Chapter 9: Echoes of the Origins

In the summer of 2012 in Wuhan, Chu Yun was working in an automobile repair shop. When he tightened the last screw, he found the name "Lu Li" engraved on the wrench. Dr. Shen works as a nurse in a community clinic and always thinks of the cries of metal babies when she gives vaccines to children.

When Su Wanqing picks up her daughter from school with her pregnant belly, she can't help but look at the digital watch - there are still 2,550 days left in the countdown. My daughter's folded paper boats are stuffed in her school bag, and there is a tiny chip blinking at the bottom of each boat.

On the night of a rainstorm, Chu Yunxiu's car suddenly plays a news broadcast from the year 2099. Dr. Shen discovers a mechanical dragon design floating on the inside of a vaccine bottle. Su Wanqing sees the outline of a fetus holding a Regulus sword in the ultrasound of her maternity check.

The three of them reunite at the Yangtze River Bridge, and the electronic meter rings an alarm at the same time. Mechanical crocodiles from seven years ago suddenly appear on the river surface, each carrying its own self from that year on its back. The daughter points at the crocodiles and shouts, "Daddy is on the back of the fish!"

On the night Su WanQing went into labor, the maternity ward suddenly distorted time and space. The nurse turns into a mechanical beast, and the scalpel grows Dr. Lin's prosthetic eye. When Chu Yun smashed the window with an auto repair tool, he saw Lu Li in 2099 fighting outside the window.

The moment a newborn baby cries, all the mechanical beasts suddenly stand still. Dr. Shen picks up the baby and discovers that she has a complete map of global nuclear power plants tattooed on her back. The electronic clock in the maternity ward suddenly jumps back to the countdown to the nuclear explosion seven years ago: 00:07:00.

As the newborn baby grabs Dr. Lin's prosthetic eye, electronic equipment throughout Wuhan simultaneously displays: the second game begins. Chu Yun discovers giant launching shafts underneath the auto body shop, and Dr. Shen finds boxes of mech drawings in the clinic cabinet.

Su WanQing stood on the river beach holding her daughter, watching the sunrise rise from the orientation of the nuclear explosion seven years ago. She gently broke open her daughter's palm, which clutched half of the bloodied school insignia - the very half that was missing when the mechanical mechanic blew himself up.