Chapter 22: The Time Seam
1. The Neutral Strand Emerges
The silver civil war birthed a third faction in Bai Yu's bone marrow:
Appearance: Metallic threads with pearlescent sheen
Agenda: Neither reform nor destroy—preserve the paradox
First Act: Rewrote his comedy scars into tragicomic interludes
Effects observed:
Every joke now had a 50% chance to backfire epically
Hall monitors caught in existential sitcom loops
The furnace's flames developed punchline dependency
2. Blossom and Needle Resonance
Lin Wufeng's pear-flower tears aligned with the frost needle:
Frequency Match:
Petals vibrated at the same pitch as the needle's tip
His black hole pupil projected the needle's frozen moment:
Ying Sha's father weeping as he forges the needle from his own ribs
Temporal Echo:
Each tear dropped twice—once now, once in the past
The older Ying Sha's reflection caught one midair
3. The Nurse's Puppeteer
As the trio debated using the needle, the dismantled nurse-puppet reactivated:
New Voice: Cloud Soaring Manor's dialect (not Celestial Pavilion)
Shocking Reveal:
Her emerald rings matched Ying Sha's father's signature style
Her "kindness programming" was copied from Ying Sha's childhood behaviors
Final words before crumbling: "He said you'd need a mother... so I became her shadow"
4. The Strategist's Ambush
A dozen Cloud Soaring assassins struck with:
Weapons: Quills dipped in edited memories
Target: Not the trio—the heart's golden tubes
Goal: Steal meridian energy for "Project Thirteenth Chair"
Ying Sha's prism eye caught their commander's whisper:
"The Pavilion's recipe was always flawed...
...we have the original draft..."
5. The Stitch in Time
With enemies closing in, Ying Sha made her choice:
Step 1: Pressed the needle into Lin Wufeng's leaden threads
Step 2: Had Bai Yu tell a time-disrupting joke:
"Why did the cultivator cross the timeline?"
"To deliver the punchline to his past self!"
Step 3: Used her prism to align all reflections
The effect:
The tapestry's first stitch unraveled
The furnace's heart skipped a beat (literally)
For three breaths, everyone remembered every possible future at once
6. The Cost of Temporal Surgery
The backlash was brutal:
Lin Wufeng: His golden threads rusted where time bent
Bai Yu: His comedy core split into two conflicting genres
Ying Sha: Her prism eye shattered—but the pieces still showed different timelines
Most critically: The needle now pointed backward—toward:
The moment Lin Wufeng was renamed
The instant Bai Yu first laughed through torture
The day Ying Sha's father became the Tome's first test subject
7. The Rusted Thread Revelation
Lin Wufeng's corroded golden threads flaked away to expose:
Raw Nerve Endings: Throbbing with wind qi patterns from his true name
Hidden Inscription: Beneath the rust, his meridians spelled "Property of Celestial Pavilion - Return if found"
Alarming Development: The serum in his veins began neutralizing the wind qi
The Hollow King's voice rasped through the decay:
"They didn't just rename you...
...they repossessed you."
8. Dueling Comedic Genres
Bai Yu's split core manifested as:
Left Side: Slapstick
Every movement exaggerated (punching himself in the face by accident)
Summoned banana peels from void space
Even his blood squirted comically from wounds
Right Side: Deadpan
Monotone delivery made reality literally flat
Hall monitors stuck in 2D like paper cutouts
His "..." silences collapsed probability waves
When genres collided:
The furnace's flames turned into stand-up spotlights
The silver strands developed preference biases
Time stitches hiccuped, creating micro-paradoxes:
A hall monitor arresting his own mother as a cheating toddler
Exam papers grading themselves with glitter pens
9. Prism Shard Navigation
Ying Sha's fractured vision required triage:
Shard 1 (Past): Showed her father hesitating before inserting the needle
Shard 2 (Present): Revealed the Cloud Soaring assassins stealing tears from captives
Shard 3 (Future): A version of Lin Wufeng fully consumed by serum
Most critically:
Each shard disagreed on which temporal node to target
The needle's backward-pointing tip vibrated differently for each option
Her father's voice whispered: "The first lie was a kindness"
10. The Original Draft Heist
The Cloud Soaring strategists unveiled their prize:
Container: A bamboo tube sealed with preserved toddler fingerprints
Contents:
Charred page titled "Ethical Cultivation: A Proposal"
Marginal note: "Rejected for excessive empathy"
Signature: Not Ying Sha's father's—but Instructor Mu's younger self
When exposed to air:
The paper regenerated into a protest manifesto
Its characters migrated to Bai Yu's comedy scars
The strategists panicked—this wasn't what they expected
11. The First Lie
The needle's vibration settled on Lin Wufeng's renaming day:
Memory Revealed:
His mother volunteered him for the experiments
The name "Wufeng" was her idea ("So the wind won't steal you")
Instructor Mu had protested: "This will make him angrier later"
Paradox Trigger:
If they changed this, would Lin Feng ever rebel?
Would the Hollow King exist to guide them?
Ying Sha's father's sacrifice required this pain
12. The Neutral Strand's Play
The pearlescent silver faction made its move:
On Lin Wufeng: Injected rust accelerant to purge serum faster
On Bai Yu: Forced a genre fusion (slapstick + deadpan = surrealism)
On Ying Sha: Reassembled her prism wrong to see new probability axes
Their endgame became clear:
"Preserve the loop...
...so we can study the loop...
...until the loop studies itself."