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Chapter 38 - Chapter 38: The Thirteen Examiners

1. The Petrified Choir's Dark Symphony

The thirteen examiners didn't just chant—their voices unmade reality in layers:

Harmonic Dissonance Effects

First Child's Note: Cracked nearby time-ice into fractal patterns matching Scholar Wen's silver strands

Seventh Child's Note: Turned the black pear tree's sap into liquid mnemonics that flowed upward

Thirteenth Child's Note: Made Lin Feng's primer fluid boil with forgotten equations

Porcelain Skin Revelations

Where their flesh chipped away:

Showed embedded lesson plans glowing beneath

Each plan ended with the same instruction:

"When subject achieves 68.3% fracture consistency, harvest soul chalk for next cycle."

The True Nursery Rhyme

Their full reversed verse held a secret meaning:

"Break to make (bones into tools),

Make to break (tools into rules),

First the wound (the initial cut),

Then the ache (the endless rut)."

2. The Primer's Damning Solution

Lin Feng's body wasn't just solving the equation—it was becoming it:

Mathematical Transfiguration

His 68.3% quill-bones:

Could write new cultivation laws

But only in fractured calligraphy

His 31.7% grading ink:

Showed two colors under light:

Red for incorrect answers

Black for system-approved truths

The Facility's Masterstroke

The perfect score wasn't accidental—

—Lin Feng had been pre-fractured as an infant:

His pear-blossom scar matched the whetstone's calibration mark

His mother's disappearance was actually the first harvest

Primer Fluid Visions

When his ink-tears hit the ground:

Formed a miniature model of the original facility

Showed thirteen identical cradles in the nursery

Each cradle had his name on it

3. Rubber Prophecies Uncoil

Bai Yu's answer key scroll kept growing:

Third Layer Discovery

Revealed the source material for prophecies:

Strips of nurse-doll skin with handwritten reports

Each report described:

A different Lin Feng from alternate cycles

Their breakage percentages

Their final uses (quills, ink, paper, etc.)

Most Disturbing Entry

Dated "Cycle -13":

*"Subject shows 68.3% consistency.

Harvested for:

Ribs → Tome binding spokes

Blood → Original mnemic ink

Memories → Standardized testing bank

Mother's compliance: 100%."*

The Rubber's Origin

The scroll wasn't paper—it was:

Condensed comedy from failed humor experiments

Stretched between timelines like puppet strings

4. The Whetstone's Brutal Mathematics

The nurse-dolls' assessment took a visceral turn:

Live Demonstration

They reassembled Bai Yu's petrified fragments into:

A human abacus

His rubber prophecies as counting beads

His stopwatch heart as the pendulum

Calculation Process

Poured Lin Feng's primer fluid through his chalk fingers

Collected the drip patterns in silver assessment trays

Compared them to historical fracture records

The Perfect Score's Cost

To maintain 68.3%:

Lin Feng had to forget:

Xiao Qi's first gift

Li Feng's last unbroken memory

The 7th's true name

His body automatically complied

5. The Recursive Quill's Omega Point

The thirteen quills didn't just write—they rewrote:

Article Ω's Full Text

*"When the student is perfected:

Their bones become the curriculum

Their blood becomes the ink

Their soul becomes the grading system

Their mother becomes the next examiner."*

System Reboot Sequence

The black pear tree uprooted and walked on its branches

The nurse-dolls petrified in grading positions

The examiners regressed into:

Frost Moon's first needles

Cloud Soaring's original threads

Celestial Strategy's prototype ink

Final Horror

Lin Feng looked down to see:

His hands turning into chalk-dusted lesson plans

His chest cavity forming a shelf for...

...thirteen new porcelain dolls in progress

Cliffhanger

The first examiner's whisper finished:

"...the graders grade themselves."

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