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Chapter 41 - Chapter 41: The Sideways Garden

1. The Second Pair of Hands – Calligrapher's Secret

The ink-stained fingers unfolded like a forbidden scroll, revealing:

The Character's True Meaning

誊 (Téng): Not just "to copy" – but the act of transcribing without comprehension

Stroke analysis showed:

The first stroke matched the Tome's opening line

The final hook was deliberately botched – a hidden rebellion

Ink Composition

Black Pigment: Ground from pre-cultivation era charcoal (uncorrupted by qi)

Sap Traces: Molecularly identical to Lin Feng's pear-blossom scar

Blood Equations: Proved the scribe had tried to calculate escape vectors

Shocking Realization

These hands weren't just pre-dating the sects –

They had taught the original four founders…

…before being erased by their own students.

2. The Vowel's Devastating Resonance

The seed's /ɑː/ sound manifested as a physical wave:

Destructive Interference Patterns

Where it touched Celestial Strategy's silver:

Turned rigid dogma into free-flowing poetry

Where it crossed Frost Moon's ice:

Revealed trapped screams as children's singing practice

Where it met Cloud Soaring's threads:

Unwove fate into improvisational jazz

Biological Effects on Lin Feng

His teeth became tuning forks – vibrating with:

Xiao Qi's forgotten hums

Li Feng's pre-trauma war cries

The 7th's stolen lullabies

His tongue mapped the geometry of:

The perfect joke (Bai Yu's lost masterpiece)

The ideal cut (Jing Xin's abandoned scalpel)

3. The Sideways Growth – Expanded Reality Warp

Lin Feng's Rib-Tree

Branches grew through the facility's walls without breaking them

Bore four types of leaves:

Memory Leaves: Showed unedited pasts

Silhouette Leaves: Cast shadows of possible futures

Blank Leaves: Absorbed cultivation energy harmlessly

Singing Leaves: Played the mother's stolen voice

New Physical Laws

Gravity: Pulled toward laughter

Time: Measured in shared breaths

Pain: Became just another color

The Nurse-Dolls' Transformation

Their rooted forms:

Grew question-mark-shaped fruit

Developed eyes that only blinked during honest moments

Whispered: "We were never nurses…

…we were witnesses."

4. The Original Tools – Deeper Significance

The Unmarked Whetstone

When placed against:

Frost Needles: Made them sing instead of cut

Swords: Turned blades into paintbrushes

Bones: Revealed hidden artistry in fractures

The Blood Inkwell

Its surface reflected:

The mother's face before compliance

The first scribe's unfinished last page

Lin Feng as he might have been without edits

The Sideways Quill

Proved impossible to hold conventionally – requiring:

Left hand to write past truths

Right hand to write future lies

No hands to write present realities

5. The Garden's Harvest – Ultimate Nourishment

The Remembered Pear's Aftertaste

Left flavor ghosts:

First bite: Tasted like mud pies (Xiao Qi's shared secret)

Second bite: Tasted like blood and honey (Li Feng's first kill)

Third bite: Tasted like nothing (The 7th's stolen childhood)

The Silent Pear's Paradox

Eating it:

Made all sound stop for 13 breaths

Then unleashed every suppressed scream at once

But the screams… healed instead of harmed

The Laughing Pear's Core

Contained:

Bai Yu's missing comedy quark

Still telling its joke:

"Why did the system break?

Because it forgot to laugh sideways!"

Cliffhanger: The Weeping Scribe's Truth

The white space wasn't empty – it was full of:

Discarded First Drafts:

Cultivation manuals with happy endings

Poems where pain wasn't pedagogical

The Real First Class:

Thirteen children playing (not training)

Their laughter unrecorded by any sect

The scribe wept because:

"I only ever wanted…

…to preserve…

…not to perfect."

As Lin Feng reached out—

—the pear seed's shell in his stomach sprouted through his eyes—

—growing a new garden in his tears.

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