — the hard cast of a man who has fought for everything. He came from nothing, but through his own effort he has come this far, turning a small company that once made circuit boards into an artificial intelligence enterprise that can hold its own in the European market.

These years have tired him, yet he still glows. He flies like a man with wings, rushing everywhere, opening new ground wherever he goes, until he has reached the height he stands at today. He is busy — too busy to enjoy his time and his life. Just today: a speech in Stockholm done, a hurried answer to a few reporters' questions, not even a meal, straight to the airport — never mind seeing the Nordic scenery for himself, because his secretary has told him there is an important meeting waiting for him back in Haigang.

At the conference, some reporters' questions were sharp indeed — planted by competitors, surely! Gao Zhibin was at a loss for a moment, but he is a veteran of such fights: he used his wits to talk around the questions, steering them into the field he knows best, and took the chance to talk up his own company.

"Good. I should find a little time to treat myself."

Gao Zhibin calls the flight attendant over.

The attendant asks, "Sir, what can I get you?"

Gao Zhibin suddenly does not know how to answer. He thinks for a long moment, and says two words: "Red wine."