[Current Location: Recycle Bin · Edge Layer]
[Environmental Characteristics: Logically chaotic, fragmented, high-risk radiation]
[Warning: This is a grave abandoned by the gods.]
...Deep within the cracks of Buzhou Mountain, it wasn't pitch black.
On the contrary, it was blindingly bright.
Shen Qingqiu, carrying Seventeen's cold body, stood on the edge of the cliff. Beneath his feet was no longer solid ground, but a swirling ocean formed by countless colorful **"fragments"**.
Floating there was a giant dragon with only half its body, its roar stuck in its throat, turning into an electric sound; floating there was an unfinished downpour, raindrops suspended in mid-air, shimmering with eerie neon colors; and countless lines of broken code, like tangled hemp, entangled the deleted remains of gods and demons.
This was the Recycle Bin.
It was where higher-dimensional civilizations dumped their garbage, and the final destination for all "failures".
"Are you scared?" Shen Qingqiu turned her head, pressing her cheek against Seventeen's cold, metallic shoulder.
"It's noisy, chaotic, and feels like... that cyber slum where we first met."
She smiled, tearing a strip from the hem of her red dress and binding herself and Seventeen tightly together.
Like conjoined twins.
"A-Ling, clear the way."
Shen Qingqiu whispered the order.
"Mother... the radiation levels here are off the charts!"
A-Ling, a small, glowing ball, hovered trembling in front of them.
"Once we're inside, there's no sense of up, down, left, or right. If we get lost, we'll really become garbage data."
"We won't get lost." Shen Qingqiu raised her hand and pressed it to her chest.
There, a silver heart was beating.
It was Seventeen's "pump," and also her "needle."
"As long as he still loves me..."
Shen Qingqiu closed her eyes and leaped.
"This love is... the only guiding beacon in this chaotic world."
...[Falling...] A wave of weightlessness washed over her.
The surrounding scenery began to distort wildly.
Shen Qingqiu felt as if she had fallen into a giant kaleidoscope.
Countless bizarre images flashed before her eyes: An ancient god with a human head and a snake's body was weeping, its tears turning into binary 0s and 1s; A massive mechanical warship was crushed by some force, turning into two-dimensional pieces of paper;
And countless moments of her death in other reincarnations—pierced through the heart by a sword, burned by fire, frozen into an ice sculpture.
These were all deleted "abandoned timelines."
*Zzzzz*— A purple data lightning bolt struck, a **"Logical Deletion Ray"**.
Any contact with it would erase its meaning.
"Get out of the way!" Shen Qingqiu shielded Seventeen on her back with one hand, wielding her peach wood sword.
[Concept Overwriting · Embroidered Spring Breeze] The sword light transformed into countless supple threads, not only blocking the rays but also gently pushing aside the surrounding data debris that attempted to collide with it.
She was like a red fish, carrying a heavy shell, struggling upstream in this turbulent sea of data.
"Seventeen...where are you?" Shen Qingqiu called out in her heart.
This place was too vast.
Finding the piece belonging to Seventeen among trillions of data fragments was like finding a needle in a haystack.
"Beep—"
"A weak homologous waveband detected!" A-Ling suddenly screamed.
"At three o'clock! It's a...a fragment of memory!"
Shen Qingqiu turned her head sharply.
In that direction, amidst the ruins of jumbled code, a faint, warm yellow light flickered like a firefly.
It was yellow.
It was a warm color.
Shen Qingqiu gritted her teeth, channeling her remaining spiritual power, breaking through numerous obstacles, and finally grasped that glimmer of light.
It was an irregular, amber-like crystal.
Within the crystal, a scene played on a loop:
It was under a rainy eave.
Seventeen clumsily held a wooden spoon, feeding an injured stray cat milk.
His movements were stiff, for he was a killing machine, incapable of applying force. But he struggled to control the nanomuscles in his fingertips, afraid of crushing the small life.
The cat licked his fingers.
A very faint, almost imperceptible smile appeared on Seventeen's lips…
This was Seventeen.
This was the Seventeen who had just gained self-awareness, beginning to learn "gentleness."
"Found… the first piece." Shen Qingqiu looked at the fragment, tears instantly welling up.
This wasn't just a memory.
This was his **"goodness"**.
This was the humanity that the higher-dimensional administrators had discarded as "useless data."
"Come back." Shen Qingqiu pressed the fragment against Seventeen's cold forehead.
Buzz.
A fragment merged into his brow.
Seventeen's previously lifeless data core suddenly trembled slightly.
Though he didn't wake, the fingers of his drooping left hand subtly tugged at Shen Qingqiu's sleeve.
This tiny movement gave Shen Qingqiu immense courage.
"There's more."
"There must be more."
...In this timeless void, Shen Qingqiu began a long and solitary **"scavenging"**.
She carried him, traversing the collapsing data tower.
She found a blue fragment.
That was the first time Seventeen had shielded her from a knife. Blue blood splattered, his eyes filled only with unwavering protection.
This was his **"loyalty**.
She swam across a swamp teeming with viruses.
She found a red fragment.
That was the breathtaking and shy moment when he, dressed as a groom, lifted her veil in the ghost village.
This was his **"desire**.
She climbed a mountain of corpses formed from discarded divine essences. She found a black fragment.
It was his brutality and madness during the slaughter of the Hydra in the sea of blood.
This was his **"vicious aura"**.
Piece by piece.
Shen Qingqiu was like a greedy collector, or a meticulous seamstress.
She didn't discriminate against any fragment.
Whether good or bad, gentle or brutal.
As long as it belonged to Seventeen, she wanted it.
Because only by piecing it all together could he be a complete, flesh-and-blood **"person".**
How much time had passed was unknown.
Shen Qingqiu's red dress was tattered, her body covered in cuts from the data turbulence. Her mental strength was almost completely exhausted, clinging to life by sheer willpower.
And Seventeen on her back, as the fragments merged, grew stronger and stronger.
He was no longer a cold corpse.
His body began to heat up, the red lotus mark between his brows grew more vibrant, and he even began to murmur unconsciously in his sleep.
"Qingqiu…"
Hearing this murmur, Shen Qingqiu almost collapsed to her knees.
It was worth it.
Even if she lost her life here, it was worth it.
"Mother! Watch out!"
A-Ling suddenly screamed in terror.
"There's a huge thing ahead! It's…it's the 'cleaner' of the recycling center!"
Rumble—
The void ahead suddenly cracked open.
A gigantic data monster, composed of countless random characters and skulls, blocked her path.
It had no concrete shape, resembling a writhing mass of black asphalt. It opened its maw, large enough to devour stars, and was consuming all the surrounding fragments.
And near its mouth.
Floating was the largest, most dazzling purple fragment.
Within that fragment, there were no images.
Only a core logic, frantically calculating and deducing.
That was Seventeen's **"self."**
The fundamental reason he was Seventeen, and not a mass-produced robot—"I think, therefore I am"**.
"That's... the last piece." Shen Qingqiu's pupils constricted sharply.
If this fragment was eaten by the Cleaner, Seventeen would forever remain a vegetable with memories, never to awaken again.
"Spit it out...!!" Shen Qingqiu erupted.
She put Seventeen down from her back, placing him on a relatively stable data island.
"A-Ling, watch over Daddy."
"Mother's going... to grab something." Shen Qingqiu turned around.
Her tattered red dress danced wildly in the data turbulence.
The peach wood sword in her hand was broken.
But she still had herself.
[Concept Overwrite · Self-Sacrifice to Feed the Demon.]
[Burning Life Force: 99%.]
She transformed into a burning azure stream of light.
That was the primal power of the Chaos Azure Lotus, her last trump card as a "variable."
She didn't attack the monster.
She charged directly into the monster's mouth.
"Roar—!!!" The Cleaner let out a satisfied roar and snapped its jaws shut.
It swallowed Shen Qingqiu and the purple fragment whole.
"Mother!!!" Ah Ling cried her heart out.
However.
The next second.
The enormous black monster suddenly writhed in agony.
From its belly shone a dazzling light.
Not a blue light.
But… a multicolored light of civilization.
*Pfft!*
A slender hand ripped open the monster's belly.
Shen Qingqiu, covered in blood (data stream), crawled out of the monster's body.
In her hand, she clutched the purple fragment tightly.
"I said…"
"This is mine."
"No one can…take it away."
She stumbled back to the floating island and collapsed onto Seventeen.
Her life force was already extremely weak, on the verge of being extinguished.
With her last ounce of strength, she pressed the purple fragment into Seventeen's chest.
Snap.
The fragment returned to its place.
The puzzle was complete.
Thump—!!!
A heartbeat resounded throughout the entire recycling center.
The surrounding data turbulence instantly froze.
The man who had been sleeping all along.
The man judged as scrap by the higher-dimensional civilization, dismantled, and exiled.
In the center of this junkyard, on this ruin.
He suddenly opened his eyes.
In those eyes.
Purple light flowed, and red lotuses bloomed.
Like…a demon lord descending.
He caught the woman in red who fell towards him.
Looking at her wounds, looking at her shattered spirit, broken from trying to retrieve his soul.
The first…real tear rolled down Seventeen's cheek.
That tear was neither water nor data.
It was a scalding, liquid divine metal.
"Qingqiu…"
He held her tightly, letting out a roar suppressed for millennia.
"Those who harm her… die!!!"
BOOM—!!!
A terrifying black storm erupted from Seventeen's center.
The entire recycling center began to collapse.
Countless discarded data, countless corpses of gods and demons, converged on him.
He was devouring.
He was evolving.
Since the world treated him like trash,
then he would become the… king of this junkyard.
Wandering through turbulent currents, picking up lost gems.
The soul that was salvaged, finally nourished by the blood and tears of his beloved, awakened into the most terrifying… Abyss Demon Lord in all the realms.