Lin Yue's pen moved rapidly across her notebook, the ink shimmering faintly with the faint glow of data streams. The unusual scene in the back of the classroom went unnoticed by the other students, as if shielded by some invisible barrier. The boy who claimed to possess a fragment of the first generation's consciousness was now staring intently at her, the data streams in his pupils like a precisely pulsing star map, constantly projecting afterimages of seventeen universes.
"My name is Lu Li," the boy suddenly spoke, his voice a strange blend of mechanical and human. "The First Generation implanted a core slice of his 'narrative power' consciousness into me. These empathic phenomena you see are all 'narrative seeds' he planted in the real world."
The calico cat leaped onto the table, its tail curled around the floating code fireflies, and formed a complex matrix in the air. "According to the original plan, the real world will become a 'master cocoon' that accommodates all parallel universes. But the current empathy fluctuations are unusually strong. I've detected an unknown data flood invading."
Before he finished speaking, the electronic whiteboard in the classroom suddenly flickered, and distorted words emerged among the snowflake noise: "The story should not be controlled by others..." Then, the shadows of all the students began to distort violently, and the mechanical wings behind Xiaoqing actually seeped out black data streams, like corroded circuits.
"Oh no! It's an anti-narrative virus!" Lu Li stood up suddenly, his hands drawing a defensive barrier in the air. "Someone is using the empathy chain to spread destructive code, trying to destroy the narrative network built by the first generation!"
Lin Yue felt the seventeen-colored gemstones on her necklace begin to heat up, and the USB drive vibrated wildly in her backpack. She closed her eyes and, relying on her empathy, submerged herself in the ocean of data streams. Deep within her consciousness, she saw countless glowing threads interweaving, each connected to a person with empathy in the real world. But now, black corrosion was spreading along the threads, extinguishing the glowing nodes wherever it passed.
"We must find the source of the virus!" Lin Yue opened her eyes and discovered that the classroom doors and windows had been sealed by black data streams. The students, unaware of the situation, continued to take notes as usual. The calico cat's gear-shaped collar sprayed fluorescent ink, mapping the virus's path in the air, its destination pointing to the school's computer center.
"Let's go!" Lu Li's body began to digitize, transforming into a translucent cyber form. "The firewalls of the real world are ineffective against this virus. We must use story logic to fight it!"
The three (including the calico cat) walked through a corridor shrouded in data. Everywhere they passed, deleted scenes from "Seventeen Cocoons" appeared on the walls: the abandoned Gear Alley, the floating Dragon Cave Fortress, and the talking mechanical lavender fields. These settings, which once existed only in the draft box, now appeared in distorted forms in reality, corroded by the black data flow.
When they arrived at the computer center, the sight before them made Lin Yue gasp. The entire building's exterior was covered in thorny vines of code, and scarlet warning lights flashed in every window. At the entrance, a figure in a black robe stood with his back to them, his hands manipulating a giant keyboard composed of streams of data. Black code poured into the campus network like a tide.
"Who are you? Why are you trying to sabotage the First Generation's plans?" Lin Yue demanded loudly. The black-robed figure slowly turned, revealing a face beneath his hood that made her pupils shrink. It was a face that bore a striking resemblance to hers, except that the skin had a translucent, data-like texture, and a mocking smile played at the corners of his mouth.
"I am your 'narrative shadow,'" the black-robed figure spoke, his voice like multiple overlapping echoes. "Every creator has corners of their stories they dare not confront. Those dark settings you deleted, those tragic endings you abandoned, have all come together to form me. Now, it's time to bring these suppressed narratives to light!"
Lu Li immediately assumed a fighting stance, his robotic arms unfolding into energy blades. "You're nothing but discarded code remnants, yet you dare to control the course of this story!"
"Residue?" The black-robed figure sneered, raising his hand to summon countless black narrative anchors. "Look at these—'The Withering Moment of Cyber Lavender,' 'The Doomsday Protocol of Dragon Cave,' 'The Eternal Night of Gear Alley.' These are the 'possibilities' she wrote and erased with her own hands. Rejected stories, yet they yearn to be told!"
Lin Yue's mind suddenly flashed through countless fragments of memory: chapters she'd deleted late at night because it was too dark, plot points she'd abandoned because she couldn't bear to see the characters suffer. It turned out that these abandoned fragments of narrative had already nurtured independent consciousness within the abyss of data.
The calico cat's pupils suddenly turned red in an alert state, and the gear collar emitted a shrill sound: "Oh no! She is invoking the 'collective subconscious' of the real world! All the students' negative emotions are being converted into viral energy!"
Lin Yue turned and looked. Though the students in the teaching building appeared normal on the surface, black data streams continuously seeped out from their shadows, merging into the virus matrix controlled by the black-robed figure. In the distance, the eighteenth moon began to be eroded by the black, its silver moonlight gradually turning an ominous blood-red.
"We can't let her succeed!" Lin Yue gripped the USB drive tightly, and seventeen colors of light shone brightly. "Lu Li, do you remember what Xia Zichen said? Loneliness is a starting point, but not a footnote. These abandoned stories should not be reborn in a destructive way!"
She closed her eyes, exerting her empathic powers to the utmost, her consciousness once again immersing herself in the ocean of data. This time, she didn't shy away from those dark memories, but actively engaged with the deleted fragments of the narrative. Deep within her memory, she saw an alternate possibility across seventeen universes—cyber lavender withered under acid rain, Dragon Cave degenerated into a battlefield, and Gear Alley lost its light forever.
"So you've all been here..." Lin Yue whispered, reaching out to touch the dark fragments. A miracle happened. The cold, black data stream began to glow, and the deleted characters emerged one by one, their eyes filled with longing and sadness.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
