The wrongdoer must face their mistakes

An Yu’s current​⁠​‍⁠‌​‍⁠‍‍‍‌​⁠‌‌‍‌‍​‌​⁠ survival value was 71%.

According to the Mirror’s mechanism, the moment he entered the fourth fragment, he would take 70% of the burst damage from leaving the third fragment, making it impossible to leave the fourth fragment alive.

The only way was to take the fourth fragment out first and let Qin Zhilu enter alone.

But An Yu tried several times and seemed to be trapped within the third mirror, unable to break free. He was left with no choice but to continue deeper into the Mirror Core.

An Yu stood silently in the swirling snowstorm. In front of him, only death seemed to loom vaguely, but behind him, there was no retreat.

Before entering the shattered mirror, he had been staring at the Commander, others couldn’t withstand the impact of the shattered mirror on mental power; the Commander could, yet he chose to stay outside the mirror.

An Yu looked at the trench coat on A-Ji, and it was as if the phrase repeated so many times echoed in his ears: I won’t let anything happen to you.

He seemed forever unable to place his sense of security entirely on others, whether it was Ling Qiu in the past, or Qin Zhilu today.

But the Commander was indeed a man of his word.

He took out two shattered mirror fragments from his pocket and held them in front of him.

The white mirror reflected his face. That feeling of gazing at another person reappeared. After seeing Bai Jing’s memories, he understood that the reflection in the mirror was indeed another person—a partial self sealed within the mirror.

The red pupils in the mirror were cold and solemn, untouched by the snowstorm.

“I believe you too,” he softly murmured. “Don’t disappoint me.”

That figure suddenly raised his arm, the two shattered mirror fragments reflected the swirling snowstorm in the sky, as it resolutely pierced his chest!

<hr>

Outside the shattered mirror.

Blood suddenly bloomed on An Yu’s chest, who was seemingly asleep with his eyes closed.

The numbers on his terminal rapidly dropped from 71%.

Fengjian immediately looked at Jiang Xiao. “Corner is about to come out of the mirror.”

In an instant, the poppy in Jiang Xiao’s palm swayed and blossomed, about to scatter its seeds, but Qin Zhilu suddenly grabbed his arm.

“Wait.” Qin Zhilu stared at the numbers on the terminal. Blood had already soaked through An Yu’s welfare uniform, indicating his life was continuously draining, but the value didn’t plummet to a low point instantly like the previous two times.

It dropped quickly to 62%, then gradually leveled off. It took more than ten seconds before it dropped again to 61%.

“This doesn’t seem like the burst damage before leaving the mirror…” Fengjian stared at the terminal in a daze.

“Did Corner sustain other injuries inside the mirror?”

Qin Zhilu pondered for a moment. “It’s not a fatal injury. You can go ahead.”

“Yes.”

Fengjian had recovered for a while. The small purple dandelions were slightly more energetic than before, drifting towards An Yu’s chest. He watched the numbers on the terminal slowly climb back from 61%. Only when they returned to 71% did he breathe a sigh of relief, feeling completely drenched in sweat from the cold wind.

Just as he was about to retract the seeds, Qin Zhilu said, “Continue.”

Fengjian was startled, and the small dandelions hovering in the air once again enveloped An Yu.

Silence surrounded them, with only the wind lingering. Under everyone’s gaze, the numbers on the terminal slowly jumped from 71% to 72%.

Slade asked in surprise, “His survival limit recovered?”

Qin Zhilu said thoughtfully, “It seems one must fuse with the previous shattered mirrors to retrieve the part of oneself sealed by the mirror.”

A moment of dead silence. Fengjian murmured, “So Corner… he… inserted the shattered mirror fragments… into his chest?”

He subconsciously reached out to touch An Yu’s wound, but stopped his hand in mid-air.

After a long pause, he whispered, “It’s one thing not to fear death, but doesn’t he fear his own mirror abnormality…?”

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Blood was splattered on the snowy ground.

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Blood splattered onto the ground, but he seemed to feel no pain, merely using the fragments to illuminate the bloody holes in his body.

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Outside the mirror, Qin Zhilu looked at the numbers on the terminal, and a hint of relief finally appeared in his dark eyes.

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He couldn’t imagine the sheer audacity of this. Without communication, if the people outside hadn’t stabilized his declining survival value, that single moment would have claimed An Yu’s life.

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Qin Zhilu thought for a moment before understanding his question. “Nothing. I felt he was a bit displeased that I wouldn’t go in with him. I was waiting for him to question me, but after staring at him for a long time, he didn’t speak, so I didn’t explain either.”

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“He’s not as blindly trusting of teammates as you think. On the contrary, he’s someone who finds it very difficult to entrust his life to others,” Qin Zhilu said, looking at An Yu, who was sitting on the ground with his eyes closed. “He’s just very sensitive to minor pains on his body. Whether his body is getting better or worse, he doesn’t need the terminal’s notification. This might be some kind of talent, like a small animal.”

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“He’s really coming out this time!” Fengjian exclaimed, as if facing a formidable enemy. “This burst damage matches the Mirror’s mechanism. His maximum should have dropped from 100% to 70% again!”

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“He indeed left the third shattered mirror fragment, but he didn’t come out. He went directly into the next one,” Qin Zhilu raised an eyebrow, as if to himself. “No wonder he was so eager to recover his limit inside the mirror. So there are mirrors within mirrors.”

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Jiang Xiao, who had been silent, suddenly widened his eyes. “An Yu wouldn’t possibly…”

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Everyone held their breath, staring intensely at the screen, almost forgetting to breath.

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In utter silence, Qin Zhilu chuckled softly. “Quite insane.”

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Inside the mirror. The person standing in the snowstorm held three shattered mirror fragments in his hand, each stained with blood.

The wind tugged at the tattered openings in his clothes, but there were no wounds on his body, as if the blood on the ground had nothing to do with him.

After a long while, he lightly raised his eyes, his red pupils resolute. “Recovery, complete.”

<hr>

The three shattered mirror fragments were still in his hand, but when An Yu looked at them again, the feeling of staring at another person finally vanished.

He was now within the fourth shattered mirror fragment. The desolate snowy plain was quickly filled, and the gray buildings of the orphanage reappeared.

The world was dim. Both sides of the road were filled with grotesque aberrants. Those children who once smiled now grew strange claws and fangs, their skin bursting and bones twisting. They fought each other amidst meaningless screams.

There was blood everywhere and the vivid flesh of aberrants, splattered on the orphanage buildings like cursed graffiti, writing out their sins.

It was like a living hell.

An Yu walked down this familiar yet alien street, his gaze slowly surveying each group of fighting aberrants.

Some memories that weren’t his squeezed into his mind—he suddenly knew the human names of every aberrant in his sight, knew their former preferences, who was friends with whom, and who was about to finish their observation period and leave the orphanage.

He watched them tear apart their former comrades, then crouch on the ground, ravenously scooping up the abnormal bones and flesh. When they looked up at him, their murky eyes held only primal desire.

At the end of the road, there was a pool of blood on the ground, and a small corpse floated inside.

It was a little girl who was supposed to undergo a butterfly mutation, but like many ordinary people, her body couldn’t withstand the abnormality, and she died during the mutation process.

She had become very small, only as large as two palms pressed together. Her shriveled body still retained some human features, but her legs had fused and withered, and transparent, cicada-wing-like wings had formed on her arms. Although they were soaked in blood, those wings seemed to have already dried out.

Almost without thinking, An Yu bent down and scooped her up, wiping away the dirt with the corner of his clothing, and placed her on a nearby railing.

Her body continued to shrivel. Gusts of wind blew, and she was finally caught by the wind, drifting lightly for two turns in the air, before being carried off to an unknown place.

An Yu suddenly realized that the hint of compassion that had arisen in his heart was a little off.

He looked at the pool of blood.

Reflected on the smooth liquid surface was Bai Jing’s face.

This was December 25th, 2138.

Bai Jing had just completed his deal with the Mirror, hidden away the sleeping A-Ji, and was still wearing his assistant supervisor’s uniform.

An Yu, driven by the memory, arrived at the very center of the orphanage.

There used to be a screen embedded in the ground, displaying external surveillance to prevent aberrant invasions.

But now that screen was gone.

When he stood in the ground’s depression, a mirror suddenly appeared above his head.

The mirror continuously expanded outwards until it completely covered the orphanage’s sky.

All areas of the orphanage, all the aberrants and humans, were reflected in the mirror. Seven rows and seven columns, a total of four layers, from outside to inside, the protected individuals were successively reflected on the surveillance.

First layer: Chen Nian held the sleeping Sisi in a bridal carry and quietly opened the door to the underground. Behind the hazy white mist, the boy’s eyes were calm and resolute.

Second layer: Jian Xing fiercely pushed away A-Yue, and with a dazzling light, he stepped on the long dark street alone, like a lonely, insomniac lamp.

Third layer: A-Ji slept quietly, the rosy pustules ceasing their eruption. Her tiny body seemed as if it would vanish in the mirror coffin, leaving only a faint rise and fall in his chest

At the very center, the Mirror Core, only Bai Jing’s shadow was reflected. He looked up at the surveillance, as if looking in a mirror, and also as if confronting the other half of himself that had already merged with the mirror.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he softly said to the mirror above his head. “Once the guardianship fails, you’ll activate self-destruction before I wake up and shut you down, annihilating the orphanage.”

“But even then, I will wake up. Even if sins are hard to wash away, the wrongdoer must face their mistakes.”