Chapter 134
Time did not welcome Shenping.
It resisted him the moment he crossed the threshold, folding inward like a wound trying to close. The deep jump tore sensation from his body in layers—sound vanished first, then temperature, then even the certainty that he still possessed form. For a fraction of non-time, he existed only as intention.
Then pain rebuilt him.
He crashed into existence amid rain and mud, breath ripping from his lungs as gravity asserted itself with ancient authority. The world was heavier here. Thicker. Less forgiving. Every sensation arrived unfiltered, unoptimized, raw.
Shenping rolled onto his side and retched, hands digging into wet earth. The sky above was dark with storm clouds, lightning threading the horizon like veins of white fire. This was not the clean past of projections.
This was living history.
"You have arrived," the machine said, its voice fractured, distant, as though transmitted through stone. "Connection stability reduced to thirty-four percent."
"That's generous," Shenping muttered, forcing himself upright.
The village lay ahead, half-hidden by rain and mist. Low wooden structures clustered together, smoke bleeding from thatched roofs despite the storm. Lantern light flickered weakly, struggling against the wind. This place was small, vulnerable, and utterly unaware of the war converging upon it.
Shenping felt it immediately.
The weight.
This was not just another node. Not a minor correction point. The air itself felt bound to consequence, every step threatening to ripple outward in ways too complex to calculate.
"She's close," Shenping said.
"Yes," the machine replied. "Primary origin thread confirmed. Sang Sang exists here. Temporal integrity is already under attack."
Shenping staggered forward, each step sinking into mud. His body protested violently. Deep jumps exacted a cost, and this one was carving payment from bone and nerve alike. He could feel microfractures knitting too slowly, blood vessels rupturing and sealing in uneven cycles.
"Hostiles?" he asked.
"Multiple," the machine replied. "They are embedded. Not intruding from outside time—but born within it."
Shenping's eyes narrowed. "Agents raised here."
"Yes."
That was worse.
You could fight an invader. You could anticipate a distortion. But a human shaped from birth to destroy a future they could not comprehend? That kind of enemy believed they were righteous.
A scream cut through the rain.
Shenping froze.
It came from within the village—high, sharp, terrified. The sound of something sudden and irreversible. He broke into a run, ignoring the agony in his legs as mud sucked at his boots.
The scream came again.
Closer now.
Shenping burst between two buildings and skidded to a halt.
A crowd had gathered in the open square, lanterns raised, faces tight with fear and suspicion. At the center stood a young girl, no older than eight or nine, soaked through, her dark hair plastered to her face. She clutched a small wooden charm to her chest, knuckles white.
Sang Sang.
Even without the machine's confirmation, Shenping knew.
Across from her stood three men. They wore the clothes of villagers, but something about them was wrong—too still, too focused, their eyes sharp with intent rather than emotion. One held a knife. Another held nothing at all, which worried Shenping more.
"She brings the storms," one of them said loudly. "Ever since she was born, the skies have been angry."
Murmurs rippled through the crowd.
"This is not a sanctioned elimination," the machine said urgently. "This is social manipulation."
"They're turning the village against her," Shenping whispered. "Slow, clean, deniable."
"Yes."
The man with the knife stepped closer to Sang Sang. "We warned your mother," he said. "Now the ancestors demand balance."
Sang Sang shook her head, tears mixing with rain. "I didn't do anything," she whispered. "I swear."
The crowd shifted.
Doubt flickered.
Shenping felt time tighten.
This was the moment.
If he intervened openly, history would recoil. Temporal resistance would surge. The machine might lose him entirely.
If he did nothing—
"She dies," the machine finished.
Shenping inhaled, centering himself despite the pain. "Then we do this the hard way."
He stepped forward into the lantern light.
The crowd gasped as he emerged from the rain like an apparition—clothes unfamiliar, posture wrong for this era, eyes carrying something ancient and unplaceable.
"Stop," Shenping said.
The word carried.
It was not loud, but it cut through the storm and lodged itself in the square like a command the world itself recognized.
The men turned toward him.
"Who are you?" the knife-holder demanded.
Shenping met his gaze and saw it clearly now—the faint temporal distortion behind the eyes, the subtle misalignment of presence. This man had been edited.
"I'm someone who knows how this ends," Shenping said. "And I promise you—you won't like your part in it."
The second man laughed. "Another wanderer chasing ghosts."
He moved faster than he should have.
Shenping barely had time to react as the man lunged—not at him, but at Sang Sang. The motion was wrong, accelerated beyond human norms, revealing the truth to anyone who knew how to see it.
Shenping moved.
The machine surged power through his failing body, burning reserves it had sworn not to touch. Shenping crossed the distance in a blur, slamming into the attacker mid-strike. They hit the ground hard, mud exploding outward.
Pain detonated through Shenping's ribs.
The knife-holder shouted and charged.
The crowd screamed and scattered.
Shenping rolled, barely avoiding the blade as it buried itself in the earth where his head had been. He kicked upward, connecting with the man's knee. There was a wet crack. The man collapsed with a howl.
The third agent stepped back, eyes calculating. "You don't belong here," he said calmly.
"No," Shenping agreed, pushing himself upright. "But she does."
The agent's gaze flicked to Sang Sang, then back to Shenping. "She destabilizes future convergence. Billions die because of her line."
"Billions live," Shenping shot back. "Because of her choices."
The agent's expression hardened. "Outcome optimization disagrees."
Shenping smiled grimly. "That's the problem with optimization. It hates uncertainty."
The agent moved.
This one was different—faster, stronger, augmented beyond the others. Shenping barely blocked the first strike, the impact sending shockwaves through his already damaged arm. Bone screamed.
"You cannot win," the agent said, voice flat. "You are one. We are many."
"History only needs one moment," Shenping replied, driving his head forward.
The collision stunned them both. Shenping followed through, using raw weight and desperation, forcing the agent backward step by step. Mud sucked at their feet, slowing the enhanced man just enough.
The machine flooded Shenping's nervous system with borrowed precision.
"Now," it urged.
Shenping twisted, sweeping the agent's legs and slamming him down hard. Before the man could recover, Shenping drove his palm into the agent's chest—not with force, but with timing.
Temporal resonance discharged.
The agent convulsed, screaming as his embedded alterations unraveled, ripped apart by the era that rejected him. His body collapsed, human again, broken and unconscious.
Silence fell.
Rain continued to pour, indifferent.
The villagers stared, terrified, confused, unsure whether they had just witnessed salvation or sacrilege.
Shenping turned to Sang Sang.
She stared back at him, eyes wide, unblinking. Fear was there—but also something else. Recognition, perhaps. Or intuition deeper than memory.
"Go home," Shenping said gently. "You're safe."
She hesitated, then nodded and ran, disappearing into the crowd as they parted instinctively for her.
Shenping exhaled, the strength leaving him all at once. He dropped to one knee.
"Temporal contamination rising," the machine warned. "You cannot remain."
"I know," Shenping whispered. "Did it work?"
"Yes," the machine replied. "Primary origin thread stabilized. For now."
Shenping looked at the storm-dark sky, lightning reflecting in his tired eyes.
"They'll come again," he said.
"Yes."
He pushed himself upright despite everything. "Then we keep standing in their way."
The rain intensified, washing blood into the mud as Shenping vanished into the storm—leaving behind a village that would remember this night as a story they never quite believed, and a future that had just been forced to survive another day.