In the dim underground room.
The blood was beginning to turn black, and the air was thick with the stench of gore.
On the floor lay a girl with white-red hair, her hands and feet mangled and bloody, her breath barely a whisper.
The blood was starting to thicken.
On the floor of the cramped underground room, blood slowly pooled.
In the corner, the Magic Cube still emitted a faint glow.
Su Ling wasn’t completely unconscious.
Or rather, she was forcing herself to stay awake.
‘I can’t die… I can’t die here…’
‘Mom…’
But her life force ebbed away with every passing moment.
Her consciousness drifted like a kite with a broken string.
The Magic Cube’s white light flickered more and more frequently, as if it were anxiously waiting for something.
On the floor, the slowly flowing blood finally reached the bottom of the Magic Cube.
The pure white base was stained with a trace of blood.
At that moment, the flickering white light ceased abruptly.
“Genetic testing in progress…”
A emotionless female voice suddenly echoed through the room.
The light in Su Ling’s dim eyes was like a candle flickering in the wind.
“Genetic match successful. Permission unlock: one percent.”
The Magic Cube floated into the air, beginning to disintegrate and reassemble.
Under Su Ling’s dim gaze, a figure of flesh and blood slowly took shape before her eyes.
Bones, blood vessels, muscle, skin…
Like building blocks, a girl appeared before her: eyes closed, skin snow-white, hair reaching her waist.
Her pale feet touched the ground, stained with black-red blood.
The girl had waist-length, snow-like hair.
Her long lashes quivered as she slowly opened her eyes.
They were light-colored, utterly devoid of color—her whole being seemed to have lost all hue, white to the point of translucence.
The girl was completely naked.
She slowly walked over to Su Ling on the floor and crouched down.
By now, Su Ling was teetering on the edge of death.
Like an exquisite doll, the girl’s eyes were hollow, silent and still.
Looking at Su Ling’s single remaining pupil, a trace of pain flickered in the girl’s light-colored eyes.
“My Empress… I’ve come too late…”
She gathered Su Ling into her arms, stripping away the blood-soaked clothes from Su Ling’s body.
Their bodies pressed together.
The next moment, she lowered her head and kissed Su Ling’s bloodless lips.
Her own body began to visibly dim.
A miraculous scene unfolded.
Su Ling’s broken body began to recover.
Pink flesh buds grew from her mangled hands and feet.
Her skin, covered in whip marks, became smooth again.
And in the hollow eye socket where the original owner had cruelly gouged out her eye, a light-colored pupil slowly grew.
“Cough…”
But the girl’s body had completely changed.
Her hands and feet were bloody and mangled, her skin covered with scars, and even her eyes—one was missing, leaving only an ugly, grotesque hollow.
“The permissions… weren’t enough…”
The girl looked at Su Ling, whose breathing had steadied, and her single remaining eye was filled with tenderness.
“My Empress, we can meet again in the future.”
With those words, her body began to age rapidly.
In a single breath, as if tens of thousands of years had passed, she turned into a heap of dust.
And within the dust, a Magic Cube lay quietly.
—
Su Ling seemed to be in a strange space.
Darkness surrounded her, as if countless black mists shrouded everything.
She wandered aimlessly here.
‘Where… is this?’
Su Ling stopped.
Before her appeared a strange bubble.
On the surface of the bubble, an image emerged.
Su Ling recognized it—it was a scene from her time on Earth.
The image showed a family eating together.
‘Mom…’
Su Ling felt dazed.
She instinctively reached out to touch it, but it only rippled slightly.
She realized.
This was her memory.
On the Memory Bubble, her family was happy, and at the center of the table was a birthday cake.
It was the day of her birthday.
Her eyes began to grow moist.
“Ling Ling, make a wish.” Her mother on Earth said.
At that time, she had made a wish.
‘I hope… I can be with my family forever.’
But just as this warm scene played out, the Memory Bubble suddenly burst.
“No!”
Su Ling lunged forward instinctively, only to find another Memory Bubble.
This one was larger, and the image on it was even more shocking.
It was Su Ling lying in the ICU.
Su Ling’s pupils constricted.
‘When…?’
“You don’t remember. You died on Earth long ago.”
At that moment, a gentle male voice suddenly spoke.
Su Ling stared blankly at the young man behind the Memory Bubble.
He was refined and handsome—it was herself.
Or rather, the version of herself from Earth.
“Do you believe in Samsara?”
The Earth version of herself said.
“Not a Witch’s reincarnation, but something on a higher level, grander—the reincarnation of All Beings, across any dimension, any universe.”
“That night, you were returning home from an experiment when you got into a car accident.”
“You died. But as your memory shows, you transmigrated—or rather, you stepped into Samsara, the Samsara of All Beings.”
The Earth version of herself disappeared.
In its place was another Memory Bubble.
It was the memory of her hatching from a pink-white insect egg.
She saw a beautiful face.
Su Yao.
And another face with a complex expression.
Bai Wei.
‘This… is me?’
Su Ling’s eyes were dull.
But wasn’t she the impostor summoned by the Original Owner?
“Impostor? Hah. Su Ling, are you still trapped in ‘The Confusion’?”
Another mocking voice sounded from behind.
It was a girl identical to herself.
But this one was sharp and aggressive.
“Don’t remember me? I’m you from ten years ago.”
The ten-years-ago version walked up to Su Ling.
Indeed, this version of herself was more immature than the current her.
“You are me? But…”
“That person is the real impostor. She’s just a Puppet created by the Insect Hive.”
The ten-years-ago version sneered, her form dissipating.
She left behind an even larger Memory Bubble.
She had hatched, and under Bai Wei’s guidance, she learned many things.
At that time, she had no memories of Earth.
But one day, she fell ill.
After a serious illness, she changed.
Bai Wei examined her but found nothing unusual.
Yet Su Ling stared at the images on the Memory Bubble, utterly shocked.
In the Memory Bubble, she had returned to Earth.
Over and over again, she cycled through her life on Earth.
Again and again, she relived the twenty-plus years of life before the car accident.
“Now you understand? That serious illness was the work of the Insect Hive.”
“It swapped you with its Puppet and threw you into an Earth Illusion crafted from the memories it extracted from you, forcing you to relive that life over and over.”
Su Ling’s eyes were vacant.
“When you broke ‘The Confusion’ before, you relied on your love for your family.”
“But that was just a shortcut.”
“Sigh. This young lady really has to worry about everything. How did you, you idiot, let that fake fool you for so long?”
The ten-years-ago version appeared again.
The ten-years-ago version—without Earth memories, without the Insect Hive’s interference.
She was the real her.