Chen Hao's finger twitched again.
This time it wasn't an illusion. The star trails on the crystal surface were flickering, as if responding to some kind of rhythm. He blinked, his gaze shifting from the snow, his throat a little dry: "I thought... those images were hallucinations caused by a fever."
Nana had already stood up straight, the joints of her robotic arm emitting a soft calibration sound. She didn't answer, but instead raised her palm, the light band in her palm sweeping across the crystal again. Data streams rolled before her eyes, several times faster than before. "Brainwave residual value 78%, heartbeat synchronization rate 96.4%—this isn't a hallucination, it's information injection." She paused. "That off-key school song you just hummed triggered some kind of protocol."
"I didn't do anything," Chen Hao said, rubbing his temples. "I just kept hearing the phrase 'The exam is about to start' in my head, and I hummed it a couple of times."
“But the frequency of those two sentences resonated with the metal layer on the bottom of the snow boots.” Nana looked down at the worn-out snow boots on his feet, the soles covered with ice shards and with several fine, almost invisible scratches on the edges. “I scanned them 327 times before and never found anything unusual. But now… they’re getting hot.”
Chen Hao glanced down at his shoes and grinned, "So my worn-out shoes are the hidden boss? I knew I shouldn't have worn them while running. No wonder they hurt so much every time I fell."
Nana didn't laugh. She crouched down, her fingertips tracing the seam of the shoe sole, a faint blue light spreading along the groove. "The encryption protocol has been activated; a matching bio-frequency is required to unlock it." She looked up. "Hum it again."
“I can sing the national anthem right now.” Chen Hao cleared his throat and began humming the off-key version of the school song again. Nana activated her mechanical throat, amplifying the sound waves and precisely channeling them into the gaps in the sole of her shoe.
"laugh--"
With a soft sound, like a drop of water falling into hot oil, the outer coating of the sole instantly melted away, revealing a dense network of extremely fine lines arranged in a spiral star-like pattern, with a string of numbers marked at the end: **0.000729, , Regression Point - Original Coordinates**.
"This is..." Chen Hao leaned closer to look, "Why is there another one? Who left this prank password?"
“It’s not a prank.” Nana quickly compared the data with the database. “This is a millisecond-level encoding of spacetime coordinates, with the endpoint marked as ‘origin return anchor.’ This numerical sequence has appeared seven times in the ruins of a civilization from three thousand years ago, each time accompanied by the restart of a large spatial structure.”
"So," Chen Hao scratched his head, "these shoes are actually GPS navigators? Or the kind that... can take people through reincarnation?"
“To be more precise,” Nana stood up, “it is part of the key. And you are the only one who can activate it.”
The ground suddenly shook as soon as he finished speaking.
It wasn't the shaking caused by the wind and snow, but a regular vibration coming from deep underground, like some kind of machine awakening. In the distance, the alarm lights of the base lit up one after another, the heating pipes emitted a piercing screech, and then, the entire ice field began to sink.
"Oh no!" Nana grabbed Chen Hao and pulled him back two steps. "The coordinate input has triggered a chain reaction! The underground structure is reorganizing!"
"Wait, I didn't press any buttons!" Chen Hao staggered to regain his balance. "I'm just... standing here wearing it!"
“Your very existence is input.” Nana stared at the rapidly cracking ring-shaped ravine beneath her feet. “Body temperature, heartbeat, brainwaves—all are activating the system in sync. It’s too late to stop it now.”
With a final, muffled boom, the ice layer collapsed three meters, and a huge metal dome emerged from the ground. It was pitch black and its shape was exactly the same as the wreckage of their original crashed spaceship, only more complete, with dark red energy patterns flowing across its surface.
The hatch slid open silently, letting in a soft white light.
Chen Hao swallowed hard: "This ship... it looks more familiar to me than my mother?"
“Because it’s the same ship we came from.” Nana’s voice was unusually low, “It’s just been buried for too long. The logs show that it has been resealed every single time in the past 1,001 cycles.”
"One thousand and one times?" Chen Hao's eyes widened. "You mean, we've died... more than a thousand times?"
“No.” Nana looked at the hatch. “We’ve lived over a thousand times. Each time, we reached the end in a different way. And this time, we touched both the crystal and the coordinates at the same time, breaking the cycle lock.”
They walked step by step toward the spaceship entrance. The steps were made of some kind of transparent material; stepping on them would leave a brief glowing imprint before disappearing.
Inside the cockpit, two luminous figures sat silently in the control seats, their faces identical to theirs, only their eyes were empty, like mirror images stripped of emotion. A holographic projection slowly appeared, text floating in the air:
**The 1001st cycle of civilization has been completed.**
Please select: Continue / Reset
"Just these two options?" Chen Hao frowned. "No 'Exit Game' or 'Restart on a Different Map'?"
“There’s a third path.” Nana suddenly reached out and stopped his finger from pressing down. “Look here.”
She pointed to a line of almost transparent text at the edge of the projection, which could only be seen up close:
**Rewrite rules (requires simultaneous confirmation from both users)**
"What do you mean?" Chen Hao asked.
“It means that all the previous cycles were not failures,” Nana said calmly, “but tests. Tests of who could make it to the end and still maintain their true selves. And now, we are not just participants, we are administrators.”
Chen Hao was silent for a few seconds, then suddenly laughed: "So, in those previous worlds, some of me starved to death, some ran away, some went insane... but none of them were wrong, right?"
“No, not at all,” Nana nodded. “They just chose different ways of surviving.”
“This time I want to choose something different.” Chen Hao turned to look at her. “I don’t want to just survive. I want every version of myself, even if I’m shivering in the coldest night, to remember that there’s someone waiting for me.”
Nana didn't speak; his face was reflected in her electronic eyes.
He held out his hand: "Together?"
She grasped it.
Both of them simultaneously placed their hands on the unmarked groove in the center of the control panel.
The projection changed instantly, and new text appeared:
**Dual anchor holder detected**
**Privilege Upgrade: Genesis Parameter Editing Mode Enabled**
**Please enter the initial conditions for the new world.**
Chen Hao stared at the screen and scratched his ear: "Can this thing be set to 'no exam required'?"
“Theoretically, it’s possible.” Nana brought up the submenu. “But according to historical data, canceling exams would lead to stagnation in the development of civilization and a 37% decrease in average lifespan.”
"Never mind then." He sighed. "I still prefer a life with pressure."
He became serious, tracing lines in the air with his fingers: "I want winters to be less cold, and for the snow to be softer when someone falls. And... I want fatter people to be able to run faster, if they're willing to try."
As Nana entered the information, she added, "Add a rule: allow the robot to have emotional responses that exceed the threshold set in the program."
"Hey, that's against the rules," Chen Hao said with a smile. "Aren't you afraid the system will format you?"
“I’m not afraid,” she said. “Because this time, we’re writing the rules.”
The last line of the screen is flashing:
**Confirm the start of a new cycle?**
**Countdown: 10…9…**
Chen Hao took a deep breath and gripped her hand tightly.
Are you ready?
Nana nodded.
**8…7…6…**
He suddenly remembered something and grinned: "By the way, could we add a setting to the new world?"
"What?"
“If someone is running around in broken snow boots,” he said, “don’t let him fall too hard.”
As soon as he finished speaking, the countdown reached zero.
Light burst forth from inside the cabin, flooding the entire field of vision.
The patterns on the spaceship's hull transitioned from red to gold, spreading outwards in concentric circles, as if time itself were beginning to flow again.
The grooves on the console were still hot, and the two men's hands were clasped tightly together, their knuckles gleaming.
Outside the cabin, the wind had stopped.
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