[Current Status: System Maintenance in Progress]
[Operator: Supreme Administrator (Admin)]
[Command: Isolate and Cleanse]
...The journey back from the moon was like a grand meteor shower.
Shen Qingqiu, cradling the silver heart "stolen" from the Moon Palace, trailing her long red dress, streaked across the primordial night sky.
At the foot of Mount Buzhou, the human race's bonfire still burned.
The black mechanical mountain formed from nano-divine gold—Seventeen's body—remained in its towering posture, only now cooled, devoid of all luster, like a silent monument.
"Seventeen, home."
Shen Qingqiu landed lightly before the massive mechanical chest.
She reached out and gently pressed the still-beating silver heart into the empty opening.
Click.
A perfect fit.
Buzz— A gentle silver light instantly coursed through the black metal veins.
The massive mechanical mountain began to disintegrate and reform.
Countless nanobots, like bees returning to their hive, re-weave themselves into bones, muscles, and skin.
A moment later.
The familiar man in black stood before Shen Qingqiu once more.
His face was still pale, but the red lotus mark between his brows was vibrant and vivid. His purple eyes slowly opened, reflecting Shen Qingqiu's tear-streaked face.
"Qingqiu..." Seventeen's voice was hoarse, filled with the bewilderment and joy of rebirth.
He reached out, wanting to wipe her tears.
His fingertips were warm, a real body temperature.
"I'm here." Shen Qingqiu threw herself into his arms, hugging his waist tightly, greedily absorbing his warmth.
"The moon is gone, but my heart beats again. From now on... you're never allowed to leave me again." Seventeen clumsily patted her back, a gentle smile curving his lips.
"Okay. I won't leave."
"In my programming, there's no longer a 'self-destruct' option."
However.
This tenderness lasted only three seconds.
[Warning!] [Illegal Recombination Detected!]
[Warning! Super Virus Source Found!]
There was no wind, no thunder.
But Shen Qingqiu and Seventeen simultaneously felt an indescribable chill.
It wasn't physical cold, but a kind of… trembling feeling of being locked onto by some superior gaze.
The sky changed.
No longer the starry sky, no longer the gray of daytime.
The entire firmament turned into a pure, despairing deep blue.
That was the color all computer users feared most—the Blue Screen of Death.
Against this blue background, countless lines of white code cascaded down like a waterfall.
And at the end of the code, a gigantic **"hand"** composed of pure white cursors (Mouse Cursor) slowly descended from the sky.
It had no features, no physical form.
It was merely a symbol.
But it represented the highest will of this dimension—the Administrator.
"Finally… personally taking action?"
Shen Qingqiu released Seventeen, shielding him behind him.
The peach wood hairpin in her hand transformed into a longsword, and an indomitable flame burned in her golden eyes.
But the "cursor hand" did not attack Shen Qingqiu.
It simply bypassed her.
Its target was singular—Seventeen.
[Target: Number 1307 (Seventeen).]
[Judgment: Hardware intact, software severely corrupted.]
[Execution Plan: Soul (data consciousness) stripping.] No nonsense, no declaration of war.
The enormous white cursor, like selecting a file on a computer desktop, lightly clicked on Seventeen's head.
"Selected." Seventeen's body stiffened abruptly.
He wanted to resist, wanted to draw his sword, wanted to ignite the Crimson Lotus Karmic Fire.
But his body… wouldn't obey him.
"What's going on…" A flicker of terror flashed in Seventeen's eyes.
He found that his mind was still clear, he could even feel the wind, but his fingers wouldn't move, his legs wouldn't step.
He was **"frozen."** "Seventeen?!" Shen Qingqiu sensed something amiss and reached out to grab him.
But the cursor didn't give her a chance.
It made an extremely simple movement—drag.
"Cut." BOOM—!!!
A soul-tearing pain instantly swept through Seventeen's entire core.
That pain wasn't physical cutting; it was as if his memories, emotions, and personality were being forcibly ripped from this body…
"Aaaaaahhhhhh—!!!" Seventeen let out a piercing scream.
But his humanoid body didn't move, not even his expression changed.
The scream was a data lament from the depths of his soul.
Under Shen Qingqiu's horrified gaze,
countless streams of purple light overflowed from Seventeen's seven orifices and pores.
Those streams of light converged in mid-air, forming a semi-transparent, still struggling phantom of Seventeen.
That was his spiritual consciousness.
It was the "soul" he had cultivated through countless cycles of life and death.
And what remained was...
Only an empty shell, still standing, still handsome, but with vacant eyes...
"Seventeen!!" Shen Qingqiu went mad.
She raised her peach wood sword and stabbed fiercely at the giant cursor.
"Give him back to me!!"
[Insufficient permissions.]
[Operation cannot be undone.]
The cursor flicked away lightly.
Shen Qingqiu was like a fly hitting glass, violently thrown back and crashing heavily into a pile of rubble.
A mouthful of blood spurted out, staining her purple dress red.
Ignoring the pain, she scrambled to her feet.
She watched helplessly as the cursor, grasping the translucent "Seventeen," slowly rose into the sky.
The phantom struggled.
He was watching her.
Though there was no sound, Shen Qingqiu understood his lip movements.
He was shouting: "Qingqiu...run…"
Even at the very last moment, in the final moments of being skinned alive and her soul banished.
His thought was still...to let her escape.
[Target isolated.]
[Drop location: Data Recycle Bin.]
[Status: Awaiting complete deletion.]
The cursor, grasping Seventeen's soul, burrowed into a suddenly appearing black trash can icon (a spacetime black hole).
Buzz.
The black hole closed.
The deep blue in the sky faded.
Everything returned to calm.
As if nothing had happened.
Only the man in black remained standing in the same spot.
Motionless.
...The wind howled.
Like a mournful wail.
Shen Qingqiu stumbled and crawled to the man in black.
"Seventeen?"
She trembled as she reached out and gently touched his cheek.
Cold.
Bone-chilling cold.
That metallic chill unique to Nano Divine Gold spread throughout her body through her fingertips.
No longer was there that warm body temperature, no longer that delicate biomimetic response.
His eyes were still open.
His purple pupils were still deep, the red lotus mark between his brows still vibrant.
But.
There was no light within them.
Gone was that gaze that always looked at her, filled with doting affection and possessiveness.
Now, he was like an incredibly realistic… wax figure.
"Seventeen… don't scare me."
Shen Qingqiu's voice was broken.
She grabbed his shoulders and shook him violently.
"Say something… you just said you wouldn't leave me…"
There was no response.
His body was still as hard as iron, still indestructible.
But the **person** inside was gone.
Shen Qingqiu trembled as she placed her hand on his chest.
The silver heart she had brought back from the moon was still beating.
Thump, thump, thump.
Mechanical, regular, powerful.
But it was just a blood-pumping machine.
No longer the… heart that beat for her.
"Gone…" Shen Qingqiu's legs went weak, and she knelt before him. She clung tightly to his waist, burying her face in his cold abdomen.
This body, she designed it herself.
These clothes, she wove them herself.
The red lotus between his brows, she drew with her heart's blood.
Even this heart, she had just placed inside him.
All the hardware was there.
Even more perfect, stronger than before.
Only…he was gone.
This despair of being so close yet separated by life and death was a thousand times more cruel than killing him outright.
"Mother…" A-Ling's small figure peeked out from Shen Qingqiu's hair.
His little face was deathly pale, and he dropped the abacus in his hand in fright.
"Father's signal… disappeared."
"But I can sense…his code is still there, just thrown into a…very deep, very messy place, full of garbage data."
"Garbage…data?" Shen Qingqiu suddenly looked up.
Tears streamed down her face, but the lifeless light in her golden eyes was rekindled by those words.
"The Recycle Bin," Shen Qingqiu murmured to herself.
As a top-tier hacker, she knew all too well what that meant.
Cut files, as long as the Recycle Bin wasn't emptied, could still… be restored.
She slowly stood up.
She didn't let go of that cold body.
She hoisted the statue-like Seventeen onto her back.
That body was heavy, weighing over a thousand pounds.
It bent her spine, but couldn't break her resolve.
"A-Ling," Shen Qingqiu's voice was soft, yet carried a chilling madness.
"Help me locate… the entrance to the Recycle Bin."
"Mother, what are you doing?" A-Ling asked in terror.
"That's a dimensional junkyard! Full of gibberish and viruses! Once you go in, you can't get out!" Shen Qingqiu turned her head and glanced at the man on her back, his eyes closed, seemingly just asleep.
She reached out and tucked a strand of wind-blown hair behind her ear, revealing a heart-wrenching smile.
"So what if I can't get out?"
She pulled out the peach wood hairpin from her bosom.
She pierced her palm with her fingertips, blood staining the hairpin crimson.
"Since they threw my lover away like trash."
"Then I'll go to that junkyard…"
"To…reclaim him."
"Even if I have to turn that so-called 'recycling station' upside down."
"Even if I have to piece together his soul from billions of fragments."
"I will take him…home."
Shen Qingqiu carried that heavy, empty body, step by step, towards the bottomless crevice of Buzhou Mountain.
That place was the most chaotic place in this primordial world.
And the only loophole leading to the "recycling station."
The wind and sand whipped up her red skirt.
Her figure was solitary and tragically beautiful.
Like a moth drawn to a flame, or like an empress about to fall into the abyss.
Her spirit was imprisoned, her body cold.
But as long as she breathed her last.
These countless gods and Buddhas, these high-dimensional rulers.
No one could possibly... make her truly disappear.