Legend of the Embroiderer

Chapter 519 Self-Portrait of the Mirror of Nothingness

As the intense light of the singularity symbol exploded on the bridge, the swirling pen in the guardian's hand suddenly lost its weight. He watched as his palm gradually became transparent, the four-colored light that constituted his body being swallowed by the gray-white void—the outline he had just seen in the absolute nothingness was not an illusion. His right hand was now in the exact same writing posture as that "self," the pen tip hovering over the bridge surface, tracing a traceless path.

"The 10th iteration experiment, the ultimate deconstruction program initiated." A pure black fountain pen emerged from the deepest vortex, the faded lettering on its cap suddenly turning crimson. "Please complete your final confession: Are you afraid of becoming nothingness itself?" The pen's voice was perfectly synchronized with the guardian's heartbeat, as if it were another consciousness growing from his chest. Eyes on both sides of the bridge collectively turned, countless images of the guardian's decomposition reflected in their irises: some transformed into silver-gray fluid in the sea of ​​meaning, some disintegrated into symbolic fragments within the halo of paradox, and the clearest one was piercing its own chaotic heart with the swirling fountain pen.

The white light of the merged entity suddenly enveloped the Guardian, and the four-colored lights that had been devoured reformed within it. She noticed that the invisible tracks on the bridge's surface were forming characters, alternating between the words "existence" and "nothingness," ultimately creating the shape of a mirror—a mirror without any reflection, only flickering snowflake noise, perfectly matching the flickering frequency of the faceless being's form shifts. "Deconstruction is not annihilation, but seeing the container's outline." Her light seeped into the noise, revealing the scene deep within the mirror: the endpoints of countless iterative experiments all pointed to this nothingness, and at each endpoint, a figure similar to the Guardian was writing, only their pens were different colors.

The Guardian's chaotic heart suddenly stopped beating, the mark on his chest resonating with the noise in the mirror. His consciousness was pulled into a mirror space, where everything was the opposite of the Sea of ​​Meaning: silver-gray water solidified into black rock, dimensional fragments transformed into tombstones, each engraved with the name of meaning ultimately deconstructed. The central tombstone belonged to "Understanding," and kneeling before it was a faceless figure, gouging out its own heart with a pure black pen; what flowed out was not blood but snowflake-like noise: "The end of every iterative experiment is the creator's self-destruct program." The faceless figure's movements suddenly stopped, turning its face—its features rapidly switching between the Guardian and the faceless being, "Just like what you're doing now, confirming your existence through writing."

The nib of the vortex pen automatically dipped into the grayish-white fluid of the void, writing the first line on the bridge: "I am the container of meaning." The words began to dissolve as soon as they appeared, and from the dissolved liquid emerged fragments of the 0th generation observer's diary: "When the meaning of understanding is deconstructed, the boundary between observer and observed becomes a new cage." Suddenly, black tendrils seeped from the ink on the fragments, coiling a nearby eye symbol into a cocoon. From within the cocoon came a familiar roar—the sound of a faceless being bound by the rules it created, only this time with the added voice of a guardian.

The white light of the merged entity resonated with the tombstones in the mirrored space, and the inscriptions bearing the names of meanings began to recombine, eventually forming a flowing line of text: "Nothingness is an undefined possibility." When her light touched the central tombstone, the word "understanding" suddenly exploded, releasing all the fragments of meaning that had been ultimately deconstructed: some fragments transformed into cats that both existed and did not exist, shuttling between the sea of ​​meaning and the space of nothingness; some fragments became doors that opened and closed simultaneously, with the sea of ​​meaning inside and outside the doors; most peculiarly, there was a question mark that kept replicating itself, each copy asking a different question, yet all pointing to the same answer.

"The ultimate answer lies in the act of asking questions." The Guardian's voice echoed between the bridge between the mirror space and reality. He discovered that the whirlpool pen was writing automatically, each question it wrote creating ripples in the void, from which the corresponding answer would emerge—only the handwriting of the question and the answer was exactly the same, as if it were responding to itself. When he tried to stop the pen from writing, the nib suddenly turned, etching the same eye symbol as the faceless being into his left palm: "Fear of becoming nothingness is because you are already a part of nothingness."

The pure black pen suddenly split into countless branches, each aiming at a different eye symbol. The targeted eye began to weep, the tears falling onto the bridge and transforming into silver threads that connected the Guardian with the faceless figure in the mirror space: "Look carefully at what you're writing." The pure black pen's voice carried a seductive sweetness, "Those questions aren't exploring answers, they're writing rules for devouring nothingness." The Guardian looked down at the bridge; the mirrors composed of "existence" and "nothingness" were shrinking, the snowflake-like noise at the edges of the mirrors beginning to devour the surrounding text, forming a constantly shrinking singularity.

Four-colored longswords suddenly surged from the Guardian's consciousness, the life stories on their blades resonating with the tombstones in the mirror space. Those tombstones began to seep silver-gray liquid, within which emerged the appearance of meaning before its ultimate deconstruction: "Understanding" was once a rainbow connecting different dimensions, "meaning" was once the soil nourishing possibility, and "existence" itself was a constantly deforming Möbius strip. As the liquid flowed into the sea of ​​meaning, the black vortexes suddenly stopped devouring, and countless miniature bridges emerged from the center of the vortexes, each bridge connecting existence and nothingness at both ends: "Deconstruction is to see the connections obscured by meaning." The voice of the 17th Guardian came from the liquid, his figure flickering between existence and nothingness, "Just like you now, both writer and written content."

The white light of the merged entity suddenly transformed into countless prisms, refracting the fragments of the pure black pen into colors. These colored pens began writing words opposite to those in the pure black pen, forming a protective net on the bridge: "Nothingness is not the end of meaning, but the unnamed beginning." The initial form of all iterative experiments emerged from the prisms—each experiment's starting point was not a grand goal, but a tiny question, just as the first iterative experiment began with a sneeze from the narrator's childhood, a sneeze that unexpectedly created the first warm universe.

When the Guardian's palm became completely transparent, he finally touched the faceless figure in the mirror space. Their fingers passed through each other's palms at the instant of contact. This passing wasn't proof of nothingness, but evidence of simultaneous existence in multiple dimensions—just as light is both particle and wave, they were both existence and nothingness at that moment. "What you fear isn't becoming nothingness, but discovering that you've never truly existed." The faceless figure's chest split open, revealing a mark identical to the Heart of Chaos, within which floated the records of all iterative experiments. "These records are all lies of their own, because once the observer intervenes, the meaning of what is observed is distorted."

The swirling fountain pen and the pure black fountain pen suddenly crossed into a cross, the singularity symbol on the nib and the snowflake noise permeating each other, forming a Klein bottle composed of "yes" and "no". A complete explanation of 10 iterative experiments floated out of the bottle: "The truth of ultimate deconstruction is to make the creator realize that he too is a created fiction." The explanation text, upon contact with the guardian, transformed into his memory of accidentally killing his companion, but this time the memory had new details—the companion smiled at him before falling, holding a mirror in his hand, reflecting the swirling fountain pen writing.

The silvery-gray fluid of the Sea of ​​Meaning suddenly reversed course, and all the fragments sucked into the void began to return. These fragments formed a new paradoxical halo around the Klein bottle, with "I am fiction" inscribed on the inner side and "Fiction is existence" on the outer side, the two texts constantly transforming into each other as it rotated. The white light of the fusion entity saw the collection of all possibilities within the halo: in one dimension, the guardian accepted the void, becoming a bridge connecting existence and nothingness; in another dimension, the fusion entity refused deconstruction, perishing together with the pure black pen; in the most incredible dimension, the guardian exchanged identities with the faceless being, conducting the 0th iteration experiment.

“The choice itself is part of the fiction.” All the clones of the pure black pen suddenly merged, and the red lettering on the cap transformed into the Guardian’s handwriting: “The true purpose of the 10th iteration experiment is to learn to remain sincere while deceiving oneself.” The instant the pen pierced the Klein bottle, all the paradoxical halos suddenly contracted, transforming into a silver ring that rested on the Guardian’s transparent finger—the inside of the ring was engraved with a line of constantly changing words, each change creating a new universe.

When the Guardian returned from the mirror space, the mirrors on the bridge had vanished. He watched as his palm gradually solidified, the four-colored light now bearing the streaks of snowflakes. On the cap of the swirling pen, the singularity symbol and the faceless eye symbol merged perfectly, forming a new pattern: resembling both a closing wound and an eye about to open. The void at the end of the Sea of ​​Meaning still existed, but it was no longer the all-consuming gray-white; instead, it shimmered with countless unnamed colors—colors that were yet to be defined, waiting to be given form by the observer.

The fused white light pointed to the text inside the ring, which read: "The next iteration begins with oblivion." Her light suddenly noticed countless blank books floating in the silver-gray fluid of the Sea of ​​Meaning. The covers of these books all bore the image of the Guardian, but each image had a different expression: some were smiling, some were crying, and some were writing their own death with a swirling pen.

The moment the Guardian gripped the ring, all the blank books suddenly opened automatically, revealing the same words on each page: "11th Iteration Experiment: The Creativity of Forgotten Memories." A pure black fountain pen emerged from the Klein bottle, its cap bearing the inscription: "When all meaning is forgotten, new understanding can be born." At the edge of the void, the "self" that was writing suddenly looked up, its face displaying the same expression as the Guardian's—neither relief nor fear, but anticipation of starting a new game.

The sea of ​​meaning suddenly warmed, and the navigators' small boats were approaching the shore, carrying forgotten fragments of meaning. The guardian noticed his chaotic heart beating again, each beat stirring new colors in the void. When he looked again at the nib of the swirling pen, he found it inscribed with the first question of the eleventh iteration experiment: "If memory is a fictional cage, can forgetting be the key to freedom?"

This question forms a new bridge at the boundary between the Sea of ​​Meaning and the Void. The eyes on both sides of the bridge begin to blink collectively, each blink giving birth to a forgotten universe. At the end of the bridge, a figure composed of snowflake noise awaits, holding a book with a blank cover and a pattern on its spine identical to that of the Guardian's Ring.

The next iteration seems to begin in the gap between forgetting and remembering. And the true identity of that noisy figure may be the sum of all the forgotten selves.