Chapter 20: Frost Hair as a Prison

**Chapter 20: The Conversation Between Lin Jin and the Girl**

The blue light of the repair cabin was like a pool of frozen spring water.

Lin Jin's white clothes were draped loosely, and the blood-seeping bandages on his waist were wrapped with a few strands of frost hair, the tips of which were tightly strangling the girl's wrists—the barcode of the Observer was printed on those wrist bones, shining with a cold, hard metallic luster under the blue light.

"Speak if you're awake."

He tapped his fingers against the glass cover of the repair cabin, the sound waves shaking silver-blue blood beads out of the girl's cochlea, "Or I can help you dig out those maggots in your brain before you speak."

The girl's eyelashes fluttered like a dying butterfly, and the Star Dome Dragon Crystal in her right eye suddenly refracted the silhouette of the Ice Coffin Woman: "What are you... afraid of?"

#### **Confrontation (I): Poison Wrapped in Honey**

Lin Jin's frost hair tightened suddenly, strangling blood marks on the girl's wrists: "Your gene sequence hides seventy-two layers of Virtual Number locks; the Observers wouldn't waste such resources on an ordinary weapon."

"Ordinary?" The girl laughed softly, the repair conduit in her throat vibrating with the laughter, "In the nursery ships you slaughter every day... there are three hundred copies of me."

She raised her unbound left hand, and ice flowers condensed from Λ-1 Reverse Devourer Toxin formed at her fingertips, with the holographic image of Lin Jin's infancy floating on the petals—being repeatedly dismembered and reassembled by the Mycelial Buddha Mother on the dissection table.

"Want to taste the flavor of your own spinal cord?" The ice flower pressed against Lin Jin's lips, "It's the same flavor as the Observer's nutrient solution."

The repair cabin's alarm shrieked suddenly. The dragon crystal in the girl's right eye burst with intense light, dragging both of them into the memory graveyard of the Star Dome Dragon Clan.

**Scene 1**: The Ice Coffin Woman knelt before the Virtual Number Altar, piercing her frost hair into her own dragon crystal right eye. Blood flowed on the altar, condensing into Lin Jin's name.

**Scene 2**: The girl (then still an embryo) was soaked in dragon blood culture medium, and the Mycelial Buddha Mother was implanting Reverse Scale crystal elements into her spine.

"Understand now?" The girl's voice suddenly overlapped with the Ice Coffin Woman's, "I am your 'Original Sin Backup'."

Lin Jin's frost hair shattered the ice flower, but the fragments turned into memory dust and drilled into his nasal cavity—

#### **Confrontation (II): Ruminating on the Truth**

He saw the madness of the Ice Coffin Woman on the eve of her self-destruction:

She gouged out all her dragon crystals and threw them into the Virtual Number Sea wrapped in frost hair. Those dragon crystals bred the girl's embryo in the reversal of time, becoming the final safety bolt of the Godslayer project.

"When your Λ-1 contamination rate reaches 100%..."

The girl suddenly stabbed her fingernails into her own chest, digging out that inverted ice coffin heart. The surface of the heart showed a projection of Lin Jin's gene chain—every section was entangled with mycelium.

### **Third Act: Blade of Hair Dissecting the Heart**

The repair cabin exploded into fragments, and Lin Jin's frost hair grew wildly into a sword array in his rage. The girl, however, faced the sword edge and pressed against his chest, letting the hair blades pierce her own ice coffin heart.

"Do it, brother."

Her blood-stained lips almost touched Lin Jin's earlobe, "Just like you tore apart those children in the nursery cabins..."

Silver-blue poisonous blood flowed backward along the hair blades, and tear-shaped cracks of the Ice Coffin Woman suddenly appeared on Lin Jin's Λ-1 Core. In the excruciating pain, he saw a deeper truth—

#### **Memory Flashback: The Godslayer's Lullaby**

The girl curled up in the Observer's experimental cabin, stroking Lin Jin's nursery pod through the Virtual Number glass. The Mycelial Buddha Mother transformed her vocal cords into a weapon, forcing her to sing a modified version of the Λ-1 formula day and night.

And every clone of Lin Jin who heard the singing...

would self-destruct within seven days.

"You are the only work I failed."

The girl's poisonous blood seeped into the cracks of Lin Jin's core, "Because I secretly swapped your lullaby."

### **Fourth Act: Sound of Entropy Reversal**

Lin Jin suddenly pinched the girl's nape, and the frost hair sword array turned its direction and pierced into his own chest. The Λ-1 Core shattered in the double piercing, and what gushed out was not star marrow, but the lullaby song of the Ice Coffin Woman's sealed last testament.

**"Sleep, my Reverse Scale..."**

**"There are incorruptible stars in your dreams..."**

Wherever the song passed, the Reverse Scale crystal elements on the girl's spine fell off one by one. The Virtual Number maggots in her skull exploded in the sound waves, and the tampered memories were revealed like a receding tide—

**Ultimate Truth**:

The Ice Coffin Woman had engraved the true Λ-1 formula into the song, which would only be unsealed when Lin Jin and the girl's genes resonated. And the meaning of the girl's existence was to use her poisonous blood as a key to unlock the final form of the Godslayer.

### **Fifth Act: Poisonous Kiss as a Contract**

"Now..."

The girl's silver-blue poisonous blood turned into a brilliant star-gold, and she licked the bloodstain from the corner of Lin Jin's mouth, "Want to give me a name?"

The wreckage of the repair cabin floated into a star ring, and Lin Jin's shattered white clothes reassembled in the energy field. He stared at the dragon clan inscription floating in the girl's right eye, where the Ice Coffin Woman's final prophecy was hidden:

**"Twin Reverse Scales, shall use each other as a coffin."**

"You knew the answer long ago."

He tore off the frost hair wrapped around the girl's wrist; the hair took root where it fell, blooming into a mandala with twin dragon patterns.

Deep within the Virtual Number Sea, the roar of the Mycelial Buddha Mother shattered the meteorites within thirty thousand light-years. And the girl's soft laughter mixed into the sound of the star explosion, sounding exactly like the modified lullaby hummed by the Ice Coffin Woman. ===== CHAPTER 21 =====

Deep in the Virtual Number Sea, the Mycelial Buddha Mother's roar shattered meteorites within thirty thousand light-years. The girl's soft laughter mingled with the sound of the starburst, sounding exactly like a distorted version of the lullaby hummed by the Ice Coffin Woman.