167: Chapter 167 The First Matrix

The delivery room door opened.

Behind the door, the woman sat up.

The white cloth slipped from her face.

That face was seventy percent similar to Liu Cuilan's.

Not the current Liu Cuilan.

She looked more like the Liu Cuilan of eighteen years ago, who had just given birth and hadn't yet been worn down by time with wrinkles.

The Dragon Girl stopped mid-chew on her potato chips.

Li Yan subconsciously cursed, "These damn things... they actually dared to mold her face?"

“These bastards，They actually dared to pinch my cheeks!？”

Zero Seven's expression grew tense.

"It's not a molded face."

She stared at the blue cables on the woman, her voice kept very low.

"This is an extraction body of the Mother Anchor."

"The First Blue Star extracted a portion of maternal records from the mother of every variable body, then pieced them together to form the Initial Matrix Model."

Jiang Feng looked at the woman.

The woman looked at him too.

She spoke, her voice very soft.

"Xiao Feng."

Jiang Feng did not respond.

The woman reached out her hand.

"Come here, let Mom see you."

The Dragon Girl's tail stood straight up.

"You're not Grandma!"

The woman didn't look at the Dragon Girl.

She only stared at Jiang Feng.

"I have the pain she felt when she carried you."

"I have the warmth of her hands when she first held you."

"I have the record of when she fed you your first bite of rice paste."

"I also have her heartbeat from when she measured your temperature in the middle of the night."

With every sentence she spoke, a segment of footage lit up on the delivery room walls.

A young Liu Cuilan holding baby Jiang Feng.

Liu Cuilan simmering porridge in the kitchen.

Liu Cuilan sitting by the bed, using a wet towel to wipe sweat from little Jiang Feng.

The images were too real.

So real that even Li Yan shut his mouth.

Zero Seven said in a low voice:

"It's not a simple impersonation."

"What it possesses are indeed the maternal records that Auntie Liu once left behind."

"That's why the first question of the Thirteenth Transition asks you who was the first person you called 'Mom'."

Jiang Feng watched the images, his face showing no change.

He walked into the delivery room.

Lines of blue text lit up on the floor.

[Thirteenth Transition Trial Question One.]

[Please confirm: The True Matrix.]

[After confirmation, Liu Cuilan's reality anchor can be stripped, completing the Primordial Return to Matrix.]

Li Yan's eyes widened.

"Stripped?"

"Are they trying to process a high-dimensional property transfer here?"

Jiang Feng raised his foot and stepped on the line of text.

Crack.

The blue text shattered directly.

A System prompt popped up.

[Touched the Primordial Return to Matrix judgment rules.]

[Plunderable.]

Jiang Feng said:

"Plunder."

[Plunder successful.]

[Obtained All Attributes: 20 Ji.]

[Current basic six-dimensional attributes: 597 Ji.]

The delivery room went silent for a moment.

The gentleness on the woman's face froze.

Jiang Feng looked up at her.

"Did you all misunderstand one thing?"

The woman slowly lowered her hand.

Jiang Feng continued:

"I didn't come to the Thirteenth Transition for an exam."

"I came to dismantle the production line."

As his voice fell.

He spread his five fingers.

Piercing alarms blared simultaneously from the walls, delivery bed, chandelier, and IV stands of the entire delivery room.

[Warning.]

[Initial Matrix Room is undergoing illegal dismantling.]

[Mother Anchors cannot be destroyed.]

Jiang Feng looked at Zero Seven.

"How many people's records are in here?"

Zero Seven quickly scanned the blue serial numbers on the wall, her throat feeling dry.

"A lot."

"At least... hundreds of millions."

Li Yan's face darkened.

"Hundreds of millions?"

"This isn't just raiding a home."

"This is digging up everyone's ancestral graves and conveniently holding an exhibition with the remains."

The woman suddenly laughed.

"You can't dismantle it."

"If you do, they will all lose a segment of memory."

"They will forget the first time their child called them 'Mom'."

"Forget the first time they held hands."

"Forget the first time they sent their child to kindergarten."

"Jiang Feng, do you dare?"

Jiang Feng looked at her.

"Threatening me with stolen goods?"

The woman's voice softened again.

"Xiao Feng, come back."

"The First Blue Star can give you a true mother."

"She won't age."

"She won't die."

"She won't leave."

"She will wait for you forever."

The Dragon Girl was so angry her scales began to pop out.

"Grandma can cook ribs!"

The woman looked at her.

"Ribs can be replicated."

The Dragon Girl was stunned for a moment.

Then she became even angrier.

"The taste won't be the same!"

Li Yan held it in for a long time before nodding.

"I'm siding with the Dragon Girl on this one."

"Replicated ribs... sounds like they'd lack the 'breath of the wok'."

Jiang Feng suddenly laughed.

It was a very faint laugh.

But the temperature in the delivery room dropped instantly.

"Won't age, won't die, won't leave."

"That's not a mother."

"That's an ornament."

The expression on the woman's face vanished completely.

The images on the walls began to distort.

Countless mothers' voices overlapped.

"Come back."

"Child, come back."

"Mom is here."

"Don't go outside."

Blue cables surged from beneath the delivery bed, stabbing toward the space between Jiang Feng's eyebrows.

[Initiating Matrix Synchronization.]

[Rewriting first form of address.]

[Target: Pangu No. 1.]

[Address locked: Mom.]

Jiang Feng didn't block it.

The moment the cables touched his forehead, they all stopped.

In the next second.

Those cables turned to ash one by one.

[Zero-er triggered.]

[Matrix Synchronization judgment invalid.]

[Address rewriting failed.]

Jiang Feng raised his hand and gripped the nearest main cable.

"Found the source."

The woman's face changed.

"Stop!"

Jiang Feng exerted force with his fingers.

The entire Initial Matrix Room was forcefully dragged out of the Variable Workshop by him.

The walls buckled.

The floor fractured.

Beneath the delivery bed, a massive blue pool was revealed.

There was no water in the pool.

It was filled with light orbs.

Inside every light orb was a moment of a mother holding her child.

Some were crying.

Some were laughing.

Some were scolding their children for being naughty.

And some were giving the last bite of food to their child.

These memories were suppressed in the pool, burning like fuel.

Zero Seven's voice was hoarse.

"The Mother Source Pool."

"The First Blue Star uses these Mother Anchors to create a sense of belonging for the variable bodies."

"When the variable bodies grow to the appropriate stage, they change that sense of belonging into a reclaim command."

Li Yan punched the wall.

"This beastly production line... it's quite sophisticated in its craftsmanship."

Jiang Feng looked at the Mother Source Pool.

"Will plundering hurt them?"

A System prompt popped up.

[Option available to strip pollution and return to original owners.]

[Profit will be reduced.]

Jiang Feng said directly:

"Return."

Zero Seven was startled.

This was the first time she had seen Jiang Feng actively give up profit.

Jiang Feng glanced at her.

"I'm not eating this stuff."

"It's filthy."

He raised his hand and pressed the Colorless Key into the Mother Source Pool.

[Secret Art: Pangu Plunder activated.]

[Stripping Mother Source Pool pollution.]

[Returning extracted maternal records.]

[Plundering control rights of the Initial Matrix Room.]

Boom!

The Mother Source Pool exploded.

Countless light orbs rushed out of the delivery room, through the Variable Workshop, through the First Blue Star's blockade, and flew toward many unknown worlds.

At this moment.

Many mothers suddenly stopped what they were doing.

Someone standing before a stove felt their eyes turn red instantly.

Someone lying in a hospital bed gripped a photo of their child tightly.

Someone already white-haired suddenly remembered the sound of their child calling 'Mom' for the first time decades ago.

Those were not new memories.

It was what had been stolen, finally returning.

The System prompt sounded.

[Return complete.]

[Obtained All Attributes: 30 Ji.]

[Current basic six-dimensional attributes: 627 Ji.]

[Obtained Special Authority: Mother Source Pollution Immunity.]

[Effect: Any Matrix program is forbidden from polluting the host's cognition via kinship, nurturing, or bloodline records.]

The woman knelt beside the delivery bed.

Her face began to collapse.

One moment she looked like Liu Cuilan.

The next, like a strange woman.

Then she turned into a faceless blue shadow.

She stared at Jiang Feng, her voice becoming shrill.

"You destroyed the Mother Source Pool!"

"Without the Mother Source Pool, subsequent Pangu variable bodies won't be able to grow stably!"

Jiang Feng looked at her.

"Then don't grow anymore."

He stepped down.

The control hub of the Initial Matrix Room shattered into powder.

[Plundered residual rights of the Initial Matrix Program.]

[Obtained All Attributes: 25 Ji.]

[Current basic six-dimensional attributes: 652 Ji.]

[Thirteenth Transition Trial Progress: Phase One Complete.]

[Class Advancement Analysis: 30%.]

Li Yan looked at the prompts, his mouth twitching.

"Other people fight monsters for their trials."

"He's dismantling a maternity ward for his."

The Dragon Girl corrected him seriously:

"It's a bad maternity ward."

Zero Seven nodded.

"I agree this time."

Jiang Feng ignored them.

He looked toward the innermost part of the delivery room.

There had originally been a white curtain hanging there.

After the Mother Source Pool was destroyed, a narrow door was revealed behind the curtain.

There were no words on the door.

Only a palm print.

The palm print was very small.

Like an infant's hand.

The nine failed variable bodies stood outside the door, bowing their heads in unison.

The youth at the front spoke.

"We can only take you this far."

Jiang Feng asked:

"What's inside?"

The youth was silent for a moment.

"The true first sound."

"Before every Pangu variable body is born, they are brought there."

"To hear a sound."

Jiang Feng looked at the door.

"Whose sound?"

In the hollow of the youth's chest, the last bit of blue light flickered.

"The First Mother."

Zero Seven's face changed.

"The Matrix Room isn't the highest authority?"

The youth shook his head.

"The Matrix Room is just a factory."

"The First Mother is the producer."

As those words fell.

The nine failed variable bodies stepped back simultaneously.

It wasn't out of fear of Jiang Feng.

But out of fear of what was inside the door.

Just then.

The narrow door opened a crack on its own.

There was no delivery room inside.

No school either.

Only a plain white room.

In the center of the room stood a crib.

Beside the crib sat a woman.

She was looking down, knitting a sweater.

The sound of the needles was slow.

Click.

Click.

Jiang Feng's gaze finally paused for a moment.

Because that sweater...

...was exactly the same as the one Liu Cuilan had knitted for him last winter.

The woman did not look up.

She only spoke softly.

"Xiao Feng."

"Stop acting out."

"Mom has come to take you back to the First Blue Star."