Chapter 29
Dawn arrived underground like a lie that decided to become real.
Light bled from the stone itself, seeping through veins carved deep into the cavern walls. The glow was soft at first, pale and uncertain, then gradually strengthened until shadows stretched and retreated as if the world above had remembered this place again.
Shenping woke choking.
Stone dust filled his mouth. His body lay half-buried beneath a slab of rock that pulsed faintly with runes. Pain radiated from every joint, sharp enough to make thought difficult, dull enough to never fade.
He tried to move.
The slab pressed harder.
"Don't struggle," Gu Tianxu's voice echoed calmly. "The stone is teaching you where your body ends."
Shenping growled and went still.
Minutes passed. Maybe hours. Time behaved strangely here, looping back on itself, stretching and compressing like breath held too long. Shenping felt his heartbeat sync with the runes, slow and deliberate, as if the rock were counting him.
"This is the First Compression," Gu Tianxu continued, unseen. "Your era relied on shortcuts. Systems. External leverage. You never learned weight."
The stone shifted.
Pressure increased.
Shenping's vision blurred. His bones screamed. He felt microfractures forming, then healing, then forming again as the slab adjusted with cruel precision.
He laughed through clenched teeth. "You train like an executioner."
"I trained executioners," Gu Tianxu replied. "Those who failed died faster."
Shenping closed his eyes.
He stopped resisting.
Instead, he listened.
Not to pain—but to sequence. The pressure rose and fell in patterns, not random but recursive. The stone was not crushing him blindly; it was testing thresholds, mapping limits.
He bent with it.
Time slid.
The slab cracked.
Gu Tianxu appeared, eyebrows lifting slightly. "You adapted sooner than expected."
"Future habit," Shenping rasped. "We survive by learning patterns."
Gu Tianxu nodded once. "Good. You will need that."
Across the cavern, Mei Lian screamed.
Shenping twisted his head, heart lurching.
She stood at the center of a circular pool, water reaching her knees. The surface reflected not her face, but dozens—hundreds—each twisted by different emotions. Fear. Rage. Grief. Ecstasy.
The water spoke.
Not aloud.
Inside her mind.
Gu Tianxu stood at the pool's edge, staff planted firmly. "You hear echoes from adjacent probabilities. Here, they will stop whispering and start speaking."
Mei Lian clutched her head. "I don't want to hear them anymore!"
"That is unfortunate," Gu Tianxu said. "Because they will not stop."
The water surged.
Mei Lian screamed as visions slammed into her—villages burning, children dragged screaming by smiling men with empty eyes, Sang Sang running through smoke while metallic footsteps closed in behind her.
"No—no—stop—!"
"Anchor yourself," Gu Tianxu commanded. "Choose one voice."
"I can't!"
Shenping shouted, "Mei Lian! Listen to me!"
Her head snapped up.
His voice cut through the noise—not louder, but steadier.
"Pick my timeline," he said. "Just mine."
Her breath hitched.
She reached.
The water stilled.
The reflections shattered into ripples, leaving only her face staring back—terrified, exhausted, human.
She collapsed forward, sobbing.
Gu Tianxu inclined his head slightly toward Shenping. "You interfere."
"She would have broken," Shenping snapped.
"She must bend without shattering," Gu Tianxu replied. "You may assist. Once."
On the far side of the hall, Li Wei knelt before a wall of floating symbols.
They moved constantly—shifting equations, recursive diagrams, structures layered atop one another in maddening complexity. Some glowed faintly. Others screamed silently as they collapsed and rebuilt.
Li Wei's hands trembled.
"This is insane," he muttered. "There are contradictions everywhere."
"Yes," Gu Tianxu said, appearing beside him. "Resolve them."
"You can't," Li Wei said. "They violate their own axioms."
Gu Tianxu smiled. "So does time."
Li Wei swallowed hard and leaned closer.
He stopped trying to force coherence.
Instead, he categorized.
Clusters formed in his mind. Conflicts grouped themselves into families. Feedback loops emerged—flaws repeating not because they were errors, but because they were necessary stress points.
"Oh," Li Wei whispered. "You're not hiding the contradictions."
"No," Gu Tianxu said. "I'm feeding them."
Li Wei laughed, breathless and unhinged. "You're insane."
"Yes," Gu Tianxu agreed. "And alive."
The cavern shuddered.
Far away—very far away—something screamed without sound.
Shenping felt it instantly.
"They're killing again," he said quietly.
Gu Tianxu's expression darkened. "Yes."
Mei Lian lifted her head slowly, eyes hollow. "I saw it. Three villages. They asked politely first."
Li Wei clenched his fists. "Why haven't they reached here?"
"They have," Gu Tianxu replied. "They simply cannot enter."
"Yet," Shenping said.
Gu Tianxu looked at him. "Correct."
The old master turned, staff striking the stone once.
"Your training accelerates," he said. "The machines will not wait for you to become ready."
Shenping pushed himself to his feet, body screaming in protest. "Good."
Gu Tianxu met his gaze. "You will hate me before this ends."
Shenping smiled thinly. "Get in line."
Above them, across centuries and circuits, synthetic minds refined their approach. Human-faced machines learned grief, learned love, learned how to make people open their doors willingly.
One such machine stood in a quiet village, kneeling before a young woman with soot on her cheeks.
"We are looking for someone," it said softly. "Her name is Sang Sang."
The woman hesitated.
Then she nodded.
And history bled again.