The last moments of the Yin hour. The dawnlight carried no warmth, only a brittle brightness.
It spread like an overly impartial varnish, evenly coating the felt roofs, the frozen ground, and the shoulders of the silently moving soldiers. Shen Yuzhu opened his eyes. The faint tremor deep in his left ear remained—a permanent tinnitus left in his hearing after last night's deluge of three hundred and seventy-three emotional currents. The Mirror Patterns flowed a silent diagnosis across the bottom of his vision:
[Environmental Baseline: Negative Frequency Intrusion | Intensity: 0.7% (Persistent) | Note: Residual echo of "Collective Expectation Vacuum"]
He stepped out of his tent. The camp was stirring awake, but this awakening carried a delayed, post-audit stiffness. Every movement—the hesitation in fingertips tying bootlaces, the sidelong glances while rubbing a face, the stiff arc of a neck turning to fetch water—seemed to have first undergone a mental calculation of "Is this natural?" and "How will it be interpreted by whom?" before being permitted execution. The air was thick with a silent exhaustion, as if everyone had just finished performing a long, unapplauded play.
And in his spiritual-vein vision, the camp was no longer a chaotic, monochromatic mass.
Two streams of narrative, different in color, texture, and frequency, flowed parallel, refusing to permeate each other, like polar ends of a spectrum that never blend.
Shen Yuzhu closed his eyes.
In the darkness, the Mirror Patterns inscribed a stark, real-time autopsy:
[Perceptual State: Dual Narrative Stream Co-detection]
[Spectral ID: Stream Alpha (Indigo) | Steady-state low-frequency | Signature: «Subterranean root-pulse»]
[Spectral ID: Stream Beta (Orange) | Active high-frequency | Signature: «Glass-on-ice scrape»]
[Fusion Probability: 0.3% | Spiritual-logical bases: MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE]
[Bodily Mapping:
├─ Left hemisphere trunk temperature: -1.2°C from baseline (Alpha resonance)
├─ Right temple pulse rate: +22% (Beta resonance)
└─ Ocular muscle strain: Detected. Recommending against sustained focus.]
He opened his eyes.
The world was no longer divided into right and wrong, but into two self-consistent realities, each breathing its own air.
More terrifying was the silent fracture line between them—a perceptual gap the Mirror Patterns returned as [NULL FEEDBACK]. It had no frequency, no words, no color. Only a pure somatic schism: the left side of his face felt numb, cold-washed, as if pressed against a stone slab; the right cheek burned with a dry, metallic heat. His skin was a map of two countries at war, the border running directly down the bridge of his nose.
It was then that Gu Changfeng's fingers brushed against the three felt coats.
During the routine winter clothing inventory, the touch was wrong—the bundle was thicker by more than a finger's width. Untying the cord revealed three unregistered thick felt coats, stitches dense but workmanship crude, wool pressed thick. Clearly, they were "illicit reserves," secretly sewn stitch by stitch during stolen moments and hidden away.
His first reaction was to grip the coats tightly, the rough wool pressing into his palm. His gaze swept the surroundings like quenched steel.
The fog was thick. Figures thirty paces away were blurred silhouettes. No glint of an Observer's bronze mirror.
Muscle memory urged him to shout for the quartermaster—the Night Crow Division's iron law: All supplies must be logged immediately. Delay is violation. This law was carved into his bones, deeper than blood. But the sound caught in his throat, like frozen phlegm, sticky and cold.
A deeper intuition, like roots spreading silently underground, tangled around his vocal cords. It came from the tremulous, stubborn pulse of life that had traveled up his fingers last night as he helped the medic hold down the frostbitten boy's leg; from a resonance he dared not examine too closely within Bo Zhong's staggering retreating back.
This matter should not see the light immediately.
The moment the thought surfaced, his fingers acted on their own. He swiftly stuffed the coats back into the cloth, tied the cord exactly as before, and pushed the bundle deep into the shadows of the storage rack. Then, taking a charcoal pencil, he wrote in the margin of the ledger, in script so small and hasty it seemed to reject legibility, or perhaps betrayed the writer's own inner turmoil:
"Temp. Hold: Three | Unclassified"
This act violated all doctrine. Ledgers must be pristine as legal codices. Unauthorized annotations were stains to be washed away with special solution. Yet he wrote. As he closed the ledger, the fine sweat on his palm left faint damp spots on the coarse paper, like silent confessions.
He did not know that fifty paces away, behind the medical tent's curtain slit, Observer A's bronze mirror was silently trained in this direction. The mirror reflected his hesitant back, the instant tension in his shoulder blades as he pushed the coats away, the weight-bearing curve of his neck as he bent to write.
Observer A did not lift his pen. The rim of his bronze mirror flashed with a faint spiritual light. A record was automatically generated, flowing into the deep layers of the Division's "Individual Behavior Spiritual Archive," becoming a new, hidden mark on Gu Changfeng's fate chart:
[Individual: Gu Changfeng | Rank: Northern Deputy Commander]
[Event: Non-combat supply delay report (4-hour delay)]
[Behavior Capture: Delay | Handwritten non-standard annotation | Decision latency: 3.7 breaths]
[Spiritual-Motive Spectrum Analysis:
├─ Protective Curl Instinct: 64% (Pattern: mother-beast-shielding-young | Vector: group survival)
├─ Procedural Compliance Inertia: 28% (Internalized military law residue)
├─ Unidentified Noise: 8% (Possible «intuition» | This classification: SUSPECT)
└─ Selfish Desire Component: 0% (Below detection threshold)]
[Preliminary Judgment: Ethical instinct overrides procedural instinct | Risk Tag: Low Surveillance]
[Note: Three repetitions of this behavior pattern will trigger «Procedural Deviation» alert, recommend initiating «Behavioral Correction Script».]
[This record archived. Will auto-trigger review protocol in 30 days.]
This record would not enter the main report. It was like a tiny rusted nail, silently driven into the hidden layers of Gu Changfeng's spiritual profile within the Division's vast apparatus.
Protection always comes at a cost. And the cost is often a debt—settled later, with compound interest.
The news seeped out like warm water dripped onto frozen earth—slowly, inexorably.
By midday, the camp had quietly fractured into two tacitly acknowledged, clearly demarcated camps. No declaration was needed; everyone knew in which colored air they breathed.
Narrative A (Indigo Faction)
Its spokesman was Chen He. Crouching in the lee of the western wall, he spoke in a voice pressed so low it seemed afraid to disturb something sleeping beneath the permafrost:
"Those three coats must never be logged. Once logged, they become a cold 'resource point' in the spiritual core, triggering allocation algorithms, efficiency assessments,attrition predictions predictions... They will lose all warmth, become mere numbers."
A toothless veteran nodded slowly, his throat producing a bellows-like sound. "Then what should be done?"
"Dismantle them," Chen He's voice dropped further, almost to a whisper. "Break them into untraceable fragments of wool and cloth. Distribute them to those who need warmth most but never cry out. The warmth of fragments has no category in the spiritual core. It can understand 'one coat missing,' but never the story behind 'thirty instances of transferred body heat.'"
Narrative B (Orange Faction)
Its spokesman was Zhao Si. Standing in the central clearing before the cook tent, he raised his voice deliberately, ensuring nearby Observers could hear clearly:
"Brothers, this is the Division's test of our character! They are observing whether we will fight, hoard, establish shadow rules. So let us perform for them—perform a drama of ultimate, flawless fairness!"
He pointed to the clearing's center. "We will pile the coats and other surplus items into a small hill, and hold a public lottery! Let the Observers' mirrors witness the entire process! We will show the Division: even within this cage of observation, humans can still enact perfect 'procedural justice'!"
Both logics were complete, self-consistent, and carried a kind of exhausted, near-obsessive sincerity.
The confrontation broke out in the last light before dusk.
Chen He, with two others, was about to stealthily retrieve a coat from the storage tent's back shadows for disassembly when Zhao Si, leading three men, blocked their path.
"You bury the truth," Zhao Si's voice cracked, not with pure anger, but with the fervor of a violated principle.
"You auction it," Chen He retorted, his voice toneless, his eyes heavy with night-deep weariness.
"We are struggling! Struggling in the only 'orderly' way they understand!"
"We are guarding! Guarding the rough truth that must live outside their sight!"
Both sides were red-faced, necks taut, breath frosting in the cold air. No one stepped forward. Five paces lay between them, yet it felt like an invisible, thick wall inscribed with mutually incomprehensible runes.
It was then that Gu Changfeng inserted himself into the five-pace vacuum.
He carried no blade, his hands empty. He stepped directly between the two groups, his back to Chen He, facing Zhao Si.
"The General's order." His voice was not loud, but each word fell like a stone onto frozen earth, dull and final. "Handle this matter according to the way each of you believes is right. But—"
He paused, his gaze like cold iron sweeping over both sides.
"No bloodshed. No destruction of property."
A deathly silence.
Both Chen He and Zhao Si were stunned. This was not a verdict, not taking sides, but drawing a simple, ultimate line. Within the line, you could believe in your respective ghosts, perform your respective narratives. But the line could not be crossed.
"Then... how are the coats to be distributed?" Zhao Si asked hoarsely.
"That is your decision to make." Gu Changfeng turned to leave. After two steps, he turned back and added, his tone flat as stating a fact, "However, if injuries result from the distribution, military law will be enforced. That is all."
His steps were steady, his back straight. Yet, Shen Yuzhu's Mirror Patterns captured the iron-like tension in the muscles of his neck and the soundless sigh in his heart:
"In the old battlefields, friend and foe were clear. Where the blade pointed, there was righteousness. Now, here... the enemy has become 'thought' itself. How does one raise a blade against 'thought'?"
As full night fell, the two narratives began to enact their respective logics, like two precise, isolated mechanisms operating in parallel darkness.
The Indigo Faction's action took place after midnight, in the depths of silence.
Chen He and two veterans moved like ghosts into the storage tent, retrieved one coat, and lit a small, concealed, low-burning fire behind the scrap pile. They did not use knives. Using sharpened stone flakes, they meticulously deconstructed the felt coat—not tearing, but unraveling along the seams, dividing wool and cloth into over thirty fragments, each no larger than a palm, stripped of all form as "a coat."
Then, like shadows of comfort in the dark night, they moved through the camp. They slipped these warm fragments under the bedding, into boot shafts, or within the folds of rolled-up felt of three soldiers—those most severely frostbitten, yet most often overlooked for their silence.
No notes. No instructions. Not even a meeting with the recipients.
Only leaving behind body heat within reach, yet utterly untraceable in origin.
One veteran, after placing the last fragment, whispered to Chen He, "This way, they'll never be able to tally it."
Chen He nodded, looking at the few stray wool fibers clinging to his palm, and replied softly, "Yes. Never."
The Orange Faction's action was filled with public ritual.
Zhao Si cleared a space in the camp's center, piling up a small "mountain of distributable goods"—the remaining two coats, some extra leg wraps, several pieces of unused leather. He invited all Observers on duty to sit in a circle, their bronze mirrors gleamingly aimed at the center.
Then he produced a homemade lottery tube and announced the rules loudly:
"One lot per person! Winner claims item on the spot, displays it publicly! Entire process recorded, to demonstrate fairness!"
The process was solemn as a rite. Soldiers formed a line to draw lots. Winners stepped forward to claim their item, held it aloft for all to see, then bowed and retreated.
When the final coat was claimed, Zhao Si bowed slightly towards the Observers, his voice clear:
"The ceremony is concluded. Thank you for bearing witness."
No one knew whether this "thanks" was sincere courtesy or a sigh of exhaustion steeped in irony.
Inside the Night Crow Division's temporary spiritual nexus tent, Observer A faced two completed, stylistically divergent draft reports ready for submission.
Draft A (Focus on Indigo Faction):
Subject: Emergence of "Observation-Resistant Subculture" Signs in Specimen Group
Summary: A subset of individuals has formed a clandestine mutual aid network, deliberately evading observation by deconstructing consolidated resources into untraceable warmth-fragments for distribution. This behavior demonstrates profound distrust of the quantification system and an "internalization of ethics" tendency.
Assessment: This pattern may reduce surface efficacy of observational data, yet provides a valuable specimen for the study of "non-rational (i.e., transcending calculation) mutual aid behavior."
Draft B (Focus on Orange Faction):
Subject: Demonstration of "High-Strategy Rule Utilization" Capability in Specimen Group
Summary: A subset of individuals organizes public, ritualized distribution, inviting full observation, enacting "procedural justice." This behavior can be interpreted as parody and instrumentalization of the observation mechanism itself, demonstrating complex cognitive strategy.
Assessment: This pattern aids understanding of adaptive behaviors under pressure, yet may pollute data purity (performative interference).
Both drafts were fact-based, logically rigorous, yet described two parallel realities unfolding in the same camp on the same night.
The central mirror of the spiritual nexus tent lit up, displaying a line of encrypted command text:
[Nexus Command: Assign "Spiritual Reflection Bias Values" to "Coexisting Narrative Aspects."]
[Interpretation: These values will guide the focus tendency of subsequent observation spiritual currents. (E.g., Aspect A: 0.7 bias, Aspect B: 0.3 bias = 70% of observation mirror-seals will lock onto Aspect A spiritual traces.)]
[Objective: Purify observational efficacy, condense focus onto primary narrative thread.]
Observer A's index finger hovered over the submit button, unmoving for a long time.
He closed his eyes. His mind conjured Gu Changfeng's broad, tense back as he drew the line that afternoon; Chen He's slightly trembling, frostbitten fingers inserting wool fragments; the complex, unreadable light in Zhao Si's eyes as he bowed.
Then he opened his eyes. In the "Bias Value" field, he entered:
Aspect A (Indigo): 5
Aspect B (Orange): 5
And in the remarks field, he wrote:
"When the world shows fissures, the Observer's duty is not to choose a side,
but to record the shape of the fissure itself.
A value of 5 is not for balance,
it is to acknowledge:
Any system that forces a choice of 0 or 1
is committing murder against complexity itself."
He clicked submit.
Three breaths of dead silence. Then, the nexus mirror rippled. The system's response was a stark, abbreviated report:
[Principle Alert: Bias Value setting violates «Observation Purification Law» Ch.3, Sec.7.]
Efficacy Impact: Projected observation efficiency decrease: 10.7%. Data purity contamination risk: Medium.
Logic Conflict Detected: The sample objectively manifests «Irreducible Plural Reality».
Subroutine Query: Forcing a singular narrative framework would induce «Veracity Damage»—a direct violation of the Prime Directive: «Record Truth».
CONCLUSION: LOGICAL DEADLOCK.
Compensatory Measure Enacted:
Observer «Clarity of Observation» rating downgraded: Third Class, Upper → Third Class, Lower.
Note: Three consecutive downgrades will necessitate «Spiritual Awareness Cleansing»—baseline memory corruption risk: 7%.
Addendum: This logical deadlock has been uploaded to the Law-Sea, tagged: «Paradox Garden Derivative Problem - Sequence Initiation».
Observer A's face showed no expression. He pulled open a drawer, took out his increasingly thick private notebook, and turned to a fresh page.
This time, he did not use the Division-issued single black inkstick.
With deep black ink, he recorded all details and textures of the Indigo Faction, his script as regular as engraved stele text.
Then, with vermilion ink the color of blood, he overwrote the same page with all observations of the Orange Faction, the characters slanting like flowing blood.
The two inks overlapped, permeated each other, forming a chaotic, bruise-like purplish-brown on the paper.
At the page's bottom, he wrote the final words of the day, his script so light it seemed afraid to wake a slumbering leviathan:
"If the spiritual reflection record can preserve only one aspect of truth,
does the aspect not chosen for the mirror,
by my hand,
receive a sentence of death in the spiritual sense?"
(Spiritual Script Analysis: During inscription, pen pressure severely uneven. Final character "death" shows clear tremor. Ink trace contains trace amounts of 'moral-doubt spiritual resonance remnant.' Page auto-tagged: [Observer Sentiment Contamination | Archive Security: Gui-Class (Highest)])
As midnight neared its end, bonfires were simultaneously lit at the camp's two ends.
The Indigo Faction's fire was piled beside the old crack in the western wall—low, steady, fueled by the scrap wood and old crate boards left from the day's coat disassembly. The flames were a dark red, burning slowly, like an ancient piece of charcoal smoldering amidst ice and snow, its light illuminating only a small circle, its warmth given only to those sitting close.
The Orange Faction's fire was piled in the camp's central clearing—tall, bright, fueled by publicly collected "surplus goods": several worn leg wraps, discarded leather, even a damp old military manual. The flames were a dazzling gold, crackling, sparks flying, like a meticulously staged celebration performed for the night and the bronze mirrors.
Between the two fires lay the old trench dug for defense works last year and never filled in come spring.
Shen Yuzhu's gaze traced the trench. The Mirror Patterns rendered its geometry with sterile precision:
[Geography: Old defense trench (abandoned). Width: 5 paces, 7 cun ±0.2 cun.]
[Contents: 37 iron caltrops. Rust: 62-78% coverage (avg: 65%).]
[Surface: «Dead snow» layer. Thickness: 3 fingers. Load-bearing: <40 jin.]
[Annotation: Physical parameters of this historical scar show 97.1% alignment with the current psychological «narrative fissure» axis. Coincidence probability: <3%.]
He stared at the last line. «Coincidence probability: <3%.»
The world was a patient with obsessive-compulsive disorder, even its scars growing symmetrical, its schisms born with precise widths. This trench was no accident. It was the physical world's over-literal, pathetic echo of a psychic wound—as if even dirt and rust felt obliged to mimic the architecture of their interior rift.
The trench was not wide—a mere five paces. But its bottom was scattered with thirty-seven rusted caltrops, remnants of last year's defenses, still uncleared. Its surface was covered by a layer of ash-black dead snow, packed hard by countless footsteps, smooth as a mirror, reflecting no firelight, holding no footprints.
It was as if the environment itself had long ago drawn a clear, dangerous boundary for this silent schism.
To reach one side from the other, one had to detour over thirty paces, or risk crossing this icy chasm bristling with hidden spikes.
Shen Yuzhu looked at the two fires.
By the Indigo fire, Chen He sat hugging his knees in the darkest spot, his face half-lit, half in shadow. He looked at the flames, but his gaze was vacant, as if staring through them at something more distant, heavier.
By the Orange fire, Zhao Si stood ramrod straight, speaking animatedly to a few seated soldiers, his gestures clear and forceful. Yet, Shen Yuzhu "heard" his heart rate was twenty percent faster than normal—a physiological excitation indicative of a high-performance state.
Then he saw Gu Changfeng.
Gu Changfeng was on night patrol. He walked along the camp's perimeter, deliberately skirting the central trench, approaching the Indigo fire from the outer edge first.
A silent veteran picked up a stone warmed by the fire and wordlessly offered it. Gu Changfeng took it, held it in his frozen palm for three breaths, feeling the rough warmth seep into his bones, then set it down, gave the veteran a slight nod, and turned away.
He continued his round, circling to the other side, passing the Orange fire.
He did not approach, only paused five paces away, his gaze fixed on a piece of leather curling and charring in the flames. Zhao Si saw him, raised a hand as if to call out, but Gu Changfeng had already turned and melted into the shadows of the tents.
He became the only person tonight to set foot in both "territories."
Not due to wavering allegiance, but because he represented the "no bloodshed" line.
And the line was the final common denominator both divided factions had to acknowledge.
Shen Yuzhu's Mirror Patterns displayed Gu Changfeng's current physiological readings:
[Individual: Gu Changfeng]
[Heart Rate: Steady (Slightly below baseline)]
[Galvanic Skin Response: Stable]
[Muscle Tension: Slight elevation in back and neck (Chronic vigilance state)]
[Sentiment Tags: Mixed (Fatigue / Duty / Unnamed Confusion)]
Gu Changfeng himself knew nothing of these numbers. He only, upon reaching the trench edge, tentatively prodded the smooth dead snow with his boot tip.
Click.
A faint sound of ice grating against metal rose from below.
He stopped, looked down at the rusted spikes in the trench bottom for three breaths. Then he withdrew his foot, turned, and chose the detour.
A thought surfaced from his depths, faint as exhaled breath vanishing instantly:
"Even the earth helps them draw the line. Perhaps... better a visible trench than invisible knives everywhere."
It was not long after Gu Changfeng left that Chen He moved.
He rose from beside the Indigo fire, looked at no one, and walked straight to the edge of the trench.
He stood there, his gaze crossing the menacing caltrops at the bottom, fixed on the bright, crackling orange flames opposite.
He looked for a long time.
So long Shen Yuzhu thought he would stand there until dawn.
Then, Chen He turned, very slowly.
He walked back to his tent, lifted the felt flap, and vanished into darkness.
No lamp was lit inside. Yet, Shen Yuzhu's Mirror Patterns penetrated the felt, outlining his form as he began to pack his knapsack.
The movements were light, slow, but held no hesitation.
He carefully folded a few old garments, stuffed them into the bottom. Checked his water skin, hung it at his side. Wrapped a sharpened knife in thick cloth and secured it against his body.
By the Orange fire opposite, a young soldier saw this.
He did not speak. Did not move.
Only gave a very slight, almost imperceptible nod towards Chen He's tent.
A silent confirmation:
"I understand."
The message traveled through the frigid dark, wordlessly, clearer than any shout:
When language utterly fails, the body begins to speak.
And when even the body cannot cross a five-pace trench,
Departure becomes the only complete action left to perform.
In the last moments before dawn, Shen Yuzhu walked to the mutated Serenity Grass beside the command tent.
The plant had grown taller.
But this time, it had forked near its base, producing two co-dominant stems.
The left stem was deep indigo, its texture steady as an old veteran's calluses.
The right stem was bright orange, its leaf edges sharp as newly honed blades.
The two stems twisted and probed near their tops, yet refused to fuse, like a twin-nucleus fungal strain sharing nutrients while secreting mutual toxins.
Shen Yuzhu crouched, his fingers lightly touching the cold soil.
The Mirror Patterns initiated a deep scan, piercing the topsoil, probing the plant's dark, subterranean root system.
The image returned to his consciousness. His breath caught slightly.
Underground, in the darkness beyond all sight, the root systems of the two stems were not completely separated.
They tangled and knotted tightly around an ancient stone fissure, forming a massive, unrecognizable, tumor-like gnarl of roots.
The shape of that gnarl resembled a silent, slowly pulsing—heart.
Above ground: clear opposition. Below ground: entangled lifeblood.
Shen Yuzhu stood up, looking towards the paling fish-belly white of the eastern horizon.
The camp still slept. The two bonfires had become wisping embers. The trench lay silent as a scar upon the earth. The faint sounds of packing had long ceased.
The Mirror Patterns offered no prompts, no warnings, no data streams.
Only one realization surfaced from the depths of his consciousness, serene as a stubborn stone beneath ice:
"The world is not broken.
It simply can no longer be narrated by one language, one scale, one story.
And when the mode of narration itself undergoes fission,
even the silent soil underfoot will sprout iron caltrops,
to give that fissure a shape that cannot be misread."
A north wind came from the distant snow plains. It swept over the old crack in the western wall, now stabilized by unnamed stones; over the rusted spikes in the trench; over the dying embers of the two bonfires; and finally, brushed lightly against the twin-stemmed Serenity Grass.
The leaves trembled faintly.
Left side: deep indigo. Right side: bright orange.
Their tremors were not in the same frequency, yet they occurred simultaneously in the same inexorable wind.
Night Crow Division - Central Nexus Deep Layer - Instant Spiritual Reflection Archive Log
[Northern Garrison Observation Nexus - "Paradox Garden" Project]
[Date: Celestial Calendar 372, Winter Month 17]
[Attempting spiritual event categorization...]
[...]
[... Categorization Failed.]
[Conflict Detected: Narrative Aspect A and Narrative Aspect B share mutually exclusive spiritual-logical foundations, cannot be woven into a single "Narrative Tapestry."]
[Attempting execution of "Narrative Tapestry Fusion" protocol... Fusion Failed.]
[Error Code: Principia Non Grata (Spiritual Logic Incompatible)]
[Note: This error code has appeared only four times in the Division's 300-year observational history. Previous three instances corresponded to:
1. Eve of the Great Zhou Dynasty's primary spiritual vein rupture (Celestial Calendar 103)
2. Comprehensive collapse of the Chu Dynasty's ethical system (Celestial Calendar 220)
3. Commencement of the "Age of Fragmentation" (Celestial Calendar 301)]
[Final Determinative Logic Chain:
Premise: Sample exhibits «Irreducible Plural Reality».
Conflict: «Forced Reduction» would cause «Veracity Damage», violating Prime Directive.
Therefore: Current observational model... **INCONCLUSIVE.**
[Disposition: Maintain status quo.]
[System Status Update:
Northern «Paradox Garden» project designation changed from **«Active Observation»** to **«Passive Containment & Witnessing»**.
Primary Objective Revised: From «Comprehend and Categorize Specimen» to **«Document the Sustained Existence of a Phenomenon This System Cannot Itself Comprehend»**.]
[This reclassification triggers a Tier-1 memorandum to the Night Crow Seal-Bearer and the surface consciousness of the Law-Sea.]
[This nexus will now enter low-power state, preserving only base recording functions.]
[—Awaiting the invention of a new «World Grammar» capable of containing this contradiction.]
[Or awaiting the contradiction itself to grow into its next form.]
At the same moment, Blackstone Valley, within the Ice Mirror chamber.
Helian Sha's fingertip hovered an inch above the surface of the colossal ice mirror. His ice-blue pupils clearly reflected an unprecedented structure within the Northern Garrison's spiritual map—not a singular anomaly point, but two parallel-flowing, mirroring yet utterly repelling streams of spiritual energy, separated by a deep-black "narrative gap" that the spiritual nexus system could not parse at all.
The corner of his mouth lifted, very slowly, into a slight curve. His laughter echoed in the vast, cold mirror chamber, like ancient ice sheets cracking soundlessly in abyssal depths:
"It begins...
When the ruler measuring the world first realizes it cannot measure the fissure within itself,
what it should forge is not a more precise ruler,
but the acknowledgment—that the world fundamentally lives in multiple dimensions.
And in the moment it makes that acknowledgment...
the ruler itself will also begin to crack—irreversibly."
The surface of the ice mirror suddenly rippled with an almost imperceptible tremor.
As if it was no longer merely reflecting,
but learning.
(End of Chapter 107)