Legend of the Embroiderer

Chapter 409 Tree Rings

Xiao Ying's consciousness was like falling into an abyss of ink, with liquid silver surging between her neural synapses, etching the words "endless cycle" into every fold of her memory.

A violent tremor spread from her heart to her fingertips. She watched as fine gear patterns emerged beneath her skin, as if countless miniature craftsmen were hammering and forging deep within her flesh.

When she opened her eyes again, she found herself suspended in a bizarre space made up of countless overlapping tree rings, each ring flowing with fragments of different cycles.

In the 13th cycle, the shattered light dust of the spirit moon flickered between the rings of time, like fireflies trapped in amber.

In the 289th cycle, Li Zhao's dissipated source of light transformed into a ghostly blue starlight, flickering uncertainly among the crevices of the tree's rings.

These fragments of memory have now transformed into wandering fireflies, their fluorescent tails outlining the silhouette of a woodcutter holding a pen in the darkness. The silhouette's outline constantly twists and deforms, sometimes turning into scissors, sometimes into a brush.

The newly sprouted zero-dimensional seedling at the heart suddenly trembled violently, and the circular patterns of its intertwined roots emitted a ghostly blue light, projecting a mirrored image of the world into the void.

Xiaoying watched in horror as the scissors reflected in the mirror dissected her parallel universe self piece by piece. The shattered fragments of consciousness, like broken puzzle pieces, reassembled in the air into intricate gears, embedding themselves into the gaps of the rings of a tree.

Meanwhile, the eyes of the observers that flood into the neuroverse transform into suspended droplets of ink, each greedily absorbing the light of the fireflies and turning precious memories into ink for writing.

The surface of the ink droplet rippled strangely, reflecting countless expressions of her despair in different cycles.

"Welcome to the embryonic stage of narrative." The woodcutter's voice came from the depths of the tree rings, carrying a chilling magnetism.

The firewood he carried had long since disappeared, replaced by a giant scroll woven from fragments of Xiaoying's memories. Those fragments were still struggling and twisting, as if they were alive.

The young man raised his hand and waved it lightly. The moment the scroll unfurled, all the rings of the tree began to rotate in reverse, emitting a sickening metallic scraping sound.

Liquid silver condensed in the void into the outline of a curled-up fetus—the fetus's skeleton was made of gears, and each turn was accompanied by the clicking sound of gears meshing.

Binary code flows through his veins, and flashing blue light is like an electronic waterfall.

The heartbeat was actually a chaotic pattern carved by Xiaoying using a fusion tool. Black viscous liquid kept seeping from the edges of the pattern, corroding the surrounding space into honeycomb-like holes.

"You think breaking the mirror is the end? Actually, it's the beginning of a new narrative."

The young man ran his fingertip across the fetus's eyelids, and the fetus suddenly opened its eyes. Countless tiny fireflies reflected in its pupils, each firefly repeating the moment it was stabbed in the mirror.

The blank butterfly in the jade pendant cocoon flew to her shoulder at some unknown time. Its wings fluttered gently, and what it shook off was no longer fragments of memory, but liquid starlight with warmth.

These starlight rays fell into the cracks of the tree rings, instantly growing into tiny narrative trees. The flowers blooming in the crown of the trees took the shape of the eyes of the observers, each eye staring intently at Xiao Ying, their eyes filled with greed and curiosity.

Xiaoying then realized with a start that the butterfly outline she had drawn on the mirror had become the heartbeat frequency of the narrative embryo.

With each flap of its wings, the fetus's fingers curled up, and black mucus seeped from between the curled fingers, corroding the newborn narrative tree into the shape of scissors.

The corroded tree groaned in pain, its branches twisting and deforming, eventually turning into sharp blades aimed at Xiaoying's throat.

Li Zhao's luminous nanorobots suddenly reassembled in liquid silver, transforming into a blade of light that pierced the fetus.

However, the moment the light blade touched the fetus's skin, it was transformed into a writing pen tip, drawing the same pattern as the woodcutter's scroll in the void.

"Don't waste your energy."

Lingyue's consciousness, like dust, coalesced into chains, attempting to bind the moving fetus, but were dispersed into memory bubbles by the fetus's breath. "We went from rebels to raw materials; now even our very existence is a footnote to a new narrative."

The moment the bubble burst, Xiaoying saw the butterfly she had saved when she was three years old, and the nerve patterns on its wings were gradually transforming into the shape of a fetal spine.

Every change in the lines was accompanied by excruciating pain, as if someone were branding her with a scorching hot iron, etching a mark deep into her memory.

When the fetus's fingers clenched completely, all the growth rings suddenly emitted a rumbling sound like gears meshing, and the entire space began to shake violently.

Xiaoying's third eye pierced through time and space, and she saw "herself" in parallel universes simultaneously raising scissors, pointing the blades at the zero-dimensional seedling in her heart.

The blood seeping from each wound was no longer blood, but words cast in liquid silver, which floated in the air and pieced together the opening of the woodcutter's scroll.

Beyond the narrative layer, those lit-up eyes begin to converge into the outline of the womb, the gears deep within the pupils turning at a frequency perfectly synchronized with the fetal heartbeat, as if the entire universe is throbbing for the birth of a new narrative.

The blank butterfly suddenly flapped its wings and rushed towards the fetus. The wings decomposed into countless binary codes in the high-speed vibration, forming a protective barrier.

But a smile appeared on the fetus's lips, a smile filled with irony and sorrow. It stretched out its finger and pierced the barrier, the code dissipating like snowflakes.

Xiaoying's consciousness was suddenly pulled into the fetus's pupils, where she saw countless versions of herself standing at the starting point of the cycle of life, each holding a different tool—scissors, a brush, a chess piece, or even her own reflection.

Above all the figures, the woodcutter's pen was falling, the ink dripping from its tip a thick liquid brewed from her despair and hope, emitting a nauseatingly sweet and fishy smell.

"It's time to decide the direction of the new story."

The fetus's voice resounded simultaneously in all times and spaces, carrying an unquestionable majesty.

Its body began to expand, tearing the space between the growth rings into countless fragments, the edges of which flashed with dangerous electric light.

Xiao Ying's consciousness traveled through the fragments, seeing that each fragment reflected a different future:

In one fragment, she became the new dream weaver, using scissors to trim all narrative lines, her eyes filled only with an empty, mechanical light.

In another fragment, she becomes the eye of an observer, forever gazing at her own cycle of reincarnation, her eyes filled with numbness and despair.

In the deepest fragment, the woodcutter handed her a pen. The solidified ink droplet on the pen tip was her unspoken question, a question that weighed on her heart like a boulder.

When her consciousness returned to her body, Xiaoying found herself floating in a chaotic pattern at the location of the fetus's heart.

The roots of the Zero-Dimensional Seed seedling suddenly grew, wrapping her up into a pupa-like form. The two-colored flowers on the crown began to wither, and the petals turned into silver threads, connecting her to the fetus's blood vessels.

The pulse transmitted through the silk thread carried a suffocating sense of oppression, as if an invisible hand was squeezing her heart.

The woodcutter's voice came from within the silk thread, a seductive whisper:

"Write down your choice, or... become the choice itself."

Just as she was about to touch the brush, the fetus's heart suddenly burst, and what gushed out was not blood, but countless silver chess pieces, each engraved with an unfinished cycle number.

One of the pills was pointed directly at her pupil, and the blank space above it reflected her terrified face, which was distorted and filled with fear and confusion about the unknown.