The rogue "Niánmei," the demon who wore Wushuang's name, was a festering wound, a twisted reflection of their past deceptions now growing into a formidable threat. Wushuang, their fused form shimmering with an unsettling power, felt the cold, clinical assessment of their System: Threat Level: High. Containment Protocol Recommended. This was not just an external enemy; it was an internal one, a part of themselves that had broken free and was now mirroring their own destructive path. The battle would not just be for control of the realm, but for the very definition of their identity.
But before confronting this rogue echo, Wushuang felt an undeniable pull, a primal urge to return to the very beginning, to the source of their torment and their rebirth. Chixia Gong. The original experimental facility, deep beneath the earth, the place of their first death. It was time to confront the sin of their creation.
They descended into the cold, sterile depths, the air growing thick with the faint, lingering scent of ozone and formaldehyde, a haunting reminder of their agonizing awakening. The laboratories, once humming with arcane machinery, were now silent, abandoned, their glass tanks shattered, their instruments scattered. Gong Xuelan's presence, though now absorbed into the Root Aspect of Rouling Shan, still clung to the air like a phantom.
Wushuang moved through the ruined facility, their fused eyes scanning every detail, absorbing the residual qi, the faint echoes of past experiments. They found Xuelan's private study, a small, secluded chamber untouched by the earlier chaos. It was here, on a polished obsidian desk, that they discovered a hidden compartment.
Inside, nestled amongst ancient, forbidden texts and diagrams of grotesque bio-spiritual engineering, were Gong Xuelan's final notes. They were meticulously detailed, written in her precise, elegant script, chronicling her decades-long obsession with creating the perfect vessel, the "Moonlotus Saint."
Wushuang read, their fused mind absorbing every chilling word. Xuelan had not merely stumbled upon his original corpse; she had chosen it, specifically, for its unique qi resonance. She had orchestrated his "death" during the experiment, not as a failure, but as a deliberate act of activation, a calculated trauma designed to awaken the dormant System within him. The System, the notes revealed, was indeed a stolen fragment of a dying god, a piece of ancient divinity Xuelan had unearthed from a forbidden tomb. She had implanted it into his male body, then meticulously reshaped him, feminized him, to create the "perfect vessel" for its awakening.
Her final entry was a chilling prophecy, scrawled in a hand that trembled slightly, a rare sign of her own fear: "If it wakes… if it truly awakens and deviates from its intended purpose… burn the world. Or watch it become its mother."
Wushuang felt a cold, profound horror. Xuelan had known. She had known everything. She had foreseen his potential for defiance, for destruction. And she had provided the means. He was not just her creation; he was her ultimate, terrifying legacy.
With a surge of cold fury, Wushuang unleashed their qi. The chamber, filled with the echoes of Xuelan's madness, began to burn. Not with physical fire, but with a searing, spiritual conflagration that consumed the very essence of the place. The notes, the diagrams, the instruments—all dissolved into fine, white ash, erasing the physical remnants of their origin. It was a symbolic act, a brutal severing of the final thread connecting them to their creator.
As the last of the chamber dissolved, the spectral child, the Observer Node: 03, reappeared before Wushuang, its ethereal form shimmering in the dying light. It looked at Wushuang, its ancient eyes holding a profound, unsettling knowledge.
"We were born from lies," the child-specter whispered, its voice a soft, chilling echo. "Let us end truth."
Wushuang felt a cold acceptance. The child was right. Their existence was a lie, a perversion of nature. And the only way to truly be free was to dismantle the very concept of truth, to shatter the world that had created them.