It started with a song.
Soft. Faint. Echoing.
Ruoxi awoke in a cold sweat, the melody still haunting her ears. She didn't remember falling asleep, nor the strange room around her. For a second, she couldn't tell if she was in her own bedroom—or someone else's.
The curtains were unfamiliar. The furniture was antique.
Then, the sharp sting of a memory—not hers.
A girl's voice screaming. Fire crackling. The scent of chemicals.The unbearable pain of restraints on her wrists.
Ruoxi bolted upright.
Across the room, Linyue slept curled up on the couch, face pale under the glow of the moonlight. Beside her, Zeyan dozed off in the armchair, still in the same clothes as yesterday.
Ruoxi clutched her head.
"If she dies, you become unstable…"
Dr. An's voice echoed like poison.
But it wasn't instability she feared—it was how familiar those foreign memories felt. They were sinking into her like roots into soil.
She looked down at her palms.
They were trembling.
Later that morning, as the household staff quietly moved around the estate, Zeyan reviewed the files Zhao Ren had emailed after their escape.
He tapped the screen.
Project Twin Flame – Phase III: Umbra Integration InitiativeStatus: ACTIVELead Coordinator: Classified
Ruoxi hovered behind him.
"Didn't An Chen say the project was abandoned?"
Zeyan exhaled. "He lied. Or he didn't know. Look at the timestamp on the last log-in. It was two nights ago."
Ruoxi leaned in.
"Someone's still accessing the database?"
"Not just accessing," Zeyan said grimly. "They've expanded the program."
He opened a hidden folder.
Inside: dozens of files labeled with codenames. "Iris." "Mirror." "Chord." "Echo."
Each had a biometric profile, neural scans… and video logs.
He clicked on one.
It was of a girl, no older than ten, strapped into a chair, reciting a poem in three different languages. Her voice was flat, her eyes blank.
Ruoxi flinched. "This is still happening?"
Zeyan nodded. "The architecture of Twin Flame didn't end. It just changed hands."
"Who's running it?"
Zeyan zoomed in on the metadata embedded in the video.Then froze.
"No... no, it can't be."
Ruoxi saw the name.
Mo Qianming.
Zeyan's father. Presumed dead in a car accident ten years ago.
Ruoxi whispered, "Wasn't he the one who built MoTech's AI Division?"
Zeyan's voice was hollow. "He didn't die. He disappeared. Now I know why."
They moved Linyue to a secured safehouse that evening, but something about her behavior unsettled Ruoxi.
Linyue sat silently, staring at the window as if waiting for someone.
"Are you okay?" Ruoxi asked gently.
Linyue turned, her expression distant.
"I saw a field of mirrors. They all had my face—but they were cracked. One of them spoke in your voice."
Ruoxi froze.
"What did it say?"
Linyue's lips trembled.
"You were never supposed to wake up."
That night, Ruoxi dreamt again.
But it wasn't a dream.
She stood in a sterile white hallway—one she'd never seen before—and yet she knew exactly which way to turn. She followed the path through locked doors, code panels, motion-activated sensors… right into a circular chamber.
In the center, a tank full of amniotic fluid.
Floating inside it—another version of herself.
Eyes closed. Peaceful.
Ruoxi screamed.
But no sound came out.
She jolted awake, drenched in sweat.
Across the room, Linyue sat on the floor, drawing circles on the tile with her fingertip.
"Why do you dream of her?" Linyue asked softly, not turning around.
Ruoxi swallowed. "You saw it too?"
"She's real. The first one. The prototype," Linyue whispered. "She was never decommissioned."
Ruoxi felt ice spread through her spine. "Then who… am I?"
Linyue looked up. "You're the one they perfected."
The next morning, Zeyan tracked an encrypted IP address from the Phase III files. It pinged from a private satellite link hidden in MoTech's old AI Research Lab—sealed since Qianming's "death."
Ruoxi stared at the building on the map.
"I thought they demolished that after the explosion."
"They did. Or so the media was told."
Zeyan looked at her. "If my father is still alive, and he's the one running this…"
"Then he's been controlling us from the start," she finished.
Back at the safehouse, Linyue found an old notebook she didn't remember packing.
Ruoxi flipped through it and saw diagrams, notes, formulas. Memories.
But the handwriting wasn't Linyue's.
It was hers.
"I didn't write this," she whispered.
Then a single phrase on the last page caught her eye.
"I am the memory that remembers you."
Below it, coordinates. A location buried deep in the northern mountains.
Linyue traced the numbers with her fingertip.
"He's calling us."
Zeyan looked between them. "You don't have to go."
Ruoxi shook her head.
"Yes, I do. Because whoever built this… didn't just create us. He designed every step."
She stared out the window.
And for the first time, felt the walls of her life crack.