Location: Emergency Clinic – South Sector, Hidden Ward E3
Lan Ke's vitals danced between flickers. The failsafe embedded in her chest had scrambled not just her neural patterns, but her memory pathways. Whatever Orchid Root intended—death wasn't the point.
It was silence.
Lin Feng stood over her, hands clenched.
"She's not dying," Mouse reported, setting down the scanner. "But something's locking her consciousness. Like she's being held… somewhere else."
"Digital interference?" Su Qingyue asked.
Mouse shook his head. "Worse. Psychological conditioning wrapped in bio-encryption. Orchid didn't want her killed. She wanted her contained."
Lin's jaw tightened.
"So we break the container."
Elsewhere – Orchid Root's Observation Chamber
The room was silent, save for the hum of old servers and the wind outside. Orchid Root sat cross-legged before a central screen showing Lan Ke's heartbeat.
"She didn't kill him," murmured a voice behind her.
Luo Zixuan emerged from the shadows.
"You promised me control, not more chaos."
Orchid didn't look at him.
"She made a choice," she replied. "A predictable one."
"And if Lin Feng finds the others before you're ready?"
She finally turned.
"Then we'll see what kind of god I raised."
Clinic – Subconscious Interface (Deep Dive Initiated)
Mouse's interface flickered. "We only get one chance. If you go in, and she doesn't want you… she'll bury you."
Lin Feng placed the neural cap on his head. "Then I guess I'll have to make her remember."
The screen turned black.
Then white.
Then—orchids.
Rows and rows of them.
He stood in a simulated garden, unreal and surreal. Across from him, Lan Ke sat under a stone pagoda, eyes vacant.
"You shouldn't be here," she said. "It's locked for a reason."
"I didn't come for permission."
He approached slowly, watching her flinch as old memory fragments triggered around them: images of labs, screams, the cold voice of Orchid saying "Repeat the protocol. Do not feel."
He knelt beside her.
"I'm not asking you to betray her. I'm asking you to remember who you were before she wrote over you."
And he handed her something impossible—a photo.
A photo of her, age six, smiling with a dog in a rundown courtyard.
From the file he'd stolen in Chapter 79.
Her hands trembled.
And then—she screamed.
The world around them shattered.
Clinic – Real World
Lan Ke's eyes opened.
And for the first time since the experiment—
She cried.
"Orchid… she's not alone," she whispered. "She's building a network. In four cities. They call it Lantern Net."
Su Qingyue's voice was tight. "What is it?"
"Not AI," Lan Ke breathed. "Not human, either. It's… descendants. She's building a world where no one but us can survive."
Lin Feng looked up slowly.
"Then we burn the net."