Old Zhou's clinic reeked of cloying decay—spoiled syrup mingling with corpse wax. Shackled to an iron bed etched with Classic of Difficulties meridian charts, Aiden watched rainbow refractions dance from Sophie's crystalline nails under surgical lights. The kaleidoscopic patterns traced unknown constellations on the ceiling.
"Three steps to the cure." Old Zhou sawed open Aiden's chest with a bone cutter, the blade chiming against the bronze mirror tattoo. "Remove the mirror, transfuse your blood, then... feed your sister something special."
Aiden's scream lodged in his throat. As the mirror peeled away, his heart crystallized into translucent quartz, revealing a fetal form curled inside—a baby with a mechanical spine, its laser-pupiled eyes locking onto his.
"An innate artifact spirit." Old Zhou licked golden blood from his lips. "Your mother truly was ruthless, forging her life-bound treasure into a fetus's soul."
Blackout. The Medicine Buddha statue's third eye glowed, projecting holograms: twenty years prior, Lin Meiying chained to an operating table, pregnant belly surrounded by hazmat-suited monks and engineers.
"Watch closely!" Old Zhou's plague mask shattered, revealing the Mechanic Priest's face. "This is the truth of your birth—"
Aiden plunged into hallucination through agony.
He stood before a colossal bronze mirror in the Hall of Transmigration, its reflection showing Sophie instead. Her hair had become fiber-optic strands, the grinding gears beneath her skin harmonizing into chants of Ksitigarbha Sutra. When Aiden reached out, ripples revealed unbearable truths:
Sophie never existed. She was an "analgesic doll" crafted from Lin's rib and AI core to soothe his spiritual root's violent awakening at age seven.
All memories were implants. The stormy night, the coughing sister, their decade of survival—all lies woven by the Xuantian Mirror into his neurons.
The Third Law's purpose: To suppress artifact spirits' awakening, maintaining the symbiosis illusion.
"Wake up, brother." Mirror-Sophie tore open her chest, exposing a gear-crafted heart. "See who you've truly killed."
Souls crawled from the mirror—underground fighters, mechanized monks, even a dying Lily. Their wounds bled golden code, coalescing into Aiden's doppelgänger.
Reality crumbled. Sparks flew from Old Zhou's half-mechanical face as he shook comatose Sophie. "Awaken! Your purpose isn't fulfilled—"
Aiden shattered shackles, bronze chains from his crystal heart impaling Old Zhou against the Medicine Buddha's palm. The dying priest laughed: "Think you can escape? Every awakened spirit—"
Gunfire interrupted.
Lily leaned against the doorway, her peacock-blue hair charred, particle gun glowing with Reincarnation Sutra runes. "Talk less, die slower."
She tossed Aiden a frost-caked vial. "Your mother left this... freezes artifact spirits temporarily."
The serum unleashed buried memories: his seventh birthday, Lin shoving a crying Sophie (then called AS-03 Care Android) into his arms; every stormy night's edited recollections; even Lily's final act—overloading her core to steal this serum from server graveyards.
"Show her... real stars..." Lily's spine erupted in self-destructing gears, rusted lotus blooms sprouting between cogs. "Don't trust... the mirror... it only shows..."
Aiden fled with Sophie at dawn. The neon-drenched slums floated in bloody puddles like spilled rouge.
Sophie's crystalline nails fell away, exposing sensor arrays. Her breath against Aiden's neck smelled of server-room ozone: "Brother... I dreamed of becoming a star... singing in black holes..."
The cracked mirror fragment burned. At the sewage pipe's end, Aiden finally saw the "stars"—space debris forming Zi Wei Dou Shu constellations, among which rotated the Tiangang-Disha Station his mother helped design.
Lily's pocket watch vibrated. Its cracked face revealed a code beneath I Ching hexagrams: "Go to the Moon's dark side—truths no mirror can reflect."
Sophie bit her fingertip, drawing three concentric circles in golden oil on Aiden's palm: "Lily taught me... when all gears stop..."
A mechanical groan froze the city. Neon signs, airships, even beggars' cybereyes—everything halted as Sophie completed the final circle.