Lin Yue, a medical slacker from Beijing Normal University's Medical Research Institute, was sucked into a strange door by a mysterious force just because she casually complained a few words.
The "future cavities" at Lin Yue's fingertips suddenly felt hot, a minty light leaking from the cracks—the unique frequency of exploration in the "love blind spot." Xia Zichen's Star-patterned Sword projected a maze map onto his palm, and on the corner, he scribbled in his newly learned Klingon language with the tip of his sword: "Rather than calculating the odds of winning, I'd rather calculate the arc of your smile." The black cat curled its tail around two "certainty fruits" and tossed them into the misty pool at the maze entrance. Immediately, floating option buttons appeared on the surface: "Sweet Trap Zone," "Thorough Path of Contradiction," and "Valley of Silent Resonance."
"Which one do you choose first?" Xia Zichen rubbed his thumb against the small "See Through" flower on Lin Yue's palm. The petals suddenly shed a holographic projection of him practicing his confession in the nursery last night—his moonlit confession, repeatedly adjusting his tone to the swarm of fireflies, and finally, his red ears as he kicked away a stone, secretly recorded by Wind Pocket as a "heart-beating videotape." Lin Yue suppressed a smile and poked the tip of his burning ear. "Of course... Let's go to the biting sweet trap area first and see if your sword can cut through the strawberry jelly candy wall."
The fog on the first layer of the maze suddenly solidified into a solid mass. The moment Xia Zichen swung his sword, the scattering candy was filled with countless fragments of "what ifs": What if he hadn't blocked the laser cannon in the Pirate Universe? What if she had cracked the rhyme code in the Poet Universe? What if she had uttered the words "I'm afraid of losing you" on that stormy night three years ago? Lin Yue caught a fragment that smelled of seawater and saw herself in a parallel universe, weeping while clutching the bloodstained Star-Embroidered Sword. Suddenly, green sprouts sprouted from the edge of the fragment, transforming the tragic scene into a wall of present-tense roses.
"These are loopholes in the law of increasing entropy." The Entropy Scythe girl had unknowingly sat in the icing dome, rolling a freshly sharpened "possibility dice." "Each 'what if' is an unchosen taste bud branch, but your synapses have already developed an instinct to reject bitterness." She rolled the dice, and the wall suddenly cracked, revealing a passage leading to the "Thorough Path of Contradiction," where thorns hung with talking thorns. "Choose left, and you'll see him hiding his injury. Choose right, and you'll hear a recording of her secretly practicing her confession."
Xia Zichen paused at the left intersection, the "guardian scar" on the back of his neck suddenly burning—a physiological reaction to the pain he endured. Lin Yue tugged him to the right, her trembling voice practicing through the thorns: "Xia Zichen, actually...actually, you look so handsome when you swing a sword! No, try again..." His fingertips suddenly entangled with the wind at the end of her hair, and the thorns instantly blossomed into flowers of "clumsy honesty," each stamen reflecting their stumbling approach across various universes.
"So you get nervous too." Xia Zichen plucked the petals from her hair, which contained the draft text messages she had repeatedly deleted in the "Stranger Universe": "The leaves have been taken away. Do you want to watch the meteor shower together tonight?" He suddenly laughed out loud, and the sound of his laughter shook off the thorns on the wall, revealing a star map made up of "quarrel simulation data" behind it. Each star marked a different solution to the contradiction - some used swords to split barriers, some used the wind to blow away misunderstandings. The brightest one read: "Hugs make heartbeats synchronize faster than debates."
From the depths of the maze, the chimes of the "Silent Resonance Valley" echoed. Suddenly, countless fragments of the afterbirth from the "Undefined Quadrant" gushed out of Lin Yue's pocket of wind. These fragments, woven into the air, formed their unspoken worries: the fear that their affection would become a burden to the other, the fear that their fighting instincts would overwhelm their emotional instincts, the fear that one day even the energy to "pretend to be calm" would be exhausted. Xia Zichen's Star-Patterned Sword unsheathed itself, its spine reflecting his current gaze—no longer the sharpness of battle, but a soft firmness, like steel soaked in moonlight.
"Remember the time when we shared cookies in the data ruins?" He picked up a piece of "burden" with the tip of his sword. The fragment ignited when it came into contact with light, and vines of "sharing" grew out of the ashes. "You pushed all the sweet parts to me and nibbled on the edges of the cookies yourself. In fact, I have known for a long time that your "Mark of the Wind" can sense my pain, but you always pretended not to know." Lin Yue's fingertips stroked the oracle sword vine on his wrist, and the rune suddenly emitted a warm light, reflecting the star trajectory every time she secretly bore the pain for him.
The fog in the Resonance Valley suddenly dissipated, revealing the "taste balance" at its center. The left tray was filled with "concealed" absinthe, while the right tray held "honest" popping candies. A black cat leaped onto the scale and used its tail to shift the two sides toward the center. "Meow! True balance isn't about canceling out the two, but about letting the absinthe seep into the crackling popping candies." Xia Zichen grabbed a handful of absinthe-stained petals, while Lin Yue simultaneously scattered popping candies. The two flavors exploded in mid-air, forming a unique taste that was "ours"—a subtle bitterness tinged with a sudden sweetness, like the first ray of sunlight breaking through the clouds after a stormy night.
Old Zhang's pocket watch had become lodged in the maze wall at some point, and new words appeared on the inside of the watch cover: "The entropy of love is not zero; it is the courage to allow chaos to exist." Lin Yue looked up and saw the glimmer of a scale reflected in Xia Zichen's eyes. She suddenly understood why, in every universe, their weapons were always pointed outward—because true security never lies in shielding each other from all harm, but in standing shoulder to shoulder in the midst of harm, allowing their overlapping shadows to grow into armor that withstands all.
The Entropy Scythe girl rolled her last dice, which cracked in two upon landing, displaying "Now" and "Unknown." Xia Zichen picked up the "Now" half, inscribed with the warmth of their touching palms. Lin Yue grasped the "Unknown," which held the shimmering outline of the "First Date Universe." The black cat used its tail to scoop up the mixed flavors on the scale and tossed them toward the maze's exit. "Let's go! The next flavor galaxy is experiencing a famine—your 'us' flavor is a scarce resource."
The wind picked up again, this time carrying not unspoken whispers but the joy of exploring together. Lin Yue planted the "future cavity" into the "sharing" vine in Xia Zichen's palm. The seed instantly grew into a stairway leading to the starry sky, each step carrying the scent of a different universe: the salty sea breeze of the pirate universe, the fresh scent of ink from the poet universe, the caramel latte from the stranger universe. Xia Zichen drew his Star-Patterned Sword as a cane, the tip of the sword lifting the "certainty" petals in her hair. Suddenly, he leaned in and gently kissed the "Mark of the Wind" on her collarbone.
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