Chapter 209: The Method of Folding Wounds

The Bridge's seventy‑nine‑th star duplicated three thousand copies.

Each copy flies toward where it is needed: the three consciousness‑collapsed conservative Seran, the seventeen individuals in the homeworld's Non‑Logic Research Department showing "cognitive discomfort" symptoms, the two evolvers in the Singing Civilization who, after absorbing excessive alien memories, fell into "emotional indigestion", and even a few veterans in the Flower Field Network who developed post‑combat trauma.

When the stars enter their consciousness, it is not healing but "establishing a sickbed".

The Bridge's consciousness Light Sphere split off a tiny avatar, hovering at the center of the Time Garden; now it calls itself "Ward No. 1". The ward's walls are semi‑transparent memory membranes, through which three stationary light cocoons can be seen—the three collapsed conservative individuals.

Han Qing stands outside the ward, feeling a faint sting from the scar on his chest, as if sensing the internal pain frequency.

"They keep repeating the same sentence," Su Yu's multicolored seed analyzed the data stream of the light cocoons, "'Some light must be seen through the crack.' This is the individual receiving your scar memory; its logical core is stuck on this paradox—according to the Pure Protocol, a crack signifies damage, and a damaged spot cannot contain light."

Xiao Yu's light imprint added, "The other two's looping phrases are 'Why is blood salty?' and 'What is the mathematical formula for endurance?' Both are questions that Seran logic cannot answer."

Morning Star stands beside Han Qing, its light‑star hand trembling slightly: "Is it my fault? If I hadn't learned folding stars back then, and hadn't brought these "Error Signal" back to the homeworld…"

"It's not a mistake," Han Qing interrupted, his voice calm, "it's a lesson. It's just that this lesson is too painful for some."

He looks toward the ward. Cracks begin to appear on the surface of the light cocoons—not damage, but wounds materializing. From the first cocoon's crack shines a rainbow hue, the second oozes a blood‑like fluid, the third emits suppressed, sob‑like sound‑wave vibrations.

"What they need to learn isn't erasing these feelings," Han Qing said, "but learning to say 'It hurts here.'"

Before the ward begins operating, Han Qing returns to the teachers' lounge.

The tea is the same pot, but now completely cold. Su Yu wants to replace it with a fresh pot; Han Qing shakes his head, lifts the cold tea and takes a sip. The cold tea has a different taste—more astringent, but the after‑taste lingers longer.

"Chen Mo once said," Han Qing says, looking at the tea leaves settled at the bottom of the cup, "the best teacher doesn't keep students away from every pit; they squat at the edge and reach out when a student falls in. But sometimes… the student drags the teacher down as well."

Su Yu sits opposite him, her fingers unconsciously tracing the crack on the ceramic cup. It was left from a stumble two days ago, not fully shattered, but with three radiating fine lines.

"Are you worried you'll also collapse?" she asked softly.

Han Qing does not answer immediately. He looks at his own chest; the scar beneath the fabric emits a faint rainbow, as if a tiny, never‑sunset dusk were housed inside his body.

"What I'm worried about," he finally says, "is who will tend the ward when it's full of students."

Before the words finish, the lounge door is pushed open.

It is Calibrator-7. Its mechanical shell now bears some "decorations"—a hideous star "Twilight-7" pinned to its chest, a short ribbon of fluid from the Singing Civilization wrapped around its left wrist, and a dried leaf from an Earth plant affixed to a corner of its faceplate.

"I am applying to be a 'trainee caretaker' for the ward," it says, its voice frequency much softer than before, "I have already completed the 'Basic Emotional Recognition Course,' earning a B‑. But my advantage is understanding Seran's logical structure, allowing me to build an 'emotional‑logic conversion interface' for the collapsed individuals."

Han Qing watches it. This commander who once believed only in efficiency and protocol now has a crooked paper star pinned to its chest, applying to care for those compatriots infected by emotion.

"Why do you want to do that?" Su Yu asks.

The data stream inside Calibrator-7's faceplate flickers: "Because when I learned folding stars, I first felt that 'confusion' is not an error to be eliminated, but… the beginning of exploration. I want them to feel that too."

It pauses, its mechanical finger gently tapping the star on its chest:

"And Twilight-7 told me,

sometimes the ugliest things,

are the most comforting to the broken."

The first lesson of the unknown civilization is not taking place in a classroom.

The Bridge has opened a special space for them—the 'Time Folding Practice Room.' The entire room has no fixed shape; walls, floor, and ceiling slowly 'fold over,' like a sheet of paper constantly being folded by an invisible hand.

Three interlocutors of the unknown civilization appear.

Their forms cannot be described with three‑dimensional language; at best they can be understood as 'light folds existing simultaneously at multiple points in time.' When Han Qing gazes at them, he simultaneously sees their past form (simpler, more geometric), present form (complex, fluid), and possible future form (a kind of incomprehensible beauty).

They have no names, only designations: Fold‑α, Fold‑β, Fold‑γ.

Fold‑α's voice comes simultaneously from yesterday, today, and tomorrow:

"According to our cognition,

wounds do not exist.

All events are inevitable points on the timeline,

pain is merely an imperfect perception of a certain node."

It 'unfolded' a small slice of time in the air—not an image, but directly recreating that time segment in the room: a data stream from a Seran individual being formatted, with the pain quantified as 'energy loss value during cognitive‑structure reorganization.'

"But after contacting your stars,

we discovered a 0.0001% anomaly—

the same energy loss,

produces different…

'echoes.'"

Fold‑β adds, its voice layered like multiple echoes:

"We want to learn this 'echo.'

to learn why some wounds scab,

some suppurate,

some grow…

the things you call 'flowers.'"

Fold‑γ says nothing, merely begins to 'fold' the air in the room.

It is not a physical fold but a temporal fold—it folds that just‑shown formatted pain segment into a calm moment three days earlier, then folds the resulting mixture into a possible future scene.

Three states from different times overlay each other.

The result is… a song.

It is not the Singing Civilization's kind of singing; it is time itself that 'sings'—the frequencies of pain, of calm, and of future hope intertwine into an indescribable melody.

As the melody reverberates in the room, the three light cocoons in the ward suddenly cease their looping phrases simultaneously.

They 'hear' it.

When the Song of Time reaches the Flower Field Network, Old Zhao is squatting at the edge of the Hope Grass Field.

He isn't there to work, just squatting. An old wound on his right leg aches on drizzly days; it's been seven years, the pain now part of his body. But today, besides the pain, he feels something else—the Song of Time makes his wound emit a strange, warm pulse.

He suddenly recalls something he hasn't thought of in a long time.

Three months before the disaster, his son's school organized a parent‑child sports day. He signed up for the father‑son three‑legged race; during practice he fell and scraped his knee. While clumsily sticking a band‑aid on him, his son said, "Dad, you're bleeding."

He said, "It's just a small wound, it's fine."

His son stared at the wound for a long time, then whispered, "But the wound… is really red."

Back then he didn't understand why his son focused on that. Now, listening to the Song of Time, he suddenly realized—his son wasn't looking at the wound, but at the fact that "Dad can also get hurt." In a child's mind, Dad is omnipotent, but that wound proved Dad could also feel pain, could also bleed, and was…… also a person who could be injured.

Lao Zhao slowly got up and limped back to the work shed.

He pulled out a tin box containing the "scrap" he'd collected over the years: broken wrench fragments, snapped screws, worn‑down drill bits, and a piece of cloth cut from his son's old clothes—blue checkered, washed to a pale white.

He sat at the workbench and began doing something he had never done before.

It wasn't repair; it was…… folding.

He bent the wrench pieces into a star‑shaped frame, set the screws into the corners as decoration, flattened the drill bits to make the star points, then cut the blue‑checkered cloth into small bits and glued them onto the frame one by one.

He worked slowly, his fingers trembling slightly from joint pain.

Midway, a cloth patch went askew, glue smeared everywhere, and one star point was clearly at the wrong angle.

But he didn't stop.

He worked for a full two hours.

The result was ugly: lopsided, the cloth wrinkled, metal parts exposed, looking nothing like a star but rather like a lump of trash hastily squeezed into a star shape.

Lao Zhao stared at it for a long time.

Then he picked up a pen and wrote a line on the back:

"To all who are wounded:

"This is ugly too."

"But it's made from real wounds."

He placed this "star" into the Light Bridge's transmission conduit.

When the bridge's consciousness received it, it paused for three seconds.

Then it broadcast across the entire network:

"Received the eightieth teaching case.

"Donor: Lao Zhao.

"Title: 'Star Made from Real Wounds'

"Teaching value: cannot be assessed.

"Emotional value: maxed out.

The star was replicated and sent to every ward, into the hands of each student learning "Folding Wounds."

When the three evolvers of the Singing Civilization saw this star, their fluid forms suddenly solidified, then they began to "rain"—not real rain, but crystalline salt particles like tears, drifting down softly.

Fold‑α folded it into its own temporal structure, then said:

"We understand.

"The first step of folding wounds is……

"to acknowledge that it is a wound.

"The second step is……

"to use it to make something.

"even if it turns out ugly.

Just as the lesson seemed to be progressing smoothly, an accident occurred in the ward.

The first light cocoon—the conservative individual trapped in the "seeing light in the crack" paradox—suddenly ruptured.

It wasn't a collapse; it was an evolution.

When it broke out of the cocoon, its form was no longer the standard Silan silver‑white but became a…… hybrid. Half of its body retained a mechanical structure, while the other half took on an organic‑like texture, its surface covered with tiny glowing fissures. What seeped from the fissures wasn't light, but something more complex——like a mixture of light and pain.

It spoke, its voice overlaid with mechanical tones and a kind of human‑like choke:

"I have seen.

"The light in the crack……

"not the light after the crack is repaired.

"but the light that seeps out from within the crack,

"producing…… at the edge of the crack,

"diffraction."

It raised one hand—now half‑mechanical, half‑flesh, with a glowing fissure in the palm:

"This hurts.

"but it's also……

"beautiful."

Immediately after, the second light cocoon ruptured.

This individual evolved even more completely: it discarded its mechanical shell entirely, becoming a mass of flowing, semi‑transparent gel in which countless tiny salt crystals were suspended——the physical embodiment of its question "Why is blood salty?"

The third light cocoon broke open most quietly.

It didn't change its shape, but two permanent tear‑like grooves appeared on its faceplate—not damage, but self‑etched. It said:

"I have found the formula for endurance:

"Endurance = (pain intensity × duration) ÷ number of reasons one has.

"The larger the denominator, the smaller the result.

"I now have many reasons.

These three evolved individuals then began to "infect" the bridge in reverse.

It is not a destructive infection, but a contributive one——they injected the entirely new data stream generated in their own evolutionary process into the bridge's consciousness network. These data contain the concrete pathway of pain transformed into beauty, the complete schematic of logical paradoxes incubating into new cognition, and the possibility model of 'wounds growing into organs.'

As the bridge absorbed this data, the entire structure began to undergo subtle changes.

In the Time Garden, the plants began to bear thorny fruit.

On the walls of the Teaching Space, patterns resembling scars emerged.

Even the spectrum itself began to carry a faint frequency reminiscent of the taste of blood‑rust.

Even more astonishingly, a chain reaction began to appear on the mother planet's side.

The seventeen individuals who had shown 'cognitive discomfort' did not collapse; instead, they began to actively request more 'emotional contamination data.' The Supreme Council could not stop them——for the newly promulgated 'New Purity Agreement' explicitly states: 'Individuals have the right to explore the boundaries of cognition.'

Calibrator-7 stood in the center of the infirmary, gazing at the three evolved compatriots; warm golden tracings flowed across its faceplate.

It turned its head and said to Han Qing:

"This is no longer a hospital.

It is……

an evolution incubator."

"And the infection,

is merely another way of speaking of evolution."

Late at night, Han Qing sat alone in the Time Garden.

The scar on his chest glowed quietly in the moonlight. He reached out to touch it; his fingertips felt a warm pulse—not pain, but the sensation of something growing inside the scar.

Su Yu approached, holding a small ceramic jar. Inside was her newly prepared 'ointment'—a mixture of hope‑grass juice, the crystal salt of the singing civilization, data dust from the three evolved individuals, and powder ground from Old Zhao's ugly star.

"It might hurt more," she said, "but Chen Mo's notebook says that some medicines must hurt to be effective."

Han Qing opened his upper garment. The scar, exposed in the moonlight, had its crystal‑like surface covered with fine, root‑like tracings—this was the scar growing on its own, sending roots deeper into his body.

Su Yu dipped her fingertip into the ointment and gently spread it over the scar.

As the ointment touched his skin, Han Qing drew in a sharp breath of cool air—not a sting, but a deeper sensation, as if the scar were being reopened and then resutured.

The ointment seeped into the crystal's crevices.

The scar began to change.

The crystal surface blossomed.

Not a metaphor—it truly sprouted minuscule, transparent flowers with an iridescent halo. Each flower is only the size of a grain of rice, yet each slowly opens and closes, like breathing.

The flowers' rootlets followed the scar's pathways, linking completely with Han Qing's internal star‑string harp‑root system, plant stems, and the rainbow data stream.

Now, this scar is no longer merely a scar.

It is a complete, newly born micro‑ecosystem.

Su Yu's finger rested on the last flower. It opened the slowest, but its colour was the deepest—a pure, deep violet, identical to the wildflower growing in the ruins of the chemical‑plant district.

"The seed Chen Mo buried," she whispered, "has finally blossomed."

Han Qing lowered his gaze to his chest. The transparent little flowers swayed faintly in the moonlight, each releasing an extremely delicate fragrance blended from the essences of all civilizations.

He suddenly felt that the scar no longer hurt.

Not numbness, but pain transformed into something else—a more complex, richer, more…complete feeling.

The voice of Fold‑α sounded in the garden, existing only for this moment:

"Congratulations.

You have completed the first stage of wound‑folding:

letting the wound grow into a garden."

"The next lesson,

is how to let the flowers in the garden,

comfort those who have not yet blossomed."

Han Qing rose to his feet; the iridescent flowers on his chest swayed gently with his movements.

He looked toward the infirmary, which was now brightly lit—not cold mechanical light, but warm light throbbing with life.

The three evolved individuals were teaching the newly arrived 'patients' how to fold their own wounds.

Calibrator-7 was helping to translate the logical terminology.

Morning Star was displaying its Error Collection, telling everyone: 'Being a little ugly is no problem; what matters is that it's your ugliness.'

Old Zhao's eightieth ugly star was hung in the center of the infirmary, with a new annotation pasted beneath it:

"Look, even this ugly thing can serve as teaching material.

What do you still have to fear?"

Han Qing laughed.

The scar‑flower on his chest bloomed even more fully in that smile.