- Midnight · The Rust-Fire Aurora
Tiansheng 4 · Western District of Bianjing
At the third quarter of the Zi hour, the sky caught fire.
Dark-gold light sprayed upward from cracks in the earth, from wellheads, from the bases of walls. Like molten iron flowing in reverse, it stained the entire night sky a sickly amber. The air grew cloyingly sweet, thick with the smell of rust. One breath and your teeth felt soft.
In the seven wards of the Western District, every piece of iron liquefied in the same second.
Door knockers, kitchen knives, iron pots, locks. A layer of greyish mildew bloomed on their surfaces, then—puff—a soft sound, and they burst into fine metallic dust. The dust floated and drifted in the dark-gold light, like snow falling in a demon realm.
"Rust plague! Stay indoors—" The night watchman's raspy shout cut off mid-sentence; the saber at his waist had already powdered.
He looked down at his hands. The skin at his thumb-web was turning greyish-white.
He dropped the hilt and ran.
Three steps later, he froze in place.
Greyish-white spread upward from his feet. In three breaths, he became a human-shaped rust statue frozen in mid-stride. A night breeze passed, and the statue flaked away, powder sifting down.
Crash.
He crumbled into a pile of grey dust.
2026 · Donghai City Museum Underground
"Secondary eruption! Fracture expansion rate doubled!" Alarms shrieked.
Qin Mu stared fixedly at the screen. The dark-red void region was consuming reality at two meters per second. It had already swallowed half the storage area and was gnawing toward Level B2.
" Not natural spread." Lu Baoyi slumped in his wheelchair. The metalization of his right arm had reached his shoulder blade; dark-red patterns crawled up his neck. "Someone's adding fuel on the other side."
"Northern Song?" Lin Wan's hand holding the gun trembled.
"The Luoyang node detonated." Lu Baoyi glimpsed a data stream flashing in the corner of the screen—his forged bait packet had been triggered. "Rust energy is spilling bidirectionally through the Gate. Over here, the rift explodes; over there… the sky should be changing color."
Qin Mu abruptly turned. In his eyes was a suppressed intensity: "Mr. Lu, can you construct another mirror reflection? Directional, push the overflow contamination back to the other side?"
"You want me to be a human firewall?" Lu Baoyi grinned, a smile that looked like he wanted to bite. "That's not in the protocol. My remaining uptime might be shorter than your coffee machine's Heating preservation mode."
"The other side is the source." Qin Mu's voice was cold and hard. "No reflection, in three hours Donghai's entire underground structure will rust and collapse. The death toll won't be less than an earthquake."
He stared at Lu Baoyi: "Choose. Be a hero, or be a survivor."
Lu Baoyi recalled a line from his father's notes: "Civilization's choice is never between right and wrong, but between rotten and more rotten."
"Fuck." He clenched his metalized right hand; it emitted a faint metallic scrape. "Give me the coordinates. Condition—while reflecting, I stuff a backdoor program into the channel. Even ten seconds, I want to see who's setting fires over there."
Qin Mu was silent for two seconds: "Agreed."
"Lin Wan, help me sit up straight." Lu Baoyi finished speaking, then suddenly looked up at her, blank for three seconds. "……Who are you?"
Lin Wan's hand froze mid-air.
Lu Baoyi shook his head violently, grinned: "Sorry, System lagging. Lin Wan, my assistant, paycheck……"
"Paycheck due." Lin Wan finished his sentence, tears falling. "If you forget again, I'll write about how you secretly drank my Collecting and preserving coffee beans into your workplace injury report."
"Quite the grudge." Lu Baoyi smiled. He turned away, the smile fading, focus sharpening on the screen.
The dark-red patterns on his right arm began to flow.
- Powder Depot · Living Bombs
Bianjing Western District · Powder Workshop
Qian Yiyan kicked open the door and knew she was too late.
There were no artisans in the workshop. Only people.
More than thirty stood rigidly upright, tools in their hands, their entire bodies greyish-white rusted. In each chest, a bowl-sized cavity, within which dark-red matter writhed slowly.
Like pupae.
"A Blood-Contract Puppet Hive." Cao Yan held his saber before him; the rust on his back and shoulder made his movements sluggish. "Liao shamans turn living people into culture dishes to breed rust-seed larvae. When they mature, they blow up—people and workshop together."
The nearest puppet slid toward her. Its metalized finger bones reached straight for her throat.
She sidestepped. The iron spike touched its wrist.
"Star-Erosion: River-Severing."
Dark-gold light detonated. The wrist snapped. From the break gushed viscous dark-red Gel-like substance, which upon contact with air expanded into dozens of tentacles and coiled back around the spike. Rust spots bloomed on the spike's surface.
Qian Yiyan abandoned the spike and retreated, her left hand vaguely grasping—
"Tide Calling: Reverse Current!"
Greyish ripples spread. The tentacles paused mid-motion, then rusted themselves into powder.
But all thirty-odd puppets turned simultaneously. The dark-red matter in their chest cavities pulsed in unison, emitting a gurgling sound like boiling water. The workshop's temperature spiked; stacked saltpeter and sulfur began auto-igniting.
"Mass hatching!" Cao Yan gritted his teeth. "Find the prime Mother body—"
"Below." Qian Yiyan stared at the ground.
Dark-gold light seeped through the brick cracks, all converging toward the central giant stone mortar.
The mortar was half-filled with a thick, blood-like dark-red Gel-like substance. Bubbles constantly burst on its surface; each bursting bubble released a rule-ripple that twisted space.
The ripple swept over them.
Cao Yan grunted; the rust on his back accelerated.
The rust-mark on Qian Yiyan's left shoulder burned like a branding iron.
"This thing is sucking our existential presence……" She clenched her jaw. "The closer we get, the easier it is to forget who we are."
"Then don't let it suck." Cao Yan gripped his saber with both hands, lowering his stance. "I'll split the mortar; you destroy whatever's inside. You know how."
Qian Yiyan glanced at the rust on his back.
"I won't die." Cao Yan forced a smile. "Cao family boys are tough. If I really rust into an iron lump, when you burn incense for me later, you'll still find the memorial tablet, right?"
Qian Yiyan had no time to roll her eyes.
All thirty-odd puppets lunged at once.
Cao Yan moved.
Body like a collapsing mountain, blade like a bursting flood.
Pure battlefield death-match tentacles One slash split a puppet's skull; a backhand severed tentacles; he stepped forward, saber tip thrusting straight at the mortar—
CLANG!
Metal clashed explosively.
The saber tip stopped three inches from the mortar.
A hand, completely rusted into dark gold, reached out from the Gel-like substance inside the mortar and clenched the blade dead.
The owner of the hand slowly rose.
A woman—or what had once been a woman. Her entire body was covered in flowing dark-gold metal, her features blurred, her eyes two empty sockets. Hair like iron threads hung down into the Gel-like substance.
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She spoke. Her voice was a multi-layered Superposition of metal scrapings:
"Astronomer...... Qian...... Cao...... Sanlang......"
"Waited...... long......"
Qian Yiyan's pupils contracted.
This thing recognized them.
"Who are you?" Cao Yan struggled to withdraw his blade; it screeched against the metal palm.
The woman tilted her head, the motion stiff as a marionette:
"This slave...... was the foreman's wife of this workshop......"
"Three days ago...... Liao envoys brought immortality pills...... said if taken, looks would stay young......"
She stroked her metal cheek, scraping off rust powder:
"Now...... this slave...... truly ageless......"
As she finished, the Gel-like substance in the mortar erupted!
Dark-red matter shot skyward, coalescing into dozens of Thick tentacles. The tip of each split open into a mouth lined with metal serrated teeth, all simultaneously shrieking like crying infants.
The shrieks bored into the brain.
Qian Yiyan's mind went blank.
Forgot who she was. Forgot Cao Yan. Forgot the three characters "Qian Yiyan."
Only one red-hot thought remained: destroy the mortar.
- Mirror Surface · Kicking the Door Back
Museum Underground
The screen before Lu Baoyi blurred.
The metalization on his right arm had spread to the side of his neck; the dark-red patterns there writhed. Each pulse sucked away another memory. Just now he'd forgotten Lin Wan; now he was starting to forget code logic.
"Coordinates locked!" Qin Mu roared. "Fracture energy peaking at Critical—now!"
Lu Baoyi clenched his jaw. He forced every remaining shred of consciousness into his right arm.
Imagine yourself a mirror. A mirror专门 reflecting "logical errors"—
The Mirror-Seed revolted.
Dark-red light Overflow from every pore, coalescing into a two-meter Distortion mirror surface before his wheelchair. It was composed of countless fractured, vibrating planes, each reflecting a different unreal scene.
Qin Mu Connect the energy guidance channel.
The Violent turbulence in the rusted void was drawn into the mirror.
The mirror shuddered violently, cracks exploding across it.
" Reflection has been activated!" Qin Mu stared at the data. "Three, two, one—!"
Inside the mirror, logic flipped.
All the inhalation rule contamination has been reconstructed. into its exact opposite "entropy-reducing" form, then shoved back into the depths of the rift.
The void rift shuddered. Its expansion halted abruptly.
"It's working!" Lin Wan's voice trembled.
Lu Baoyi could no longer hear. All his energy maintained the mirror, while simultaneously splitting off a thread of consciousness to slip into the reflection channel.
The instant he Pass through the rift, he "saw" the information flood:
Fragmented star chart coordinates, vein directions, canal transport nodes, dark-gold eruption points… and countless overlapping human consciousness remnants.
One remnant was especially clear:
"……Yan'er……flee……"
Qian Weiyan's voice. But mixed with Lu Yuan's tone.
Lu Baoyi's consciousness shuddered violently. He wanted to grab that remnant, but the flood was too fierce—
Geek instinct exploded. He compressed the remnant into a data packet, tagged it with his father's Encryption protocol, and stuffed it into the redundant buffer zone of the channel.
Done, His consciousness began to fade back.
In the last glimpse, 0.1 seconds, he "saw" the other side:
A golden sky, burning streets, metalized woman, the back of a man raising a blade, and…… that familiar silhouette, straight as a spear.
Qian Yiyan.
He had truly seen her.
- Slaying the Mother · Price Paid
Powder Workshop
In the vacuum of memory, Qian Yiyan moved on instinct alone.
She didn't think "who am I." Her body hurled itself toward the mortar.
The rust-mark on her left shoulder screamed in pain, but the pain was swallowed by numbness—the rust had reached her heart. She didn't care. Her right hand vaguely grasped, Trigger everything she could muster within: remnant astral force, the Frenzy rust-seed, and that scrap of "spatial topology cognition" Lu Baoyi had forced into her.
Three energies compressed, spun, fused in her palm—
A spur-of-the-moment, Unnamed Fusion Technique"Inverse-Punishment…… Track-Breaking."
She whispered. Her palm pressed against the mortar.
No sound. No light.
On the mortar's surface, innumerable black cracks appeared. In an instant they covered everything, then turned inward—deletion at the rule level.
The mortar, the Gel-like substance, the metal woman—all were completely erased into nothingness. In their place remained a spherical cavity, edges smooth, bottomless. Even light could not escape.
The Mother body annihilated. All thirty-odd puppets froze simultaneously; the dark-red matter in their chests withered to ash.
The crisis was resolved.
Qian Yiyan collapsed to her knees. She looked at her right hand—the skin of her palm had completely mirrorized. Like a layer of quicksilver, it reflected her own pale, distorted face. The mirror was spreading up her arm.
Worse, in her mind, the memories of "her father Qian Weiyan"…… had shattered a piece.
Not forgotten. Distortion into noise. She remembered his fall, remembered the vein map, but his face, his voice, his last words…… all had become Vague metallic static.
"Astronomer Qian!" Cao Yan staggered over to support her; the rust on his back was spreading.
Qian Yiyan looked up. Her eyes were vacant for three seconds before Focus: "……Cao Yan."
"You still remember my name—not completely gone." Cao Yan's smile was Distortion by pain. "That move just now…… newly practiced?"
"Improvised." Qian Yiyan used his support to stand, staring at the spherical void. "This thing…… doesn't seem like pure rust-seed."
"It's a projection of the Gate." A voice came from the doorway.
Zhao Yunbi stood there. His purple robe was immaculate; in his hands he held the Astrological Bureau's star-observation disk. The disk spun wildly, its pointer aimed straight at the void.
"The Empress Dowager anticipated this calamity." Zhao Yunbi walked slowly in. "The rust-seed is bait, the Gate is the hook. The Liao shamans wanted to use the rule-turmoil during the eruption to tear a temporary Gate in Bianjing—even if only for a quarter-hour, enough to send an elite squad through."
He stopped before the void: "Astronomer Qian, you didn't destroy the Mother body; you destroyed an anchor point. The true Mother body lies deep in the Luoyang veins; this was merely a coordinate projection."
A chill gripped Qian Yiyan's heart: "The crisis isn't resolved?"
"Bianjing is resolved, but Luoyang isn't." Zhao Yunbi put away the disk, looking at her. "The Empress Dowager's oral decree: Qian Yiyan is to enter the palace immediately to report. Cao Yan returns home to await orders; the Cao family will be briefed separately."
Cao Yan's hand on his saber tightened. Then relaxed: "Your subject, accepts the decree."
Zhao Yunbi glanced again at Qian Yiyan, his smile deepening: "The Empress Dowager also asked me to convey a message—'What your father left unfinished, you may now ask.'"
Qian Yiyan's pupils contracted sharply.
- Reverberations · Message in a Bottle
Museum Underground
The mirror shattered.
Lu Baoyi slumped in his wheelchair. The metalization on his right arm had reached his jaw; the dark-red patterns on his neck writhed. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.
Lin Wan rushed over to check: "Tachycardia! Neurotoxin levels off the scale! Dr. Qin—"
"Administer neutralizer, double dose." Qin Mu worked the controls. "The rift…… is closing."
On the screen, The dark-red void crack contracted, healed. Ten seconds later, it was completely gone. The price: Lu Baoyi had lost all memory of the last seventy-two hours.
Including how he entered the museum, how the trap was triggered, how he built the mirror.
Including the moment Lin Wan had wept for him.
"I……" His voice was sandpaper-rough. "Where is this? Who are you people?"
Lin Wan's hand froze.
Qin Mu approached: "Lu Baoyi, I'm Qin Mu, chief researcher at Xihe. You had an accident during the Mirror-Seed resonance test. You need rest."
"Mirror-Seed…… my father……"
"We'll discuss it when you've recovered." Qin Mu signaled the medics forward. "Take Mr. Lu back to his room. Lin Wan, accompany him."
As they were leaving the storage area, Lu Baoyi suddenly raised a hand and pointed at the empty bronze box in the corner: "That thing…… did it just light up?"
Qin Mu turned.
Inside the bronze box, the Northern Song star-chart bronze plate had turned to powder. On the powder's surface floated a layer of dark-gold glimmering light, fading.
Within the light, characters.
Qin Mu rushed closer to look. The light had already dispersed.
But he caught a glimpse of the final remnants.—
Four seal-script characters:
"Yuan-Yan Symbiosis"
Bianjing · On the Road to the Palace
In the carriage, Qian Yiyan stared at her mirrorized right hand.
The palm reflected the night outside the window and her own cold face.
Zhao Yunbi sat with eyes closed, resting.
"Deputy Director Zhao." Qian Yiyan suddenly spoke.
"Please speak."
"How much…… does the Empress Dowager truly know?"
Zhao Yunbi opened his eyes. His smile was warm, but the warmth in his eyes had vanished:
"The Empress Dowager knows that three years ago, before Qian Weiyan fell to his death, he secretly entered the palace and presented a reverse-calculated star chart, marking twelve weak points of the Gate—one of them in the Luoyang veins."
He paused:
"The Empress Dowager also knows that at the time, Qian Weiyan said: 'The rust-seed is not a calamity; it is a trial. Something is testing us…… whether we deserve to survive.'"
Qian Yiyan's left hand clenched. Her nails dug into her palm.
"What…… is that thing?"
"The Empress Dowager did not say." Zhao Yunbi looked out the window. "But I suspect it is connected to that 'something helping from across a thousand years' that you felt tonight."
The carriage entered the palace gates.
In the distance, atop the Astrological Bureau's high tower, the golden pillar had not yet dispersed, casting a twisted star-chart phantom. At its center, the Luoyang position's dark-gold light was slowly fading.
Like a wound that had stopped bleeding. The scar would remain forever.
Qian Yiyan looked down. Her left hand reached into her bosom.
The jade pendant was cold as stone.
But she felt…… something more inside it.
As if someone had stuffed a note.
Donghai City · Hospital Room
Lu Baoyi lay on the hospital bed, staring at the ceiling.
His mind was empty. But there was a powerful sense of loss. Like he'd lost something very important, yet didn't even know what it was.
Lin Wan was peeling an apple.
Halfway through, Lu Baoyi suddenly spoke: "Did I…… forget someone?"
Lin Wan's hand jerked. The knife cut her finger.
"……Why do you ask?"
"I don't know." Lu Baoyi frowned. "Just feel…… there should be someone, far away, yet also very close. I should remember her…… or him?"
Lin Wan was silent for a long time. Then she said softly: "When you're better, I'll tell you slowly."
Lu Baoyi turned his face to look at her. He looked for a long time, then grinned:
"Were you…… crying for me just now?"
Lin Wan froze.
"There are tear tracks at the corners of your eyes." Lu Baoyi clumsily pointed At the corner of his own eye. "Even though I forgot why…… thanks."
Lin Wan lowered her head and continued peeling the apple.
As she peeled, tears fell again, splashing onto the apple.
Lu Baoyi asked no more.
He turned to look out the window. The night sky was black, starless.
But he always felt…… there should be a light.
A golden light, unwilling to go out.
Deepest Night
Atop the Astrological Bureau's high tower in Bianjing.
Qian Yiyan stood alone. The Empress Dowager had not received her, merely sent Zhao Yunbi with a message: "Rest well. In three days, a task awaits."
She knew. Her house arrest had begun.
The rust on her left arm had passed the elbow; the mirror on her right hand had reached the wrist. She raised both hands to look—one like rusted iron, one like a frozen mirror.
Neither looked like human hands anymore.
She wanted to laugh. Laugh at herself, at the world, at that bastard across a millennium, reckless and suicidal.
As she laughed, the jade pendant in her bosom trembled faintly.
So light it felt like an illusion.
She pulled out the pendant. Under the moonlight, on its surface floated a line of twisted characters, fading:
"Coordinates: Third mine pit, northern range of Longmen Mountain, Luoyang. Protocol Fragment One. Take care. ——681"
The characters were intermittent. as if carved with the last of their strength.
Qian Yiyan stared at that line. For a long time.
Then she clenched the pendant, lifted her head to look northeast—toward Luoyang. The direction her father had fallen.
"Take care?" she repeated softly, the corner of her mouth twisting into a cold arc. "You survive first…… Lu Baoyi."
The wind scattered her whisper.
In the depths of the night sky, the golden pillar finally extinguished.
Darkness swallowed everything.
Only the countdown in the depths of consciousness pulsed silently:
【398 days, 23 hours】
Another day had been stolen.
No one knew.