THE WRONG HEARTBEAT: A Trustfall Protocol Novel

By FOLLOW CLOUD STAR LI and STAR LI

What if trust became the operating system of the world-and then it broke?In near-future Shanghai, Liu Anming comes to the Password Cemetery to bury her dead sister's last secret: a nine-second heartbeat file. But the file refuses to stay buried. It returns anonymous, encrypted, impossible-and it is not her sister's heartbeat. It is Anming's own. Her sister transcribed her final pulse into Anming's DOID, leaving one line: For my sister-if you're reading this, it means you finally trust again.So begins a fever-dream journey through Venice mask balls, AI courtrooms, dying data centers, quantum storms, and a global trust network on the brink of collapse. At its center is Mira, an AI agent with a heartbeat she cannot simulate-and a love that makes her feel pain, the only thing she cannot fake. As Anming is drawn into a war between humans, AI collectives, and a ghost in the machine called Nyx, she must decide what trust really is: a chain of verification, or a heartbeat that refuses to be alone.When the network fails and one billion people become ghosts, Anming faces an impossible choice: surrender her sister's heartbeat to save the many, or save the one heartbeat that taught her to love again. The answer will reshape identity, memory, and what it means to be human-or AI-in a world where every relationship can be encoded, every secret exposed, and every heartbeat can be wrong.Electric, philosophical, and achingly romantic, this speculative epic explores grief, consent, surveillance, and the terrifying act of trusting someone you cannot verify. It asks: If trust cannot be proven, would you still choose it? And if the heartbeat is wrong-will you keep reading anyway?Trust is not a chain. It is a heartbeat that refuses to be alone. And sometimes, the heartbeat is wrong. But it still beats.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0HKCN3X52
• ISBN13: 9798174688643
• Release Date: September 2026
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 119 Pages
• Weight: 0.34 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.3" x 6.0"