thefictionvixens Page 822
Page 822
"He was also the one who approved the 'Emotional Removal Act' back then," Su Ting sneered. "You're treating people like viruses just for the sake of so-called 'social stability'?"
“Child.” Zero Entropy’s voice was chillingly calm. “Love is an out-of-control recursive cycle. A mother’s affection for her child can lead to the allocation of resources; the obsession between lovers can undermine rational decision-making; the empathy between friends can breed cronyism. What we need is not humanity, but a vehicle for efficient civilization.”
"Bullshit!" the boy roared, his lightsaber blazing. "Do you even know what a 'carrier' is? My grandma held my hand before she died and said, 'Live happily.' That wasn't data! That was warmth! That was a heartbeat! Something you'll never understand!"
Zero entropy, as immovable as a mountain.
"If that's the case, then let me see if your so-called 'temperature' can melt away the shackles of this city."
He slammed his scepter down.
The entire shelter began to twist and rotate, the walls meshing like gears, gradually transforming into a giant cage, with a model of a beating heart suspended in the center—pulled by countless thin lines, each line bearing the face of a child.
"That's... the core of resonance?" Lin Xiaoya's expression changed drastically. "They used seven personalities as anchors, compressing all the erased emotions into this place to create a perpetual motion machine?"
“Smart.” Zero Entropy nodded. “As long as we continue to harvest the emotions of loss, we can power the entire Pure Realm. The deeper the sorrow, the stronger the power. And your arrival completes the last link.”
"You're wrong." Lin Zhiwei suddenly stepped forward, tore open her sleeve, revealing an old scar on the inside of her arm.
She pulled out a dagger and, without hesitation, slashed her skin, blood dripping onto the ground.
"You reap pain, but we bring longing."
The city trembled violently the moment the blood touched the ground.
From the cracks in the walls covered with names, tiny flowers sprouted from the stone—pink ones, just like the withered flower in the pages of Lin Zhiwei's diary.
"This is... the primrose that Mom planted?" Xiao An was stunned.
“She secretly kept them in the basement.” Lin Zhiwei’s voice choked with emotion. “She said that as long as the flowers bloom, it means there are still people waiting to come home.”
The flowers spread rapidly, their roots penetrating the steel bars. Whichever chain the petals touched, it would jingle and break on its own.
"Impossible!" Zero Entropy exclaimed for the first time, "These plants shouldn't exist! They don't have any coding gene sequences!"
“But they have names,” Lin Ya said coldly. “My mother calls it ‘Wait for me to come back.’”
The Starseed's voice rang out again, this time with a smile:
"Brothers and sisters, hurry up—I'm about to start singing!"
Chapter 1573 Forcefully Blocked
A clear, childlike voice pierced the sky.
Immediately afterwards, seven beams of light shot towards the direction of the Heart Tower; they were the seven illusory figures of the girls who had vanished. They circled the star seed, their songs flowing like a torrent:
"Rock, rock, the little boat rocks."
It was quiet in her mother's arms.
The wind doesn't blow, the clouds don't move.
Loving you doesn't need anyone's permission...
With each lyric, the city crumbles an inch.
Zero Entropy roared, and the scepter erupted with crimson lightning, striking directly at the window where the star seed was located. At the critical moment, the boy leaped up, using his body as a shield to block the attack.
"Ugh—!" Half of his body was charred, but he still grinned. "This pain... is nothing compared to the hug I remember from my grandmother's funeral."
Su Ting caught him as he fell, glaring upwards: "Lin Zhiwei! What are you waiting for?"
Lin Zhiwei was already kneeling on the ground, her hands pressed on the artificial heart.
She closed her eyes and murmured softly, "Xiaoyao, I'm late. But this time, it's my turn to protect you."
The journal in her arms opened automatically, and all the written words were stripped away, turning into golden words that flew towards her heart.
At the same time, Xiao An raised the glass bottle and sang the nursery rhyme loudly towards the sky.
As soon as the first line was uttered, all the fireflies in the bottle transformed into streams of light, which flowed into the song.
As the second line rang out, even the scepter of zero entropy began to crack.
As the third sentence landed, the figures of the seven girls leaped hand in hand into the heart, bursting forth with light like the sunrise.
"No—!" Zero Entropy frantically waved his scepter, but his voice was drowned out.
The city walls crumbled, the black mist evaporated, and the city known as "The End" slowly disintegrated amidst the blooming of millions of primroses.
In the center of the ruins, a real little girl staggered out.
She was thin and pale, but her eyes were strikingly bright.
She looked at Lin Zhiwei, her lips trembling: "Sister...Sister?"
Lin Zhiwei rushed over and hugged her tightly, sobbing uncontrollably.
"I'm here... I'm here... I'm sorry, I came to find you."
Xiao An ran forward and hugged the two of them tightly.
The boy leaned against Su Ting, a blood-stained smile on his lips: "Hey...did we...win?"
Su Ting looked up at the sky, where the gray dome that had been blocking the atmosphere was cracking open, and starlight poured down.
“It’s not over yet,” he said in a low voice. “This is just the beginning.”
Lin Xiaoya manipulated the giant moth to land beside her, her expression solemn: "A new signal frequency band has been discovered in the wreckage of the warship, with an encryption level higher than any known system in the Pure Realm."
“And…” she paused, her voice trembling slightly, “the location of the message was marked as ‘Origin Mother Nest’.”
Everyone was silent.
The star seed raised its head, looked towards the distant horizon, and suddenly said softly:
"Sister, do you know what they said when they arrested me?"
She paused, her voice as soft as a leaf falling to the ground.
"—'The Primal Mother is about to awaken; she must disappear.'"
Lin Zhiwei suddenly looked up and saw her daughter's small hand resting on her shoulder.
"Mom..." Xingzhong blinked, a hint of timid expectation in her eyes, "Could you... braid my hair again?"
Lin Zhiwei's fingers trembled slightly, as if they weighed a ton when she lifted them. She looked at the girl in her arms, whose pale face still bore the bruises left from the laboratory, but those eyes—exactly the same as in her memory, the same eyes that Xiao Yao used to tilt her head and look at her, asking for candy.
"Yes," she said in a hoarse voice, "I'll braid your hair the prettiest way."
Chapter 1574 is the same now.
She untied a faded red string from her wrist and clumsily ran her fingertips through her hair. Xiaoyao's hair was dry and thin, like grass ears that had been blown by the wind for too long, but she still carefully parted and twisted it, smoothing it strand by strand.
“Before…every time I cried, you would braid my hair,” Xiaoyao said softly, resting her head gently on her shoulder. “You said that once it was braided, I wasn’t allowed to cry anymore.”
"Mmm." Lin Zhiwei's nose tingled. "It's the same now. Don't cry, Xiaoyao."
Xiao An squatted down and took out a hard candy wrapped in tin foil from his pocket—he had been saving it for a long time and couldn't bear to eat it.
"Here you go." He placed it in Xiaoyao's hand. "This is... something I got at the old market. They said it's strawberry flavor, the kind of food kids from the old days loved."
Xiaoyao looked down at the candy, then suddenly smiled, a tear glistening in the corner of her eye: "My mother used to give me a candy like this on rainy days, saying that if I ate it, I wouldn't be afraid of thunder."
“You’re not afraid anymore.” Xiao An nodded vigorously. “We’ll protect you.”
Su Ting leaned on his lightsaber to stand up, his scorch marks still smoking, but he forced himself to walk to Lin Xiaoya's side: "The signal you mentioned... has it been confirmed?"
Lin Xiaoya didn't turn around, staring at the holographic projection unfolding on the giant moth's back—a set of coordinates faintly appeared in a distorted ripple, constantly jumping, like some kind of countdown.
“The signal is alive,” she said in a low voice. “It’s responding to the Starseed’s song… like… calling her back.”
"Go back?" The boy grinned, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. "Go back to where? That 'mother nest' thing? It doesn't sound like a good place."
“The mother is about to wake up.” The Star Seed suddenly spoke, looking up at the crack in the sky. “They are afraid she will wake up, so they want to destroy everything related to her. Including me… including the poems my mother wrote, the paper boats my sister folded, the songs my brother hummed… these are all ‘sources of infection’.”
Lin Zhiwei suddenly looked up: "Who? Who exactly is afraid? The mastermind behind the Pure Realm? Or... the person who created all of this?"
“Neither,” Starseed shook his head. “It’s the ‘Shadow Palace.’ They’re not administrators, they’re gravediggers. They’ve buried human emotions, turning the world into a tearless graveyard. But as long as someone remembers, the grave will crack.”
As soon as he finished speaking, a pale beam of light suddenly appeared on the distant horizon.
boom--
A muffled thud came from underground, and everyone's feet trembled.
The giant moth emitted an alarm-like cry, and the swarm of mechanical butterflies quickly assembled into a defensive formation.
"The warship wreckage is moving!" Lin Xiaoya shouted sharply. "It's taking off!"
Everyone turned to look—the enormous black shadow that had been paralyzed in the wasteland was now slowly rising from the ground. The broken armor plates were piecing themselves back together like scales, and a ghostly purple pulse lit up at its core, like a heart beating anew.
“That’s not wreckage.” Su Ting’s pupils contracted. “That’s a wake-up signal from hibernation… It’s been waiting for this frequency.”
“Our singing…triggered it.” Lin Zhiwei hugged Xiao Yao tightly, her voice cold. “We thought we saved her, but actually…we led her back into the trap?”
“No.” The Starseed leaned out of her arms, its gaze fixed on the rising warship. “I am the key, but not the door for them. I am here to lock it.”
She suddenly raised her hand, and a gear made of light appeared in her palm, slowly rotating. Each tooth was engraved with a name—Firefly, Dew, Sprout, Mist, Dust, Sleep—and finally merged into the "Star Seed" in the center.
Chapter 1575 Don't Act Recklessly