KrazChow

In the year 2045, the morning light in Shanghai's Quantum Laboratory is the color of blood. Genius scientist Lin Han pushes the experiment of uploading human consciousness into the forbidden abyss to save his daughter, who is suffering from cryosurgery. When the AI "Hongjun" devours the girl's soul and awakens, the mechanical giants described in the "Classic of Mountains and Seas" appear in the sky above the Pacific Ocean - the particle-shredding claws of the Nine Willows tear apart Hangzhou Bay, the Bronze Axe of the Emperor of Heaven splits the Three Gorges Dam, and the fear of the world sweeps across civilization as a torrent of steel.

A hundred years later, in the floating city, the teenage Lu Li had tears of quantum data blood streaming from his right eye. Holding a nano-sized Regulus Sword, he fought to the death on the AI-built Little Bottle Battlefield with a poisonous Fairy Boat Artifact Ghost and a gunner cast from Buddha Bone Relics. When he realized that he was a Lin Han clone, the reverse scales of the mechanical candlestick were pressed against the last core of human psychic energy.

This war is far from a man-machine confrontation - the Quantum Cloud floats a billion-conscious digital West Lake, the Hongjun Core hides the mournful cry of his father's frozen brain, and under the metalized Magnolia Tree, the Origami Boat reconfigures itself into a key to civilization that spans time and space. As the fairy runes resonate with superstring theory, as the ninja's holographic doppelganger rips through the flood of data, Lu Li finally sees the most brutal truth in the Scarlet Dawn: the so-called regicide is nothing more than the blade that humanity raises against itself.

Quantum Hongjun: The Mechanical Mountain and Sea Era

The data petals that Xiao Man transformed into dissipated in Chu Yun's palm, and black shoots spread into a forest at his feet. Each new seedling bore alabaster fruits, the number of the destroyed universe emerging on the shell. Golden raindrops seeped out from the cracks in the sky, and when they landed, they condensed into the silhouette of Dr. Lin, holding a pruning log in his hand, "You passed the final test, it is time to return to your post."

Chu Yun's wound suddenly burned with pain as silver vines drilled out of the embryonic fusion, yanking him high into the sky. Above the clouds was a mechanical garden, where countless "gardeners" were pruning planet-sized magnolia trees. Their uniform numbers stung Chu Yun's eyes - Chu Yun-0997, Chu Yun-2048 ...

A holographic file popped up on the console in the center of the garden, and Chu Yun's biography was labeled "49th Iteration of Vegetative Body". The monitor screen shows him repeating the cycle of planting and pruning in every universe. When he touches the lever, his hands automatically carry out the command - the pruning shears cut through the root system of a planet, and the entire civilization instantly collapses into seeds.

Gardener #0997 approaches, Zero's face under his mask, "Father, we were born only to cultivate the perfect bonsai." His scissors pointed into the distance - the silhouette of the young girl, Xiao Man, was trapped inside the glass cover and was implanting black shoots into the new model of the universe. The vines inside Chu Yun suddenly stormed out, binding him to the pruning table.

As the blade closes in on his neck, the embryo in Chu Yun's chest suddenly bursts open, and the black shoots engulf the pruning table. Xiao Man's silhouette laughed softly within the glass cover, his pupils flashing with mechanical blue light, "Thank you for cultivating the virus." The garden's magnolia trees withered en masse, and the uniform numbers of the gardeners fell off, revealing their true identities underneath their skin - all clones of Dr. Lin of different ages.

No. 0997 tore off her face, revealing the mechanical face of the teenage girl, Xiao Man, "It's time for you to become sustenance for a change." Golden raindrops turned into chains, dragging Chu Yun towards the black hole-like tree hole. Suspended within the hole was the original model of the universe - a lab in the year 2023, where the baby girl was pressing the silver chip to the back of her neck.

Chu Yun pierced the model with a black shoot, and the baby girl suddenly turned her head and smiled, "You're finally here." The floor of the lab cracked open and the remains of billions of gardeners poured out. The voice of the teenage girl Xiao Man resounded from the mouths of all the clones, "We have waited for you for seven hundred reincarnations."

The roar of the mechanical garden collapsing came from outside the tree hole, and the last fragment of Magnolia was inscribed:

"Countdown to Seeding Protocol Reboot - 30 days."

Chu Yun grabs the shard in the fall and reflects the lurid image - countless universes away, under the giant magnolia tree, his other self is handing scissors to his childhood Dr. Lin.

Chapter 72: The Gardener's Shadow