In the morning light of the domed ceiling of the archives hall, the faint glow from the broken sword's hilt suddenly split into two: the star pattern transformed into a firefly, fluttering towards the search desk, while the ink condensed into a black mist and seeped into the elevator crack. The star pattern scar on Lin Yue's wrist burned as she pointed at the dusty old projector in the corner of the hall. The bronze plaque on the projector's body read "1999.07.23," the date of the fire. When Xia Zichen placed the broken sword fragment against the projector's gears, the film suddenly began to rotate, projecting onto the wall a memory distorted by the thick smoke.
"Look!" Ah Fu's sword tip lifted up the falling film fragments, revealing overlapping images from two different time periods: the adult Lin Yue, carrying Xia Zichen, rushing out of the fire, while the young Lin Yue, darting against the flames, thrusts a metal box into a secret passage in the basement. The scene then shifts to the present day, where elevator surveillance footage reveals the black-robed figure ("Shadow Lin Yue") using the same metal box to activate the prayer wheel. The cloud-thunder pattern on the box's lid matches the one on the secret door to the seventh archive room.
"Twin memories." Lin Yue pressed the projector, and the star pattern and ink intertwined into a DNA double helix in her palm. "On the night of the fire, my soul was split in two by the turbulence of time and space - the light side became the guardian, and the shadow side was eroded by the ink, but by accident became a container for tampering with history." Xia Zichen suddenly remembered the smile of the black-robed man before he disappeared. It turned out that the "anomaly" she tried her best to destroy was the other half of the evidence of her existence.
Suddenly, the ground shook rhythmically, and deep within the elevator shaft echoed the hum of gears reversing. Fuku cleaved the elevator door open. Countless pocket watches floated in the dark water at the bottom, each one frozen at 00:00. The central shaft led directly to the foundations of the archives—where a bronze compass, the same origin of the prayer wheel, lay embedded, its needle madly pointing toward the center of the Earth.
"The duty of an archivist is to 'maintain the entropy of memory.'" Lin Yue picked up a pocket watch with the motto of the first guardian engraved on the inside of the watch cover. "But when the man in black robes tampered with history, he inadvertently created 'memory twins' - there are two real records of the same event, like two entangled quantum particles." Xia Zichen touched the star map mark on his palm and found that it was resonating with the black hole in the center of the compass, where the cry of his childhood self could be faintly heard.
As the three slid down the shaft into the inner chamber, the sight before them was breathtaking: tens of thousands of glass coffins suspended in liquid starlight, each containing a different age of Xia Zichen. The star patterns around their necks faded from bright to dim. On the central altar, an iron box was opened, revealing another broken sword—the very same inky blade the black-robed man had used to threaten him.
"This is a 'possible clone'." Lin Yue's voice trembled. "Every time the space-time anchor point is tampered with, a 'alternative Xia Zichen' will split out, and their star pattern power is used to maintain the stability of the false history." Ah Fu's oracle sword suddenly let out a mournful cry, and the afterimages of guardians of past generations appeared on the sword body. They all had eyebrows and eyes similar to Xia Zichen - it turned out that the so-called "star pattern bloodline" was nothing more than a memory scam created by the Space-Time Administration.
The stone walls surrounding the altar suddenly lit up, projecting the dying image of the black-robed figure (Shadow Lin Yue). "When you see this, it means I, the light side, have failed. The Time and Space Administration imprisoned us as 'Guardians.' The so-called 'revision of history' is nothing more than erasing all possibilities that don't conform to the 'mainstream narrative.'" She traced her fingertips over the inky broken sword. "The true key lies in allowing the two swords to resonate and break the tyranny of 'the only true truth.'"
Without hesitation, Xia Zichen joined the broken star-patterned sword and the ink sword. Suddenly, red and blue lightning erupted from the two swords, and liquid starlight transformed into chains that wrapped around the glass coffin. All the "alternative Xia Zichens" opened their eyes simultaneously. The star patterns on their necks connected into a vast network, unexpectedly reconnecting the Earth's core chamber with the star chart sand table on the top floor of the archives. The double helix on Lin Yue's wrist extended into a bridge, drawing the morning light of the real world into the chamber. The dormant clones began to transform into points of light and merge into Xia Zichen's body.
"It turns out that I am the anchor point of time and space itself." Xia Zichen felt countless memories pouring into his mind, and one voice was particularly clear - it was the night of the fire, and the young boy Lin Yue (the shadow side) said to him in the basement: "Live and see a future without shackles for us." When the last glass coffin dissipated, the hilts of the two swords merged into one revealed a complete cloud and thunder pattern, and the star map mark on the palm of his hand turned into a yin and yang fish pattern.
A deafening roar echoed from the ground. The cracks in the spacetime of the archive's outer wall began to heal, and the chained star tracks in the sky began to flow freely again. Lin Yue opened the bottom of the iron box, revealing yellowed archival paper. On it, the same words were written in two different handwritings: "True protection is to allow cracks in memory, just like allowing sunlight to pass through the window frame."
Ah Fu suddenly pointed behind the altar, where a staircase had appeared, leading down to the ground. At the end stood a young woman holding a black cat. She wore the same old trench coat as Lin Yue, a tag with file number 404 dangling from her neck, and a lollipop dangling from the corner of her mouth, reflecting a rainbow of light. "Hey, we've cleared the dungeon?" The girl tossed a fragment of memory, and when Xia Zichen caught it, he was surprised to realize it was a scene from the future: the three of them sat on the rooftop of the archives, a modern city bustling with traffic below, and countless transparent "memory bubbles" drifted beneath the starry sky.
"I'm Lao Zhang from the future." The girl waved her hand, and a black cat suddenly transformed into ink and scurried onto her sleeve. "The Spacetime Administration has already activated the final contingency plan, but the 'Memory Double Helix' you created has given the world new possibilities." She pointed to the sky, where a star suddenly split in two. "Now, it's time to go to the top floor and stop Project Zero—your pocket watches are the key to unlocking the Time Dome."
Xia Zichen gripped his swords tightly, star patterns and ink flowing across them like living things. Lin Yue connected his pocket watch to his, and the time on the dial began ticking counterclockwise. Ah Fu's oracle-bone sword unsheathed itself, its blade reflecting the overlapping shadows of the three people—a confluence of past, present, and future. The moment they stepped onto the stairs, the bronze compass in the chamber at the center of the Earth suddenly disintegrated, shattering into countless fragments of memory, each one inscribed with the word "possibility."
Beneath the time dome on the top floor, a massive hourglass revolves in reverse, its golden sands shimmering with the city's afterimages. A young girl (Future Zhang) tosses a lollipop, and the wrapper unfolds into a map, marking the "zero core" at the center of the hourglass. Xia Zichen plunges her twin swords into the hourglass's cracks, and star patterns and ink simultaneously flow into the core. Unexpectedly, she witnesses the black-robed figure's final smile—she, through her own dissipation, secures the final window for true "multiple memories."
"Remember, time is never a straight line." Lin Yue shouted amid the roar, "Just as star patterns and ink marks can coexist, the past and the future can illuminate each other!" When the two swords completely shattered the core to zero, the golden sand in the hourglass suddenly solidified into crystals. Each crystal contained an unaltered moment: a young boy reading fairy tales in the library, an old man feeding pigeons in the park, and even the moment when the man in black robe hesitated in the fire.
Sunlight penetrated the dome, paving a rainbow path beneath the three of them. Xia Zichen gazed at the yin-yang fish mark on her palm, finally understanding what Lao Zhang meant by "cracks in memory"—they weren't flaws, but rather places where light could seep in. In the future, Lao Zhang, tossing a new lollipop, turned and said, "Next stop, we should visit the 'Forgotten Library' of the Time and Space Administration. I hear it holds something older than the universe..." Her voice was carried away by the wind, leaving only flickering fragments of memory scattered across the ground, like a never-extinguished fire.
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