1. The Ribbon and the Ruin
The blue ribbon trembled in the child-Yan Jiu's grip as if breathing. Around them, the remnants of the Tome's collapse hung suspended - inky characters dissolving midair like dying fireflies.
Adult Yan Jiu's Crisis
His Performer muscles twitched with residual nurse-doll protocols
The Hollow King's shadow whispered: "You chose survival over her. Again."
Visual: His left eye glitched between adult amber and childish brown
The Ribbon's Revelation
As stitches unraveled, hidden messages appeared in inverted ink:
Surface: "Good students obey" (standard indoctrination)
Hidden Layer: A child's desperate blood-scrawl:
"Jie, the pear tree is wrong"
"They're making us forget sideways"
The Fracture
Child-Yan Jiu screamed and lunged - not at the Hollow King, but at his adult self's throat.
2. The Blood Editor's Descent
Lin Feng's wrist wound had become a living manuscript:
Tome's Counterattack
Every blood droplet formed censoring glyphs:
"Lin Feng → Error 13 (Recommended Disposal)"
"Bai Yu → Containment Priority"
The words burrowed into his skin like silverworms
Xiao Qi's Last Defense
Her dissolving light intercepted with three final acts:
For Lin Feng:
Seared his pear-blossom scar into a lock
Whispered: "The real first law is under your ribs"
For Bai Yu:
Left a laughter-shaped void in his sternum
For Yan Jiu:
Wove her last luminescence into the fraying ribbon
Cost: Her voice became only echoes in the scars.
3. The Auction of Eyes
The ghost market's void-ink now resembled a twisted calligraphy workshop:
Scholar Wen's Severed Eyes
Floating in an inkwell made of Bai Yu's worst memories
Projecting final calculations:
"Probability of System Survival: 0.013%
Proposed Solution: Eradicate all pronouns"
The Buyer's Identity
A semi-transparent figure with:
Yin Sha's ink-stained fingertips
Bai Yu's comedy mask half-melted
Xiao Qi's absent smile
Reveal: It was the Tome's first scribe - long since edited out of existence
Transaction
Bai Yu paid with:
The memory of his mother's last words:
"The pears taste bitter this year, don't they?"
Aftermath:
The market imploded into a singularity of erased stories
4. The Hollow King's Gift
Xuan Gu's skeletal hand cracked as it forced the frost needle into Lin Feng's grip:
The Fusion
The needle drank:
1 minute of Lin Feng's lifespan per character
The taste of his childhood fear (pear blossoms + blood)
Transformed into:
A quill with a blade tip
Its inkwell: The hollow where Xiao Qi's heart had been
Warning
The Hollow King's last words splintered into:
"Every word costs a self"
"The Tome wants to be rewritten"
"There were never just six blades..."
5. The Eighth's Silence
Lin Feng reversed the quill and stabbed it through his own palm:
The Redaction
Not writing - but unwriting:
Every "shall" in the Tome bled into "might"
Every "must" cracked into "could"
Visual: The pages screamed as grammar itself rebelled
The Liberation Waves
Yan Jiu:
His two selves grappled - then stitched together by the reforged ribbon
New weapon: *A blade made of lullaby notes and nurse-doll sutures
Bai Yu:
The laughter-void in his chest became a black hole punchline
Swallowed 37% of Celestial Strategy's archives
The 7th:
Not gone - but walking sideways into:
The scars on Lin Feng's hands
The gaps between Bai Yu's jokes
The silence in Yan Jiu's ribbon
Final Image:
The last intact page of the Tome floated downward, revealing:
A fresh pear blossom growing from Lin Feng's scar
Its petals etched with the child's fingerprint from Chapter 28
Bai Yu's bloodstained grin as he whispered:
"Welcome to authorhood, kid. Now the real editing begins."