Chapter 494: Sugar Cocoon

###**Honey-Soaked Doll**

The girl's sugar jar has a bluish‑gray glaze, and the jar's surface is relief‑carved with a scene of a hundred children at play. When Lín Jìn crouched down, he noticed that the children's necks and backs were covered with snake scales. The malt syrup‑coated Fetal Hair wriggled at the bottom of the jar, each strand attached to a miniature umbilical cord— the other end of the cord was tied to the phantom of a pocket watch gear.

"Brother, want to buy candy?" When the girl tilted her head, her pupils flashed with double Iris Pattern, the inner Iris Pattern matching Shen Mo's snake scales perfectly. She dipped her fingertip in syrup and drew a circle on the table; the sugar circle instantly solidified into the shape of a pocket watch face, and the missing-tooth gear was exactly the one Lín Jìn's had shattered three days earlier.

###**Navel-Locked Reincarnation**

The moment the Fetal Hair rose into the air, Ao Li's jade pendant suddenly flew out from his sleeve. From the crack in the core of the Dragon Soul Pearl seeped a viscous fluid of the same consistency as syrup. The Karmic Image gradually solidified, and beneath the face resembling Lín Jìn, a layered Compound Eyes formed by overlapping Ninefold Pupils could be faintly seen— each layer reflecting Lín Jìn at a different age:

-the instant the Fetal Hair was swapped during his infancy;

-the pocket watch in his hand that was stained with blood when his master fell;

-the glowing umbilical cord coiled around the fingertips of the Karmic Image at this moment.

"This is your time cocoon shell," the Karmic Image said, its voice a blend of Lín Jìn and Shen Mo. It tore the umbilical cord; from the rupture sprayed not blood but a rain of pocket watch parts. Ao Li swung his sword, cutting the steel bead that fell to the ground, where it took root and grew into a scale‑covered pocket watch sapling.

###**Sugar-Soaked Truth**

The overturned sugar jar rolled to the corner, and a half piece of snake shed broke off from its bottom. Ao Li's sword tip lifted the snake shed; the side glued with Sugar Crystals formed a dark altar schematic—Lín Jìn's pocket watch was the altar Sundial, and the sugar jar served as the placenta that nurtured the Karmic Image. The girl suddenly tore off her human skin, revealing Shen Mo's talismanic body: "Sweetness can mask the scent of temporal decay, huh."

The Mo family mechanism mirror reflected a chilling truth: every sugar buyer's navel extended a glowing umbilical cord that connected to an embryo deep within the sugar jar. Inside the abdomen of the oldest Elder, a baby‑shaped Lín Jìn mirror image was curled up, its umbilical cord's other end tied to a pocket watch gear from three years ago.

###**Pocket Watch Within the Cocoon**

The Karmic Image condensed the steel rain into a new pocket watch, and the watch chain was woven from Lín Jìn's Fetal Hair. When it moved the hands, time along the entire street began to flow backward:

-sugar granules flew back into the jar, coated with human blood;

-the girl metamorphosed into a half‑body mirror image of Shen Mo;

-Lín Jìn discovered his palm lines were fading.

Ao Li's jade pendant suddenly pierced the Karmic Image's chest, the Dragon Soul Pearl collided with the pocket watch gear, spawning a spacetime vortex. Deep within the vortex, they saw Xuanfeng Pavilion Master thrusting a snake‑pattern jade hairpin into infant Lín Jìn's Fontanelle— that was the moment that revealed the truth of the Fetal Hair swap.

###**End, Sweet Sacrifice**

At the third quarter of the Rat hour, all sugar buyers suddenly went into collective labor. What they expelled from their mouths was not a baby but a pocket watch cocoon wrapped in syrup. Ten thousand cocoon shells shattered simultaneously under the moon, and from each emerged a tiny Karmic Image. They held hands and danced on the city wall, their syrup footprints forming the Sacrificial Array Diagram.

The girl's Residual Body suddenly spoke: "When the cocoon shells number ninety thousand, your pocket watch will complete its final rotation." She exploded into a Sugar Crystal storm, and at the storm's center a phantom pocket watch with three hands appeared—the third hand pointed to the Crack in Ao Li's jade pendant.