I thought that the thrilling journey had come to an end and everything would return to normal, but what was unexpected was that at this seemingly calm moment, an astonishing change suddenly occurred.
The remains of the calico cat's collar, which should have been an ordinary relic, suddenly exploded at the spaceship's control console, emitting a blinding light. Like lightning, the light instantly illuminated the entire console, making it impossible to look directly at it.
At the same time, the tranquil scene on the holographic map projected by the Gear Eye was shattered. At the spacetime coordinates of the fourth year of Tang Wude, a rotating Xuanji diagram suddenly emerged. This Xuanji diagram seemed to possess life, each line trembling slightly, flowing with the unique quantum luster of super-dimensional consciousness, emitting a mysterious and powerful aura.
"Residual data detected, autonomously programming..." The mechanical cat's voice suddenly rang out, a hint of electrical noise, as if it too was surprised by this sudden change. Then, it continued, "An anomalous spacetime node appeared during the Eastern Jin Dynasty on Ancient Earth, topologically linked to the White Deer Academy!"
These words resonated like a thunderclap. White Deer Academy, a place steeped in legend, unexpectedly possessed a topological connection with the nodes of space and time. What did this mean? This discovery undoubtedly introduced new mysteries and challenges to the story, fueling anticipation and curiosity for what would unfold next.
As soon as Lin Yue grasped Lu Li's hand, the turbulent flow of time and space engulfed them like a tide. When she opened her eyes again, she found herself kneeling before a loom, her fingertips entwined with multicolored silk thread. On her desk lay an unfinished handkerchief, embroidered with half a lotus blossom. The bronze mirror reflected her in a moon-white blouse and skirt. The jade hairpin slanted in her hair bore a miniature Möbius strip.
"Ayue, are you daydreaming again?" a gentle male voice called from behind. Lin Yue froze—the voice was clearly Lu Li's, but it carried a touch more of the lingering, Jiangnan-style air than she remembered. Turning around, she was met with a pair of star-filled eyes. A man in a bamboo-green ruqun (a traditional Chinese dress) leaned against the doorframe, the jade pendant at his waist engraved with the same topological patterns as her hairpin. "Are you coming with me to the South City Poetry Gathering today?"
Just as Lin Yue was startled, the calico cat suddenly shot out from under the loom like lightning. Its movements were swift and agile, as if driven by some force.
At the same time, the mechanical claws began to knock on the ground frantically, making crisp and rapid sounds, as if warning of something.
"Warning! The target person's identity has been tampered with!" The sound of the mechanical claw echoed in the air, making people shudder.
Lin Yue stared intently at the person in front of her. There was a gentleness and elegance in his eyes and brows, which was somewhat similar to the Lu Li in her memory, but also seemed a little different.
Suddenly, she noticed a faint silver-purple code pattern behind his ear. The pattern was faintly visible under his skin, like a hidden secret.
A strange feeling surged in Lin Yue's heart, and she began to realize that in this time and space, the super-dimensional consciousness seemed to have transformed them into a couple in history - Su Hui, the talented woman of the Eastern Jin Dynasty who wrote the Xuanji Diagram, and her husband Dou Tao.
The poetry gathering took place on a pleasure boat on the Qinhuai River. Lin Yue stood at the bow, fan in hand, watching Lu Li and the other scholars reciting poems. The way he held the wolf-hair brush resembled the fan-wielding young man at the White Deer Academy, but with a touch of scholarly grace. Suddenly, the crowd stirred. Miss Wang reappeared, this time wearing a wide-sleeved skirt and clutching a scroll of brocade. "Master Dou, do you know that this Xuanji map contains a hundred love poems?"
Lin Yue's thread of time suddenly strained. She saw the words on the handkerchief twisting into a hyperdimensional code. A calico cat leaped onto her shoulder, its gear-like eyes flashing a warning of danger: "A spacetime virus disguised as a literary puzzle has been detected. If unsolved... the entire Eastern Jin Dynasty spacetime will collapse into a singularity!"
Lu Li's code flowed silently within his sleeve. The moment he took the handkerchief, a silver-purple glow flashed across the paper. "This Xuanji diagram appears complex, but in reality..." Before he could finish his words, Miss Wang suddenly waved her sleeve, and the handkerchief transformed into a black stream of data, trapping him. Lin Yue grabbed the inkstone from the desk and hurled it at him. The ink condensed in mid-air into golden-red chains of time, entangled with the virus that was corroding the core of Lu Li's code.
"So you're not mortal either!" Miss Wang shed her gentle facade, revealing a mechanical face. "A defective product of a super-dimensional consciousness, destined to be lost in the long river of history!" Behind her, a massive binary matrix emerged, enveloping the entire Qinhuai River. Lin Yue felt the timeline begin to unravel, and the figures of the surrounding scholars gradually became transparent, transforming into drifting fragments of code.
Lu Li suddenly broke through the data stream, and his wide sleeves completely transformed into silver-purple light bands, weaving into a protective barrier in the air: "Ayue, do you still remember the heart knot of Bailu Academy?" His voice was mixed with the unique electronic sound of the code, "Weave our resonant frequency... into the timeline!" Lin Yue understood, and golden-red silk threads flowed out of his fingertips, interweaving with his code flow to form the shape of the Xuanji diagram.
When the final thread embedded itself in the center of the pattern, the entirety of space and time trembled violently. Miss Wang's mechanical body began to disintegrate, revealing fragments of a hyperdimensional consciousness within—malicious data attempting to tamper with history. Lu Li's coder and Lin Yue's thread of time simultaneously penetrated the fragments. In a sudden burst of light, they "beheld" the real Su Hui and Dou Tao of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and the altered trajectory of their fate.
When time and space returned to calm, the pleasure boat continued its peaceful life, as if nothing had happened. Lin Yue looked down at the Xuanji diagram that had suddenly appeared in her hands, each block of color flowing with quantum light. Lu Li pulled her into his arms, the silver-purple code gently entwining the ends of her hair. "It turns out that the super-dimensional consciousness has long since written our story into the romance of every civilization."
A calico cat suddenly poked its head out from his sleeve, its mechanical claws holding a half-burnt block of almond curd. "Detected the spacetime anchor has been restored, but...does the almond curd from the Eastern Jin Dynasty taste different from the Tang Dynasty?" Lin Yue was amused. The thread of time playfully rolled up the curd and fed it into Lu Li's mouth. Their intertwined figures were reflected in the waves of the Qinhuai River, gradually merging with the shadows of the couple from a thousand years ago.
In the return tunnel, Lu Li's code stream suddenly transformed into a starry sky, inscribing their resonant frequencies on each star. "Next time we travel through time," he said with a smile, "I want to be your knight, wielding a sword across the world, not a young man trapped in academies and poetry gatherings." Lin Yue leaned on his shoulder, the golden-red timeline gently sketching a picture of the Jianghu, continuing the never-ending romantic legend in this super-dimensional space and time.
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