1. The Mother's Flesh
The cracks in the petrified hands deepened, revealing living tissue that defied time:
Biological Anomalies
Blood flowed upward from fingertips to wrist
Muscle fibers rearranged into lesson plans when exposed to air
Nerve endings sparked with pre-facility memories
The 7th's True Fate
The child clutched in the mother's hands wasn't just the 7th—
—but the unedited prototype:
Her eyes showed no silver strands of Celestial Strategy
Her skin bore no frost needle marks from Frost Moon
Her voicebox produced pure sound (unfiltered by Cloud Soaring's harmonics)
The Whispered Confession
"They took ninety-nine of you...
...I saved one."
2. The Golden Needles' Purpose
Bai Yu's stopwatch shards transformed:
Material Composition
Not metal, but crystallized time:
Each contained a frozen moment of resistance
The tips held microscopic inscriptions of:
The mother's hidden journal entries
The 7th's unedited lullabies
Bai Yu's stifled punchlines
Insertion Points
When Lin Feng grabbed them:
Needle 1 pierced his chalk-writing finger →
Unlocked pre-edited motor skills
Needle 7 entered his pear-blossom scar →
Released Xiao Qi's uncorrupted light
Needle 13 hovered at his third eye →
Showed the facility's blueprints with one room omitted
The Missing Chamber
A space labeled "Nursery 0" where:
Time flowed sideways
Pain didn't teach
The first unbroken pear tree grew
3. The Unbroken Seed
The 7th pressed the pristine pear seed into Lin Feng's palm:
Molecular Analysis
Shell: Unfractured time
Core: Pure potential (no cultivation imprint)
Germ: A single vowel sound (the first cry never recorded)
Planting Protocol
Bury in mnemic ink (to give it memory)
Water with primer fluid (to give it form)
Sing the unedited lullaby (to give it voice)
The First Sprout
When conditions were met:
Grew not a tree, but a doorway
Its branches formed the missing numbers (4,8,12)
Its roots spelled:
"EXIT" (in mother's handwriting)
4. The Blood-Door's Final Test
The threshold demanded three sacrifices:
1. A Broken Bone
Lin Feng snapped his grade-stamping finger →
The facility's assessment system glitched
2. An Unbroken Promise
The 7th whispered "I'll remember you" to the mother →
Petrified flesh bloomed with pear blossoms
3. A Half-Baked Joke
Bai Yu's residual consciousness delivered:
*"Why did the system cross the cultivator?
To get to the other side of the mirror."
The punchline shattered the remaining examiner dolls
Door's Opening Mechanism
The golden needles rearranged into:
A key (Needles 1-7)
A lockpick (Needles 8-12)
A hinge (Needle 13)
5. The Choice at the Threshold
Beyond the door awaited:
Three Versions of Origin
The Untouched Past:
Where cultivation never existed
But all current personas would fade
The Edited Present:
Where the mother's sacrifice stood
But the cycle would continue
The Unwritten Future:
Where the seed determined growth
But required forgetting the way back
Lin Feng's Decision
He placed the pear seed on his tongue and—
—bit down.
Cliffhanger
As the juice flowed:
The facility unwrote itself in reverse chronological order
The mother's hands crumbled to reveal a second pair beneath
The 7th smiled with Xiao Qi's light and said:
"Now we grow sideways."