Chapter 214: Scars Within the Time Fold

The moment he entered the time fold, Han Qing recalled a line from Chen Mo's notes:

"Some wounds aren't on the skin, they're in time."

The scar fruit shattered into eighty‑seven translucent petals, enveloping the three of them. There was no dizzy feeling of crossing, only a sinking—like falling into a massive liquid mirror that reflected not faces but countless "past"s.

【Scene 1: The wound of the Folded Civilization】

Inside the time fold resembled a Star Map that had been repeatedly folded and forcibly unfolded.

Space itself was "bleeding": pale‑gold fissures hovered in the air, slowly seeping light particles. Each fissure's edge bore a rough "suturing line"—forced together by a cold data stream, laced into the texture of time.

Xiao Yu covered her wrist, the light imprint burning: "These suturing points... are the Error Signal moments they forcibly fixed to prevent time from collapsing."

Su Yu unfolded a paper crane, whose wings automatically recorded the recent shape of the fissures:

【Fissure ID T‑779】

【Original Event: Civilization's first attempt at an "error‑free time cycle"】

【Consequence of Failure: a 0.3‑second time fragment permanently detached from the main timeline】

【Suturing Method: seven‑layer logical lock, prohibiting any Emotional Frequency from approaching】

"They sealed their moments of mistake into a forbidden zone." All eighty‑seven flowers of Han Qing's scar‑garden on his chest drooped simultaneously—they resonated, they ached.

Han Qing approached a finer fissure.

When the frequency of the star‑string instrument on his chest resonated with the fissure's vibration, the suturing line loosened for an instant— a scene drifted out of the fissure:

A young Folded being (shaped like a glowing translucent jellyfish) clumsily folded a time fragment, failing on the third fold.

The adjacent adult individual offered no rebuke.

It extended a tendril, gently brushing the fragment: "Look, an accidental crease appeared here—now it's unique."

The scene abruptly cut off. The suturing line tightened again, tighter than before.

"This is a memory from before they formed their 'error‑free time view'," Xiao Yu whispered, "So they once... allowed accidents."

【Scene 2: The teaching of the three "teachers"】

Su Yu began folding a second paper crane.

This time she folded slowly, displaying each step to the surrounding floating "observing light points"—the Folded civilization seemed to be watching through countless tiny light points.

"The principle of origami is to accept the errors inevitably produced by folding," she said while folding, deliberately misaligning the fourth step a bit, "See, this part is crooked. But if I keep folding—"

The crooked section was folded into the crane's interior; when the wing formed, that Error Signal gave the wing a subtle curve, making its flight steadier.

The observing light points flickered intensely.

Near a fissure, the suturing line spontaneously untied a small segment, revealing a sealed scene: an adult Folded individual was punishing the child who failed to fold, binding the child's tendril with a data stream, forcing it to "repeat correct folding until error‑free".

"They're reflecting," Han Qing said.

The largest fissure suddenly shook violently!

Three suturing strands snapped, and a murky time stream surged from the fissure—carrying millions of "prohibited Memory Fragments". The fragments' edges were sharp, leaving black trails as they cut through the air.

【Alert: Core suturing point unstable】

【Leaked Memory Fragments carry high‑density "regret" emotional encoding】

【Contact risk: may be drawn into the civilization's collective trauma cycle】

Xiao Yu stood in front of Han Qing, her heart‑shaped light imprint fully extending, forming a pale‑gold shield. But there were too many fragments; one brushed her back—

She let out a muted hum; a pale‑gold wound identical to the Folded fissure appeared on her back, and tiny light particles began seeping from within.

"Xiao Yu!" Su Yu tried to rush over.

"Don't touch!" Xiao Yu gritted her teeth, "This wound... is resonating with the light imprint on my wrist. It's trying to 'teach' me what pain is."

Han Qing made a move that surprised everyone.

He unfastened the top two buttons of his shirt, fully exposing the scar‑garden on his chest to the time fold. All eighty‑seven translucent flowers bloomed simultaneously, their petals reaching toward the largest fissure.

"You seal wounds because you're afraid of pain," Han Qing's voice was unusually calm amid the trembling air, "But our civilization learned one thing—letting wounds blossom isn't to forget the pain, but to remember that after pain we can grow something else."

The first flower touched the edge of the fissure.

All suturing lines suddenly halted.

Deep within the fissure, the image of the bound juvenile Folded being resurfaced. This time, however, the adult's tendril trembled, released the data stream, and gently enveloped the child's injured tendril.

The scene froze at that instant.

Then, the leaks from all fissures simultaneously slowed by a beat.

【Scene 3: The breathing moment, within the crevices of time】

The greatest crisis steadied temporarily, but the crack still quivered slightly. The three retreated to a relatively stable "time island"—it resembled a corner of the Folded civilization's memory: smooth silver ground, with several unfinished origami models floating in the air (coarse yet earnest).

The wound on Xiao Yu's back still seeped light particles, but more slowly. Su Yu gently pressed the wound with her sleeve cuff, discovering that when the particles touched her fingertip, they formed tiny paper‑crane shapes that fluttered for a second before vanishing.

"They're adapting to our mode of expression," Xiao Yu said, "re‑describing pain with our 'language'."

Han Qing leaned against a floating origami star. The scar‑garden on his chest now had something new: at the center of the eighty‑seven flowers sprouted a tiny white bud, its petals threaded with pale‑gold veins—exactly the color of the Folded fissure.

"What is this?" Su Yu asked.

"I don't know," Han Qing lowered his head to look at it, "But it's absorbing the emotional frequency leaking from the fissure. It doesn't hurt; instead... it's a bit warm."

The observing light points reconvened, this time arranging into a simple pattern: a coarse yet complete paper crane.

The crane's "beak" opened, emitting a raw yet clear frequency wave, which, after being translated by Xiao Yu's light imprint, became a sentence:

"Can wings produced by an Error Signal fold still fly?"

Han Qing looked toward the largest fissure.

Deep within the fissure, the image of the adult Folded being was slowly, clumsily mimicking Su Yu's earlier origami motions—each step crooked, yet it did not stop, nor did it use a data stream to correct itself.

"It can," Su Yu told the light points, while beginning to fold a third crane, this one with noticeably asymmetrical wings, "And sometimes, a crooked wing can find wind that others can't reach."

At the center of the scar‑garden, the white bud quivered slightly.

The first petal unfolded slowly.