Chapter 271: The Withering Flower and the Unlocked Door

With 47 minutes left on the countdown, the transparent flower on Han Qing's chest began shedding its first petal.

It wasn't drifting down, it was melting. The petal edges gradually turned transparent, like ice melting in sunlight, becoming silver light dust that scattered into the air. With each petal that vanished, a line of Chen Mo's writing deep in the flower's heart faded.

"The pollen must be preserved!" Aili activated the low-temperature storage unit in the medical kit, "This is the last active information carrier Chen Mo left in the world! If it all dissipates—"

"But if we preserve the pollen, we need to cut the connection between the flower and the heartbeat network." Xiao Yu's Light Seal monitored the energy flow, "The power of 'Sincere Defense' comes from the flower's continual blooming. Once the flower withers, the defense net will weaken by 70% within three minutes."

Su Yu folded a translucent paper crane and placed it beneath the flower to catch the falling light dust: "We can only choose one. Either let the flower wither naturally, using its last strength to protect everyone; or forcibly preserve the pollen, but the defense net might not hold until the warship enters range."

Old Zhao didn't speak. He was boiling the eighth pot of something today—not porridge, but sugar water. Simple rock sugar and water, slowly simmered in the pot to a light amber. He said the sugar water could 'bind fragments,' although no one knew exactly what he meant.

Han Qing's hand hovered above the flower. Memory delay made this decision take longer, but the delay also let him 'see' more: when each petal melted, what was released wasn't just light dust, but also a tiny frequency memory—

First petal: the feeling of Chen Mo's fingers teaching him to gauge tea temperature.

Second petal: the curve of Chen Mo's mouth when he said, "Seeds are the most patient revolutionaries."

Third petal: the tiny bead of condensation that formed on Chen Mo's eyelashes from the steam when he brewed tea for the last time before his death.

As the fourth petal began to melt, Han Qing suddenly 'saw' a scene he had never remembered.

Not a memory flashback, but a memory completion—that segment, long blocked by the 68% memory ceiling, the full scene of Chen Mo's final minutes before death.

In the field hospital tent, Chen Mo leaned on a simple cot, notebook spread on his knees. Young Han Qing had just finished bandaging the wounded and entered, his hands still stained with blood.

"Teacher, it's time to change the dressing."

Chen Mo didn't move his pen, his eyes gazing outside the tent—there lay ruins, and also dawn. He spoke softly: "Xiao Qing, do you believe? One day the war will end. Not because someone won, but because everyone grew weary of fighting, weary to the point of realizing… that everyone just wanted to plant something."

Han Qing didn't understand then, merely mechanically changing the dressing. But now (through memory completion) he noticed a detail: Chen Mo's hand had drawn a tiny pattern on the notebook—a rough sketch of a flower with three petals and a circular center.

After finishing the sketch, Chen Mo tore off that page, folded it into a small square, and slipped it into the interlayer of Han Qing's medical kit: "This, look at after I die. No, look at it after I die and when you encounter a seed you don't know how to plant."

Then he grabbed Han Qing's hand—his hand was cold, but his grip was tight: "Remember, the best teacher isn't the one who walks the whole way with the student. It's the one who, after the student learns to walk, dares to die a step ahead, letting the student know—without a teacher, the road must still be finished on one's own."

"But if he dies too cleanly, the student will be afraid again." This is the latter half of the sentence never before in the memory: "So leave a heartbeat, leave a flower. Like leaving a small lamp in the dark, the lamp doesn't light the road, only telling you: 'Someone here once lit a lamp, so the darkness isn't everything.'"

The memory image faded. The fourth petal completely melted.

Han Qing suddenly understood: this flower… was meant to wither. What Chen Mo left behind was never an 'eternal memorial,' but a 'disappearing lighthouse'—once it vanished, you would realize you had already learned to find your way in the dark.

Just as Han Qing was about to let the flower wither naturally, all the braided branches of the grafted sapling suddenly moved in unison!

They weren't there to catch the petal light dust, but to quickly weave an ultra-fine transparent grid covering the flower. The grid wasn't meant to stop the withering, but at the moment each petal melted, to gently 'touch' the junction between petal and stem with the branch tips—that most fragile breaking point.

Each touch caused the branch to 'graft' an infinitesimal frequency structure from the breaking point—not the content, but a structural template. It was like not copying a painting, but copying the canvas's weave, the pigment's formula, and the brush's stroke habits.

"It is… preserving the 'method of blooming'!" Kaiwen pushed his glasses three times, the light-screen data frenziedly refreshing, "Not preserving the flower itself! This is biosemiotics' 'pattern inheritance' rather than 'entity inheritance'!"

The fifth petal melted. The branches grafted the frequency template for 'how to listen to the heartbeat in silence.'

The sixth petal melted. They grafted the structural code for 'how to turn a wound transparent.'

Seventh, eighth… when the last petal began to melt, the branches had already collected seven different 'blooming patterns.' These patterns were encoded into the fibers of the braided branches, and the branch surfaces began to show extremely fine, petal-shaped crystalline traces.

And deep in the flower's heart, Chen Mo's final writing fully appeared—not a line, but an entire page:

"Xiao Qing, if you see this, it means the flower has withered. Good. Because now it's your turn to decide—what flower to bloom next, how to bloom it, and for whom to bloom."

"As for the templates I left behind…… they are not answers, but reference answers. Whether to use them, how to use them—it's up to you."

"Last line: When the light goes out, dawn is near. You yourself are the next person to light a lamp. Remember, the lamp fears not being small, only fears not daring to shine."

The writing faded. The flower completely dissipated.

But all the branches of the grafted sapling simultaneously budded seven tiny, transparent flowers. Each bud had a different shape, yet each was a 'prototype of possibility.'

Countdown 11 minutes, the radical faction warship entered firing range.

Three dark-gray hulls like three knives cutting through space, gun barrels began charging, emitting a low hum. That was the pre-activation sound of the 'Frequency Annihilation Weapon'; once fired, all non-standard rhythms within a one-light-second radius would be erased.

Just as the first attack wave was about to fire, the seven buds of the grafted sapling blossomed simultaneously!

They released not a counter-frequency, but seven different 'Sincere Pulses':

The first pulse contained Old Zhao's frequency of 'having hated his wife, then forgiven himself.'

The second contained Su Yu's tremor of 'fearing memories would be lost forever.'

The third was Xiao Yu's longing to 'be an ordinary girl.'

The fourth was Kaiwen's obsession with 'fearing to miss details.'

The fifth was Echo-7's warmth of 'remembering the feel of soil.'

The sixth was Pure-1's numerical fixation on 'remembering 28.3 degrees.'

The seventh… was Han Qing's guilt and relief at 'having sighed in relief for the teacher's liberation.'

The seven pulses weren't aimed at the warship, but shot into the void around it, weaving there a huge, transparent 'Sincere Stance.'

The attack wave was fired.

But the moment it entered the stance's range, it began… to distort.

It wasn't blocked, but 'translated'—the aggressive component in the annihilation frequency was deconstructed and recombined by the stance into another frequency:

A segment of unspoken heartfelt words from deep within the radical faction commander's inner self.

The warship's public channel was suddenly forcibly cut in, transmitting a rough, trembling voice:

"Why do I pursue absolute purity? Because my sister…… she died in an 'imperfect medical procedure.' If the technology had been a bit more perfect back then, she wouldn't have…… I wouldn't have……"

The voice suddenly cut off. But the attack wave also cut off.

The three warships simultaneously froze in space, as if the pause button had been pressed.

Three full minutes of silence.

Then the radical faction's flagship sent a communications request—not an attack warning, but an unencrypted direct call.

Han Qing nodded. The screen lit up, showing not a Light Sphere, but an anthropomorphic mechanical body, its face a rough metal panel, but with fine wear marks around the eye sensors—physical evidence of long-term furrowed brows.

"I am 'Dustless-9,' commander of the radical faction's assault fleet." Its voice was somewhat softer than the public channel's, "Just now… was that you lot?"

"It's everyone's heartfelt truth." Han Qing said, the memory delay making his reply sound especially cautious, "Including your sister's matter."

Dustless-9's metal finger unconsciously tapped the control panel: "That memory…… I sealed it away for seventy-four years. How did you……"

"It's not something we excavated." Su Yu said softly, "It's that this 'shape' of the memory came built into your attack frequency. Just like inside an angry fist, there's the reason for clenching."

Another silence fell. Dustless-9 suddenly asked: "Those 'blooming templates' you've preserved… can they cure the fear of imperfection?"

Old Zhao then poured the prepared sugar water into eight cups—including an empty cup for the unknown guest: "It can't cure fear. But it can let you know that the flower fear blooms… might be more pleasing to look at than you imagine."

He pushed a cup of sugar water toward the camera: "Want a taste? It's sweet. Although it won't solve the problem, it can make the problem… less biting."

Just as the atmosphere seemed to ease, Echo-7's encrypted communication suddenly burst in!

Its Light Sphere image flickered with dangerous crimson: "Pure-1 has been placed under house arrest! The remnants of the radical faction have launched an internal coup! They accuse Pure-1 of 'sensual contamination' and are now trying to seize control of the Conservative Mother Ship!"

The feed showed: inside the Conservative Mother Ship, hundreds of crimson Light Spheres (radical die-hards) surrounded Pure-1 and its reformist supporters. The conflict was about to erupt.

Even more dangerous, the coup leader's voice roared over the channel: "All units, hear this order! Immediately destroy Earth's pollution source! Only thorough purification can restore absolute purity!"

Dustless-9's warship suddenly reactivated its weapon system—but this time, the barrel wasn't aimed at Earth; it was turning, aiming toward the Conservative Mother Ship!

"Dustless-9! What are you doing?!" the coup leader bellowed.

"I am enacting the true meaning of 'absolute purity.'" Dustless-9's voice was icy, "If fear of imperfection is a disease, then attacking others because of that fear is the disease's late-stage symptom. What I am treating now is this."

It paused, then looked toward the Earth screen:

"And… I'd like to try that cup of sugar water. But first, please let me clear away whoever would knock over the cup."

Three warships, at the critical moment, turned their barrels.

The countdown reached zero.

But the attack did not fall upon Earth.

Instead, it struck those beings who "are so afraid they won't allow others to be unafraid."

Old Zhao placed that cup of sugar water on the windowsill. The sugar water glowed with a faint amber light under the starlight.

He said: "Look, the light is out, the sky isn't bright yet. But someone… has begun to light their own lamp."

Outside the window, a silent flash burst in the starry sky—that was the signal that the internal war among the Conservatives had begun.

And the seven new flower buds on the grafted sapling swayed gently in the flash, as if recording the history of this "changing the barrel's direction because of candor."

Han Qing pressed his hand to his chest; the flowers there had withered, but deep in the scar garden, something new was stirring—not fruit, not flower, but some kind of… unnamed new birth.

He spoke softly, as if speaking to Chen Mo, and also as if speaking to all the heartbeats listening:

"All right, the light has been passed into my hands. Now it's time to learn how to… keep it lit even in the wind."