Location: Abandoned Tollway, 200 km West of Chengdu
They pulled over when the road buckled—concrete split not by tremor, but by history itself re-threading through the world like a stitch torn open.
Yan stepped out first. The trees were wrong.
Too green. Too young.
He touched one.
"These weren't here last week."
Lin followed him, but slower, as if each step grew heavier.
"Something's off," he muttered.
He reached for the glove box.
Stopped.
His ID was gone.
The license bore a name: Lin Zemin.
Not him.
Not quite.
Inside Lin's Mind – Fragmentation
It began with a song.
A lullaby he never remembered learning.
Then: a room with pale curtains, a woman's hand… and her face blurred.
"They're not just rewriting you," Yan said.
"They're rewriting who raised you."
Lin backed up, breath ragged.
Memories tangled. Did he train with Old Tang in Yunnan? Or was it a boarding school in Macau?
"System," Lin muttered.
"Audit timeline."
No answer.
"System?"
[404: ROOT ORIGIN NOT FOUND]
Yan stepped forward.
"They're unspooling you from the thread of time."
Meanwhile – Crimson Circle Underground Memory Node "Thicket"
Xu Shanyue held a device glowing pale blue: a Chrono Anchor.
An artifact stolen from Rootlight's own vaults—now inverted.
"Deploy it at the last place Lin was truly known," she told the technician.
"Anchor him there."
"Reality will fight back," they warned.
She smiled, blood in her teeth.
"Good."
Cut To: Lin Feng's Flash Collapse
He dropped to one knee.
Past flickered around him like broken glass in a storm.
A sword in his hand.
A brother bleeding.
An oath whispered in a cold room.
A woman's face he'd once vowed never to forget… now faceless.
Yan knelt beside him.
"They think you're the thread. If they break you, I unravel."
Lin clutched his chest.
Then stilled.
"Then let's remind them who tied the thread in the first place."
Memory Surge
Somewhere deep—something fought back.
An old lesson from a mentor long erased.
Lin's fingers formed a sigil. A wordless seal. A mnemonic defense.
The world cracked.
His name flared like a torch across the network.
LIN FENG
The original.
Rootlight – Collapse Warning
Inside the Chrono Vault, alarms screamed.
"Temporal divergence! Subject: Lin Feng is stabilizing!"
"That's not possible!"
"He's anchoring himself… using belief."
The High Monitor whispered, almost in awe:
"They've turned memory into war."
Final Scene – A Message Recorded by Lin
To be sent if he forgot himself again.
On the screen: Lin stares calmly into the camera.
"If you're watching this…"
"Then they've gotten inside."
"My name is Lin Feng. I am the reason Yan is alive. And if you still remember me—"
"Then I haven't lost."
He lifts a cup of tea.
"Drink. And pass it on."