Broken Mirror 1: Concealment

Pat had⁠‌‌‌​‌⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍​‌​‍‍​‍‌‍​‌⁠ already met with Fengjian and Jiang Xiao. According to their reports, the air wall between the first and second layers seemed to be fluctuating, but it hadn’t completely disappeared yet. In addition, a strange fragment of a mirror had fallen off the wall.

Qin Zhilu took off his windbreaker and covered Chen Nian’s body, then opened the comm channel and said:

“Don’t act rashly. Send me the coordinates and wait for our team to regroup.”

The three of them walked out. Slade followed silently at the back. Halfway there, An Yu stopped and looked back at him.
Qin Zhilu suddenly spoke: “Slade.”

Slade immediately responded, “Yes.”

Qin Zhilu kept walking, his tone calm. “I expect Protectors in high-ranking positions within the Ladder to maintain basic professional conduct. In complex situations, don’t waste your energy on internal strife—especially when you’re obviously overestimating your own capabilities.”

The words An Yu was about to say got stuck in his throat. Just as he was about to speak again, Qin Zhilu reached out and gently patted his head, silently signaling him to turn back and keep walking.

Qin Zhilu continued, “My supervisee may not be the most compliant person. A word of advice—keep your claws in check.”

Slade lowered his head. “Yes, sir.”

An Yu rubbed the spot which was a little itchy from being touched by the gloves. He suspected that Qin Zhilu had misunderstood his intentions—he had turned around only to ask Slade for some food, considering Slade was carrying a large pack of supplies.

He hadn’t forgotten the principle that: “Exploitation takes precedence over punishment.”
Yet the Commander seemed to have developed a prejudice, already labeling him as a disobedient person, which made him a little anxious.

Just as they were about to reach the stairs leading to the surface, Qin Zhilu instructed Slade to go up first. When only he and An Yu were left, he asked:
“Does the trigger for memory recall require looking into your eyes?”

An Yu shook his head and replied honestly, “It’s triggered when someone is self-reflecting while making eye contact with me. For example, seeing themselves through my eyes, or making eye contact with me in a mirror.”

Qin Zhilu frowned slightly. “I don’t recall doing anything like that.”

“You seem to be an exception,” An Yu said. “I don’t need any extra conditions to recall your memories. When we make eye contact—as long as I want to—”

He suddenly stopped talking because he suddenly realized that this might displease his Commander.

Qin Zhilu stared at him. “What did you see in my memories?”

“Nothing,” An Yu immediately said. “I’m not lying. There was really nothing.”

There was only pure darkness and absolute silence—with a cold tower standing alone.

After a long pause, Qin Zhilu finally let out a low “Hmm.”
“I believe you.”

An Yu followed behind him and whispered softly, “You seem like a person without memories. Ling Qiu once said the brilliance of human nature often lies in remembering the past and thinking about the future. If that’s the case, it seems you barely have any humanity.”

Qin Zhilu replied with a faint, ironic tone: “Whether or not someone has humanity depends on who you’re comparing them to.”

An Yu didn’t respond. He thought, even compared to himself, the Commander seemed more inhuman.

He considered himself someone with memories.

In the past, he rarely recalled the past, but ever since Ling Qiu was gone, he found himself daydreaming often and remembering fragments of the past.

Things Ling Qiu had said that he thought he’d long forgotten kept resurfacing, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t push them away.

But despite all those recollections, there was one thing he couldn’t remember—Ling Qiu’s final words:
“Remember, you once asked me to remind you that those who bet on the last chance of survival won’t lose.”
He couldn’t remember when or where that was said, no matter how hard he tried.

An Yu followed behind Qin Zhilu and whispered after a moment: “Actually, I don’t quite understand. Chen Nian endured ten years of torment for someone he barely knew, burning himself out and when he was finally exhausted, he resolutely went to his death. In his memory, it all stemmed from the fact that his sister’s name shared the character Si with that girl.”

“Impossible,” Qin Zhilu said firmly. “There must be something you overlooked in his memory. Think again—between the two of them.”

An Yu pondered for a moment. “Are you referring to the fact that Sisi once kissed him? Ling Qiu did say that sometimes a man will lose all reason for the tiniest bit of sweetness from a woman—so much that he’d be willing to sell the pants off his own body. But I just don’t think Chen Nian was that impulsive.”

Qin Zhilu turned to look at him, brows tightly furrowed—more than An Yu had ever seen.
Even when he was in District 53 surrounded by a sea of aberrants he seemed to be in a better mood than he was at this moment.

“I take back what I once said,” Qin Zhilu said coldly. “Forget everything Ling Qiu ever taught you. What kind of nonsense did he even teach?”

“Bread, compassion, courage, and love,” An Yu replied smoothly.
“Ling Qiu said helping me understand those four themes was his life’s pursuit. Unfortunately, I only had time to learn about bread.”

Qin Zhilu’s face remained blank. “What a pity.”

An Yu added quietly, “If he had lived a bit longer, maybe I could’ve learned more.”

“It’s nlikely,” Qin Zhilu walked up the stairs indifferently, “At this point, I wouldn’t even care if you had personally killed him. Sooner or later, he would’ve died at your hands anyway.”

An Yu puzzled over this for a while, unable to grasp exactly what the Commander meant.

But he had a vague feeling that he’d just been scolded.

When they reached the surface, just before closing the door, Qin Zhilu stared down into the darkness below and said solemnly:
“Human emotions will never be buried by catastrophe. In fact, the worse the catastrophe, the purer those emotions become.”

An Yu was stunned. “Sorry, Commander… I don’t quite understand.”

Qin Zhilu withdrew his gaze.
“Just remember—we will bring that girl back to the Main City, safe and sound.”

By the time they reached the coordinates, daylight had already arrived. The outermost layer of the mirror surveillance had gone dark, and no buildings or figures could be reflected inside anymore.

The shard of mirror Pat found was palm-sized, with a black and white side—“Protect” was carved into the white side, and “Clamor” into the black. Both sides were polished enough to reflect a person clearly.

Pat held the mirror in his hand. “Look, the black side is especially eerie.”
His figure was clearly reflected in the black mirror – the perspective seemed like it was looking down from a high height. Inside the mirror, he was standing with the mirror in his hand, but the people around him disappeared without a trace. No matter how he adjusted the way he held the lens, the image on the mirror remained motionless.

He passed the mirror shard to Jiang Xiao, and the reflection changed to Jiang Xiao instead.

“Whoever holds it will have their image completely captured by the black mirror. But if no one holds it—” Jiang Xiao placed the shard on the ground, and it instantly filled with shadowy reflections.

Among them, An Yu recognized the boy with bark-like skin and another human boy they had encountered in the cafeteria.

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“It already does.” An Yu pointed at the word on the mirror: “Clamor.”
He paused, suddenly realizing the others probably only heard a faint crackling sound, while only he could hear the intense noise and anguish it truly represented.

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Jiang Xiao was surprised. “Huh? This thing is dangerous.”

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An Yu reached out and took the mirror, and when he looked up, he met a pair of sparkling red eyes.

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“…It’s a deal, then.” An Yu stiffly looked away.

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He had seen this outline before in Chen Nian’s memory—It was Bai Jing.

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An Yu closed his eyes, and suddenly countless clocks flashed before him.

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The sunlight was warm and gentle, spilling across the concrete outside the reading room.

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Chen Nian wore a thin padded coat issued by the orphanage and held a newspaper in hand. As he jogged backward, he waved at him. “Happy 100th day on duty, Assistant Supervisor!”

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The clock hanging on the wall reflected his face—his features hadn’t changed, but he had assumed Bai Jing’s identity.

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In his hand was a compressed biscuit, with the  words “Brother Jing” and a wobbly smiley face embedded in steamed peas. It was a 100-day gift from Chen Nian.

Bai Jing and Chen Nian didn’t have a particularly close bond, they just shared a few meals. But Chen Nian had a strong sense of old-fashioned rituals. Though he wasn’t very talkative, once Bai Jing was transferred to District D, he often received notes from others on Chen Nian’s behalf. Sometimes it was just a few words about his mood, sometimes a quote from a newspaper, and sometimes just a doodled smiley face.

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It was the deep contentment of seeing someone you wanted to protect living happily.

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A large number of children in the courtyard suddenly began mutating. Bai Jing, clad in protective gear, rushed into the A-Zone sleeping nest but found no one. He sprinted all the way to the reading room and only relaxed slightly when he saw Chen Nian and Sisi sleeping soundly together on the desk.

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“Warning! The genetic entropy of the aberrants ahead is 8429, 1016, and continues to rise!”

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When the door swung open, he was gripping the candle still in Chen Nian’s hand. From the doorway’s angle, it looked as if he was merely holding the candle and examining the sleeping children.

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“None,” Bai Jing said, raising the terminal. “But machines aren’t always reliable. I observed with my own eyes for a long time just now and didn’t find any mutation signs.”

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The distant noise gradually flooded back into his ears, accompanied by a stabbing pain in his heart.

An Yu suddenly opened his eyes.

As his consciousness withdrew from the white mirror, a strange yet familiar voice mournfully whispered in his ear, “The moment the lie was spoken, my faith in humanity was doomed. But how could I easily abandon those one vowed to protect?”

“An Yu!”

“An Yu!”

An Yu jerked awake, with Fengjian Tianyu and Jiang Xiao shouting his name.

A crushing pain throbbed in his head and his heart felt like it was being tightly squeezed by a giant hand.

He subconsciously looked at the terminal – health value 54%.

He shuddered and came to his senses, “How long was I out for?”

Qin Zhilu stood in front of him and stared at him. “Just a few seconds.”

There were clusters of round light spots surrounding Fengjian Tianyu. Those light spots were furry, like dandelion seeds floating in the wind, and were continuously pouring into An Yu’s body.

On the terminal, his Health value slowly climbed from 54% to 56%.

“Your Health value suddenly dropped to the 50% warning line just now. Luckily, Fengjian reacted quickly,” Jiang Xiao said worriedly. “Are you in pain? Headache?”

An Yu pressed a hand against his ear. “Noisy.”

After waking up, the noise quickly subsided but never completely disappeared — it lingered in his mind like a tiny, perpetual background sound.

The terminal showed no fluctuation in his mental strength, yet he felt extremely irritable. After seeing the health value number, that annoyance was mixed with uneasiness.

An Yu stared at the slowly rising health value, and suddenly a trace of impatience rose in his heart.

At that moment, he heard the chaotic ticking of clock hands in his mind again. Under everyone’s gaze, his Health value jumped directly from 56% to 80%, paused briefly, then resumed its previous slow pace.

Jiang Xiao was stunned and looked at Fengjian in disbelief. “You pure healers can actually control your abilities to such a degree?”

Fengjian also froze. “It’s not me…”

Qin Zhilu suddenly said, “Time accelerated.”

His voice was calm and firm. He stared at An Yu and said, “A momentary acceleration of your self-time caused the recovery process to speed up. When we heard the sound of the mirror cracking in the activity room, the wound on your hand also immediately began to heal. It seems the noise is indeed stimulating you to awaken new abilities.”

An Yu nodded tiredly.

Though the effect was confirmed, he was being driven crazy by the constant noise.

He couldn’t understand it — he had clearly withdrawn from the white mirror’s sealed memories, yet it felt like he had accidentally left part of his auditory nerves inside. Now, a faint sound permanently echoed in his mind.

To distract himself, he stared intently at the health value slowly increasing.

82%, 84%, 86%, 88% — 89%, 90% —

90% —

90%.

Fengjian Tianyu suddenly frowned, and An Yu finally realized something was wrong.

Several minutes later, Fengjian stopped, staring blankly at the terminal’s 90%. “Why do I feel… it’s maxed out already…?”

He hesitated, closed his eyes, and sensed carefully, then said in disbelief, “After it hit 90%, my ability isn’t being consumed anymore.”

The terminal only showed health value at 90%, without indicating the remaining deficit as it used to.

An Yu looked at Qin Zhilu in confusion. “What does this mean? Was my maximum health value forcibly lowered?”

“Everyone,” Slade, who had been standing not far away, suddenly spoke up, “the air wall has broken.”

He stretched out his hand toward the former boundary of the air wall and without any hindrance, his hand passed through the previous boundary.

He looked at An Yu and said, “When Corner woke up from his daze, the air wall between the first and second layers disappeared.”

After a long silence, Qin Zhilu walked over and gripped An Yu’s shoulder through his gloves.

“It seems this is one of the things Chen Nian didn’t know,” he said solemnly. “The conditions for entering the next layer aren’t just the death of the protected children from the previous layer. You must also listen to the memories within the white protector mirror. And the price… is leaving a part of yourself sealed inside.”

Author’s Note:

M1zushi: the broken mirrors are who Bai Jing protected and what “sins” he commited. in this case, he concealed the kids’ mutation and lied to humans in order to protect aberrants