Chapter 29: The Hollow King’s Gambit

1. The Price of a Blank Page

The moment Lin Feng's foot touched the trembling空白页 (Blank Page), the Tome's curse manifested in paradoxes:

Memory Erosion: Each step dissolved a fragment of their past. Bai Yu's jokes turned to static; Ying Sha's prism showed her father's death in every possible timeline at once.

Ink of Absence: The page "wrote" itself using their vanishing memories, forming a rebel manifesto:

"Cultivation is not refinement—it is the art of holding contradictions."

Irony: The more they forgot, the clearer the truth became.

2. The Seventh Wavelength

Xiao Qi's light (the "forgotten" childhood persona) pulsed as a guide, revealing:

The Hollow King's Deception: The merged consciousness of Xuan Gu and the King wasn't destroyed—it hijacked the Blank Page's quantum field.

Li Feng's Rebellion: The杀戮本能 (killing instinct) persona resisted memory loss by carving blood-glyphs into his own spectral form, each stroke a suppressed scream of静心 (Jing Xin).

Foreshadowing: The glyphs spelled "林风" (Lin Feng's true name)—known only to Xiao Qi.

3. Frost Moon's Interception

The寒月宗 (Frost Moon Sect) struck via temporal fractures:

Weaponized Nostalgia: Ice needles carrying childhood memories of Lin Feng (playing with白榆 (Bai Yu) before the experiments) pierced the group.

Effect: Memory loss accelerated. Ying Sha began forgetting her father mid-sentence.

Twist: The needles were forged from Scholar Wen's stolen data—proof the天策阁 (Celestial Strategy Pavilion) had betrayed Frost Moon.

Visual: Frozen tears crystallized into tiny pear blossoms (云踪山庄's symbol).

4. The Performer's Breakdown

As memories burned,演者 (The Performer) glitched:

Unshackled Impulse: It reverted to 燕九 (Yan Jiu)'s core trauma—repeating the教具护士 (Nurse-Dolls)'s lullaby while mimicking Bai Yu's laughter.

Critical Error: It grabbed a frost needle and stabbed its own throat, silencing the nurses' programming.

Aftermath: The persona's翡翠剑穗 (jade tassel) unraveled into causal threads—exposing云踪山庄's control.

5. The Hollow King's True Endgame

The merged Xuan Gu/Hollow King consciousness revealed its gambit:

The "13th Fracture": It had let Lin Feng reach the Blank Page to overload the Tome's core.

Ultimate Sacrifice: To destabilize the四大派系's power, it demanded one persona's complete erasure.

Choice:

Xiao Qi: Offers herself—"I'm already a ghost."

Li Feng: Refuses, sundering his own spectral form to protect her.

Outcome: The Blank Page implodes, ejecting them into—

6. The Corpse of the Tome

They land in a wasteland of:

Shredded Pages: Scrawled with censored cultivation methods.

Living Footnotes: Twitching, half-formed disciples of天策阁 crawl, begging for "edits."

Discovery: The Hollow King's "door" was a trap—this is the original Page 13, where the 7th persona (Yan Jiu's lost sister) was deleted.

7. The Blood Oath Reforged

Lin Feng's group is ambushed by幽冥道 (Netherworld Path)'s debt-collectors:

Demand: "Repay the stolen time." (Referring to Bai Yu's逆生死簿 (Reversed Death Script).

Li Feng's Bargain: Offers his remaining memories of静心—triggering her医幻术 (healing illusions) one last time.

Betrayal: The debt-collectors are 尹杀 (Yin Sha)'s ink-clones—sent to harvest Xiao Qi's light.

8. The Silent One Awakens

As Li Feng falters,默者 (The Silent One) absorbs the pain—and speaks:

Voice: A fusion of Xuan Gu's growl and the 7th persona's whisper.

Revelation: "The四大派系 fear not the Tome's power—but the空白it cannot fill."

Action: It tears out its own heart (a memory-spore of the反抗军 (Rebel Army)) and implants it into the Corpse of the Tome.

9. The Birth of a New Page

The Corpse reshapes into:

A Rebel Manual: Titled "Disobedience as Dao".

First Technique: "To walk sideways is to evade categorization."

四大派系's Reaction:

Frost Moon's ice cracks.

-云踪山庄's卦盘 (divination disks) shatter.

-天策阁's银液 (silver fluid) boils.

10. Cliffhanger: The Prism's Warning

As they escape, Ying Sha's prism shows three converging fates:

Lin Feng kneeling before a faceless version of himself (the "false" master persona).

Bai Yu laughing as his comedy core rewrites the Tome's laws.

A child's hand (Xiao Qi?) erasing the 7th persona's name from existence.

Final Line:

"The only way out is to become the flaw in the system."