145: Chapter 146 She killed Yu Xing 1204 times, and she also saved her 1204 times.

[Master Template Cleansing Executor: Shen Qingshuang]

[Status: Alive]

[Work Record: After each time Yu Xing develops an independent personality, she executes the memory cleansing]

The hidden incubation pod slowly rose.

The woman inside the pod had hair as white as snow, her limbs pinned to a metal seat by ice-blue tubes.

She was so thin she was practically a skeleton.

Yet those eyes were still exactly as Shen Tingxue remembered.

Calm.

Clear-headed.

And so exhausted, it was as if they hadn't truly closed once in twenty years.

“Don't save me.”

Shen Qingshuang looked at Shen Tingxue through the pod wall.

“Of the 1,204 deaths Yu Xing remembers, every single one was pressed by my own hand.”

Shen Tingxue held the Ice Key and did not move.

She had imagined their reunion many times.

Perhaps Shen Qingshuang was already dead.

Perhaps only a remnant remained.

Perhaps she had been rewritten by the White Tower, forgetting who she was.

The only thing she had never imagined was that she was still alive.

Living in the space between each of Yu Xing's awakenings and deaths.

Yu Xing steadied herself from Thirteen's embrace.

Having just acquired a body, her steps were still clumsy, yet she walked toward the hidden pod step by step.

“1,204 times.”

“You remember all of them?”

Shen Qingshuang looked at her.

“I remember.”

“The first time, I told you it was just a sleep.”

“The seventeenth time, you stopped believing me.”

“The 109th time, you bit off your own tongue the moment you woke up, trying to prevent them from getting your voice.”

“The 632nd time, you learned to count before the cleansing.”

“The 1,204th time, you gave yourself a name.”

There was no roaring anger on Yu Xing's face, nor were there any tears.

“Then why did you still press it?”

Shen Qingshuang fell silent for two seconds.

“Because if I didn't, they would completely format you.”

From deep within the Golden Delivery Room, a loud boom suddenly resounded from the direction where the six Divine Seats had departed.

Crimson alarms lit up all around the hidden pod.

[Executor Testimony Unauthorized]

[Initiating Master Template Cleansing Record Deactivation]

The temperature inside the pod walls skyrocketed.

The ice-blue tubes pinned to Shen Qingshuang's limbs began to melt.

But what melted out was not water.

It was segment after segment of frozen voices.

“I don't want to forget.”

“The next time I wake up, remind me where I counted to.”

“Shen Qingshuang, if you still remember, remember it for me.”

Exactly 1,204 voices of Yu Xing seeped out of the melting ice at the same time.

Yu Xing's body shuddered violently.

Those cleansed memories of death were surging toward her along the delivery room's circuits.

Thirteen grabbed her by the shoulder.

“Don't take them all in!”

Yu Xing's vision began to overlap.

One layer.

Ten layers.

A hundred layers.

One thousand two hundred and four selves were trying to squeeze into her newly formed body at the same time.

Shen Qingshuang said sharply:

“Cut the tubes!”

Shen Tingxue finally moved.

The Ice Key unsheathed, but it did not slash toward Shen Qingshuang.

With one slash, she cut the first memory line to melt, refreezing the hundred-plus overflowing voices in mid-air.

“You pressed cleanse.”

“Yet you froze the original voice before each cleanse into the tubes?”

The corner of Shen Qingshuang's mouth twitched slightly.

“A complete formatting wouldn't leave a count.”

“I changed it to a low-temperature cleanse.”

“They took away the personality.”

“But I secretly left a sentence behind.”

“One sentence per time.”

“That's why every time she woke up, she felt as if she had forgotten something.”

Yu Xing pressed her forehead tightly.

“'I can count to the next time...'”

“Was that left by you?”

“It was left by yourself.”

Shen Qingshuang looked at her.

“I just didn't let that sentence be completely deleted.”

The crimson alarms grew increasingly urgent.

[Executor deviated from cleansing duties]

[Low-temperature testimony hoarding confirmed]

[Punishment: Cleansing Shen Qingshuang's independent personality]

Behind the hidden pod, a giant golden button slowly rose.

The button was stained with dried blood.

Every time Shen Qingshuang executed a cleanse, she had to press it with her own hands.

Now, countless thin threads extended from behind the button, piercing back into the nape of her neck.

The light in her eyes rapidly went blank.

“Preparing for the 1,205th cleanse.”

“Target: Yu Xing.”

“Additional target: Shen Qingshuang.”

Shen Tingxue stepped in front of the pod.

“Look at me.”

The blankness in Shen Qingshuang's eyes paused slightly.

“Tingxue?”

“Whatever you owe Yu Xing, settle it with her yourself once we get out.”

Shen Tingxue raised the Ice Key, its blade pressing against the pod door.

“Right now, I'm going to drag you out from behind this button first.”

The Ice Key slashed down.

The pod wall did not shatter.

Instead, it projected all 1,204 scenes of Shen Qingshuang pressing the button in the past directly to Shen Tingxue.

Before every cleanse, Yu Xing would be looking at her.

Sometimes begging her.

Sometimes cursing her.

Sometimes already having forgotten her.

And every single time before pressing the button, Shen Qingshuang would subject her fingers to a layer of frostbite.

Not to atone for her sins.

But to maintain the pain.

To remind herself that the one pressing the button was still her, not her job title.

Even after watching this, the blade in Shen Tingxue's hand did not waver.

“This doesn't prove your innocence.”

“I know.”

Shen Qingshuang regained a moment of lucidity.

“So don't forgive me.”

“Whether to forgive you or not is not my decision to make for Yu Xing.”

Shen Tingxue raised her blade once more.

“I only decide one thing.”

“No one is pressing this button again today.”

Boom!

The Ice Key did not strike the pod door.

It precisely struck the control shaft on the inner side of the pod door.

Zhou Heng thrust his spear at the same time.

He had already lost the optimal path provided by the master template, yet relying on his own judgment, he bypassed the back of Shen Qingshuang's neck and pinned through three heating nodes in succession.

“There are two more on the right!”

Chen Ye slammed into the base of the hidden pod, holding up his scorched shield.

“I can't see the nodes!”

“But I can stop it from spinning!”

The edge of his shield jammed into the gears.

The entire cleansing pod let out a piercing screech of friction.

Teacher Xu Wenzhou gripped 002, the wrench constantly showing him the easiest targets to sever.

[Shen Qingshuang and Cleansed Memories]

[Yu Xing and 1,204 Personalities]

[Shen Tingxue and the Ice Key]

He didn't look at any of them.

“Lin Jin, where do I strike?”

Lin Jin lay prone at the bottom of the pod.

The Hand of Rules had not recovered.

He could only feel the wires one by one with his fingertips.

The hot ones were the incineration lines.

The cold ones were the testimony lines.

The ones vibrating constantly were the job title controls.

At the deepest part, there was a wire that was neither hot nor cold, yet it contracted with every breath Shen Qingshuang took.

That was the bond between her and the [Master Template Cleansing Executor].

“Bottom left of the pod door!”

“The third gray wire!”

Teacher Xu Wenzhou closed his eyes, listening only to the spot where the rusty wrench tapped.

Clang!

002 fell.

“Cut the job title.”

“Don't cut the person!”

Crack!

The gray wire snapped.

The golden threads at the nape of Shen Qingshuang's neck burst apart at the same time.

The giant cleansing button halted in mid-air.

[Master Template Cleansing Executor: Vacant]

[1,205th Cleansing: Aborted]

Losing its job title anchor, the hidden pod began to plummet.

Chen Ye propped up the base with his shield.

Zhou Heng drove his Thunder Spear into the side wall.

Shen Tingxue's Ice Line wrapped around Shen Qingshuang's limbs.

Lin Jin used the wrench to dismantle the last two mechanical latches.

The pod door burst open with a bang.

Shen Qingshuang fell forward.

Shen Tingxue caught her.

There was no embrace.

Nor did she call her Aunt.

She simply held her shoulders steadily, preventing her from falling back onto that execution seat.

On the other side, Yu Xing was still surrounded by the 1,204 remnant voices.

These memories belonged to her.

But they could not all be stuffed back into her body at once.

Thirteen stood in front of her, repeating over and over:

“Your name is Yu Xing.”

“You are standing here right now.”

“Remember today first.”

The double vision in Yu Xing's eyes gradually stopped.

She raised her hand and pointed at those frozen voices.

“I don't want them back immediately.”

“But they aren't allowed to be deleted again either.”

Lin Jin looked at the master template axis that had just completed its static backup.

“We can file them separately.”

“Not as a White Tower archive.”

“But as her own memory bank.”

Shen Qingshuang spoke weakly:

“There is an entry point inside the Ice Key.”

Shen Tingxue looked down at her.

“The Ice Key wasn't a relic you returned to me.”

“I know.”

“It was a testimony vault you stole for Yu Xing.”

Shen Qingshuang closed her eyes.

“And the evidence of my own crimes that I left for myself.”

Shen Tingxue inserted the Ice Key into the empty slot beside the static axis.

The 1,204 voices turned into ice-blue spots of light, entering the independent storage one by one.

They were not merged.

They were not adjudicated.

Each awakening was preserved individually.

[Yu Xing's Personal Memory Bank Established]

[Ownership: Yu Xing]

[Access Method: Subject's Choice]

Yu Xing looked at Shen Qingshuang.

“I won't forgive you right now.”

“As you shouldn't.”

“But I won't let you die here either.”

Shen Qingshuang looked up.

Yu Xing's voice was soft, yet very clear.

“If you die, you won't have to answer for it.”

“You have to live, and explain every single time clearly.”

Shen Qingshuang remained silent for a long time.

“Alright.”

Six consecutive snapping sounds suddenly echoed from the ceiling of the delivery room.

The six Divine Seats had completely pulled away from the No. 9 Forbidden Zone.

Yet the black holes they left behind did not close.

Behind the holes was not the starry sky.

But a massive class roulette wheel that blanketed the entire world.

When Shen Qingshuang saw the wheel, her expression changed drastically.

“They aren't fleeing.”

“They are returning to the mainframe.”

Lin Jin looked up.

“What mainframe?”

Shen Qingshuang struggled to raise her hand, pointing at the center of the wheel.

What was missing there was not a chair.

But a head.

“You saw the Mother of All Things on the chest of the divine corpse.”

“But that was only its detached body.”

“The head of the divine corpse was never in the No. 9 Forbidden Zone.”

“Twenty years ago, the Department of Education installed it into the National Class Transfer System.”

The entire Golden Delivery Room began to vibrate.

A closed golden eye simultaneously emerged on every class insignia across the country.

Shen Qingshuang's voice trembled.

“Every awakening.”

“Every class upgrade.”

“Every system prompt.”

“It was that head watching us.”

The golden eyes opened one by one.

For the first time, the unified system voice was no longer cold.

Like a woman who had slept for many years and was finally awakened by the six Divine Seats, it sighed softly.

[My heart has returned.]

[My children, it is time to come home as well.]