After I died, they cried in the live studio

Chapter 189 Overt and covert fighting
Sang Jiyue staggered and grabbed the stage pillar for support. The excruciating pain from the chip in the back of her head suddenly transformed into a warm, soft touch—the warmth of Sang Shuwan's fingertips when she bandaged her wounds as a child. The moment the nanobot completed the data exchange in her bloodstream, she finally saw the pulsating brainwave pattern on the holographic screen: two intertwined waveforms, one representing Sang Shuwan's calm frequency, and the other her own volatile waveband, now resonating through the emotional synchronizer.

“I am my father’s illegitimate daughter.” Sang Shuwan’s approaching footsteps crushed the mechanical spikes scattered on the ground. The thorn patterns on her dress were gradually transforming into an intertwined rose totem as the nanofibers reorganized. “My mother used my true bloodline as a shield so that you could rightfully inherit the Sang family. In those years, you were the target in the open, while I cleared the way in the shadows—including bribing hackers to tamper with your paternity test.” She removed her thorn earring, and the rose birthmark behind her ear gleamed like mother-of-pearl under the stage spotlight, perfectly overlapping with the tattoo on the back of Sang Jiyue’s neck.

As the first rays of dawn pierced the dome, the blood of the Sang sisters mingled on the stage, forming the shape of a butterfly. Sang Shuwan raised the thorny scepter, while Sang Jiyue held the Rose Codex, salvaged from her mother's urn. Holographic screens in cinemas worldwide simultaneously lit up the ruined old house behind them: on the collapsed walls, roses and thorns were growing symbiotically at a visible speed, their blood-red branches intertwining to form the shape of a crown.

"Sang Family Entertainment is reorganized into the Thorn Rose Alliance effective immediately." Sang Shuwan's voice resounded through every corner via quantum communication, and the ring on her ring finger projected a list of global traitors whose assets were frozen. "All conspiracies that attempt to divide us will become nourishment under the roots of the Twin Flowers." Sang Jiyue suddenly chuckled, her fingertips tracing the old scar on Sang Shuwan's palm—a mark left when they were twelve years old, pretending to fight but actually sparring to hone their fighting skills.

“Next time we play the explosion game,” she said, taking a rose-gold capsule from the lining of her dress. “Remember to replace the nerve blocker with vitamins.” The capsule burst open, and thousands of rose petals cascaded down from the stage dome, covering the chaotic mechanical wreckage on the floor. Amid the frenzied clicking of the media's shutters, the two men, their hands clasped together, raised the mother's thorn pendant. What emerged from the crack was no longer an explosive device, but a fluorescent seed—a genetic clone of the old house's rose wall.

Three days later, at the stock market opening ceremony, the ruins of the Sang family's old mansion were transformed into the world's first "Thorn Rose Garden" via livestream. As the flowers, symbolizing rebirth, bloomed amidst the light and shadow of a swarm of drones, Sang Family Entertainment's stock price reached an all-time high. Meanwhile, in the intensive care unit's monitoring system, the awakened Sang Shuwan was drawing circles on Sang Jiyue's palm with her fingertips when the latter suddenly grabbed her hand and pulled a tampered paternity test report from under her pillow: "Actually, I knew the truth all along—who do you think hired the hacker back then?"

The rose wall rustled in the twilight as two saplings sprouted from the ruins: one with thorny red roses, the other with dew-kissed white brambles. Their roots intertwined underground, like two crossed arms, together resisting the approaching storm.

Seven days after the Berlin Film Festival closed, the underground laboratory of the Sang family's old house was as bright as day. Sang Jiyue placed her mother's thorn pendant into the gene sequencer, and the DNA map dancing on the holographic screen suddenly overlapped with the veins of a rose branch—those thorn totems that they had mistaken for family crests were actually circuit diagrams for some kind of biochip.

“This is the first-generation nanorobot from 1999.” Sang Shuwan turned the metal box she took out from behind the rose mural. Inside, thorn ornaments identical to her mother’s pendant were neatly arranged. “Back then, my father used it to control all the employees of the Sang family’s cinemas, while my mother used rose seeds to cultivate an antidote.” She ran her fingertip across the blood groove on the bottom of the box, and a blue light swept across the birthmarks on their palms. Suddenly, the laboratory floor cracked open, revealing a staircase leading to the third basement level.

At the end of the stairs was a circular chamber, its walls inlaid with holographic images of successive heads of the Sang family. When Sang Shuwan inserted the Thorn Scepter into the central altar, all the images turned to them simultaneously, reciting the same code: "Thorns protect roses, roses nourish thorns." Sang Jiyue noticed that as her mother's image recited the code, the ring on her ring finger flashed with the same red light as Sang Shuwan's—it was the prototype of the quantum remote control that could manipulate all the mechanical spikes.

“It’s time to clean house.” Sang Shuwan handed the Rose Codex to Sang Jiyue. Suddenly, an iris scan image of a global entertainment giant popped up on the inside of the codex. “These people thought our ‘reconciliation’ in Berlin was just a show, but they don’t know that at last night’s celebration banquet, the champagne in their glasses was injected with nano-trackers.” She pulled up the real-time monitoring and saw more than a dozen red dots moving around the film and television city under the Sang family’s control. Each red dot corresponded to the mastermind behind the tampering with the paternity test back then.

Sang Jiyue stroked the thorny patterns on the edge of the codex, her fingertip suddenly sinking into a hidden compartment. What she retrieved wasn't paper, but a chip engraved with the word "Twins." As the chip was inserted into the altar, the starry sky projection on the dome of the secret chamber suddenly distorted, transforming into a live feed of Sang Family Cinemas' 5000 cinemas worldwide—each theater's seats concealed beneath mechanical spike devices identical to those used at the Berlin Film Festival.

“Do you remember what Mother said, ‘Let every grain of rice bloom in the high temperature’?” Sang Shuwan pressed the rose button at the top of the scepter, and the popcorn machines in 5000 cinemas started up at the same time. As the golden grains burst in the high temperature, a miniature QR code appeared at the bottom of each popcorn bucket. “This is an invitation to all traitors. In three hours, we will hold a ‘Trial of Thorns’ that will be broadcast live around the world on the ruins of the Sang family’s old house.”

Three hours later, when the last enemy stepped into the Rose Garden, the Sang sisters had changed into battle dresses adorned with mechanical spikes. The chip newly implanted behind Sang Jiyue's ear shimmered with a soft blue light; it was the Emotion Synchronizer 2.0 version, which Sang Shuwan had worked overnight to improve, capable of synchronizing and sharing their pain sensations, emotions, and even thought waves.

“Let’s begin,” Sang Shuwan said softly, as the two simultaneously pressed down on the thorn and rose reliefs on the altar. Mechanical spikes in 5000 cinemas sprang up, forming a giant holographic screen amidst the gasps of the audience, projecting the trial scene to every corner of the globe. Sang Jiyue watched those who had participated in their persecution tremble before the camera, then suddenly grasped Sang Shuwan’s hand, sharing with her the clues she remembered about her father’s mistress.

"Leave one alive," Sang Shuwan whispered in her ear, the mechanical dagger stopping half an inch from her enemy's throat. "I want Father to see with his own eyes how the twin flowers he tried to split will grow into a thorny wall that blocks out the sky." As the first drop of the enemy's blood fell on the roots of the rose, the fountain beneath the ruins of the Sang family's old house suddenly gushed forth, not with water, but with fluorescent nanobots—the "Tears of the Rose," nurtured by her mother with her life's blood, capable of devouring all malicious code.

At midnight, the roses and thorns in the Sang family garden bloomed simultaneously. Sang Shuwan leaned on Sang Jiyue's shoulder, looking at the constantly changing stock market data on her phone, and suddenly chuckled: "Do you think Mother knew all along that one day we would use her inheritance to forge the sharpest weapon?" Sang Jiyue fiddled with her newly worn thorn earrings. The miniature screen inside the earrings was playing her mother's last video: two babies lying in a rose bush, their umbilical cords wrapped in the shape of thorns.

“She not only knew,” Sang Jiyue stuffed her mother’s diary into Sang Shuwan’s pocket, from which a yellowed movie ticket fell out, “she also wrote the script for us.” The date on the ticket stub was April 29, 2005, their fifth birthday, and the film was titled “Thorns and Roses: The Revenge of the Twin Flowers.”

The roar of helicopters echoed in the distance; they were representatives sent by Hollywood capital to sue for peace. Sang Shuwan stood up, mechanical spikes extending from her skirt into a two-meter-high barrier. Sang Jiyue tossed the Rose Codex into the air, and the codex automatically unfolded into the world's largest film slate—each film's director's name was written in the same place: the Sang sisters.

“Tell them,” Sang Shuwan smiled at the camera, her fingertips brushing against the chip behind Sang Jiyue’s ear, “that the Thorn Rose Alliance only accepts two forms of cooperation: either become soil or become a symbiotic branch.” Before she finished speaking, the entire rose garden suddenly rose up, casting huge shadows of twin flowers in the night sky. The buzzing of mechanical thorns intertwined with the fragrance of roses, weaving the most unshakeable new order in the entertainment industry.

In the darkest hour before dawn, the Sang sisters sat on the altar, watching the sky gradually lighten in the east. Sang Jiyue suddenly pointed to the distant horizon: "Look, the shadows of thorns and roses are connected." Sang Shuwan took her hand, feeling the steady heartbeat transmitted through the synchronizer, and whispered: "Because we were originally two branches of the same tree, just guarding the same root in different ways."

As the first rays of sunlight touched the petals crimson, the screens of every Sang Family Cinema worldwide lit up simultaneously: the images of Sang Shuwan and Sang Jiyue overlapped, each holding a seed that was splitting open. Emerging from the seed were not seedlings, but holographic butterflies with mechanical thorns. A line of text flashed on the butterfly's wings: "True queens never fear thorns, for they know that every thorn is there to make the flower bloom more brilliantly."

The final chapter of the story may have only just begun. In this entertainment industry shrouded in intrigue and lies, the thorns and roses of the Sang sisters will continue to bloom amidst blood and fire, writing their own legendary tale of queens. And those who try to stop them will eventually understand: when the twin flowers stand back to back, no force in the world can bring them down.

As the alarm pierced the morning mist from the underground laboratory of the Sang family mansion, Sang Shuwan was using her mother's nanobots to repair the chip behind Sang Jiyue's ear. Suddenly, a red warning popped up on the holographic screen: the mechanical spike systems of 5000 cinemas worldwide were under attack by a quantum virus, and the attacking IP address pointed to the enemy database they had just cleaned up the night before.

“Impossible.” Sang Jiyue pressed her throbbing temples, her emotional synchronizer allowing her to clearly feel the trembling of her sister’s fingertips. “Those people’s brainwave frequencies have been permanently blocked by us.” She pulled up the surveillance footage, only to see a horrifying scene: images of executed enemies were being resurrected in the database, their pupils glowing with the same blue light as the Sang family’s mechanical spikes.

Sang Shuwan's gaze was suddenly drawn to a movie ticket that had fallen out of her mother's diary. The showtime, April 29, 2005, perfectly matched the "embryonic division moment" shown in their genetic testing report. She inserted the ticket stub into the altar, and a DNA double helix structure suddenly appeared on the floor of the secret room. Each helix was embedded with a miniature projector, playing surveillance footage of her mother before and after conception.

“We are not naturally conceived twins.” Sang Shuwan’s voice trembled. In the holographic image, her mother lay on a laboratory operating table. “Father created us using gene-editing technology. The DNA of Thorns and Roses was the switch for a biological weapon he designed.” The scene shifted to her father’s secret meeting, where he pointed to the embryos in a petri dish: “When the blood of Thorns and Roses mixes, the Sang family will control the nervous system of the entire entertainment empire.”

Sang Jiyue felt a wave of dizziness. She finally understood why the mechanical thorn system fluctuated abnormally every time they bled—it wasn't a coincidence, but an instruction etched into their genes. She tore off the thorn pendant from her neck, and a miniature projector suddenly popped out from inside, playing a video of her father's dying moments: "My twin flowers, by the time you see this video, you should have already learned to embrace each other with thorns, right? Now, it's time to activate the final program."

The laboratory wall suddenly flipped open, revealing cabinets filled with frozen embryos, each labeled: "Xth Generation Heir of Sang Family Entertainment." Sang Shuwan's gaze fell on the numbers on the bottom shelf, which were their "backup bodies"—the petri dishes numbered 001 and 002 were already empty.

“He never intended for us to live.” Sang Jiyue’s nails dug deeply into her palms, and drops of blood onto the petri dishes triggered a hidden keyboard. “These embryos are clones of our genes. Once we die, new ‘Sang Shuwan’ and ‘Sang Jiyue’ will awaken.” She entered her mother’s birthday as the password, and all the petri dishes suddenly began to fill with water. The embryos gradually shrank into specks of light in the liquid.

Just then, the ground trembled violently. From the rose bushes in the Sang family garden, hundreds of clones identical to them burst forth from the earth, each clone's eyes gleaming with their father's signature blue light. Sang Shuwan raised her thorny scepter, and mechanical spikes surged from all directions, only to be reversed the moment they touched the clones, turning instead towards them.

“Use your blood.” Sang Jiyue suddenly grabbed her sister’s hand and pressed her fingertips against her own birthmark. “Since our genes are the switch, mixing blood should be able to crack the program.” As the two drops of blood fused on the altar, the lights in the entire underground laboratory suddenly turned rose-colored, the clones’ movements stopped in sync, and the blue light in their eyes was gradually replaced by blood.

As the first clone knelt, the floor of the Sang family mansion cracked open, revealing the father's secret vault. The vault was filled with hard drives wrapped in a thorn-like pattern, each engraved with the name of a top celebrity. Sang Shuwan randomly opened one, only to find a murder video of a certain movie star—it turned out her father had been using a mechanical spike system to threaten and control the entire industry.

“Now we have two choices.” Sang Jiyue kicked aside the clone blocking her way, and the Rose Codex in her hand automatically turned to the last page. “Either become a new dictator like Father, or release this evidence to the public and completely destroy the old order.” Her gaze fell on the clock in the distance. In ten minutes, the summit of global entertainment giants would begin, and all attendees were wearing smart bracelets provided by the Sang family—an upgraded version of the Emotion Synchronizer.

Sang Shuwan walked towards the throne in the center of the vault. Suddenly, thorns on the throne sprouted vines and wrapped around her ankles. She chuckled softly, forcefully tearing off the vines. The thorns turned into golden powder in her palm, seeping into her blood. "Father is wrong." She plunged her scepter into the heart of the throne, and the entire vault began to collapse. "A true queen doesn't need to control others; she only needs to make her thorns sharp enough."

As the Sang sisters rushed out of the ruins with the hard drive, the fleet of Hollywood capital had already surrounded the old house. Sang Jiyue held up a test tube containing their genetic data; the blood inside was glowing: "You think you can control us by controlling the clones? But you've forgotten that true thorns and roses only grow in the veins of the original organism."

The holographic screens at the summit suddenly lit up, displaying images of Sang Shuwan and Sang Jiyue on every wristband. Behind them was their father's burning vault, and they held aloft cracked thorn pendants. "From today onward, we will rewrite the rules of the entertainment industry," Sang Shuwan's voice resonated through every corner. "All manipulated souls will be liberated, and all those who attempt to manipulate others will be..."

Sang Jiyue picked up the conversation, her ear chip projecting a brainwave map of a global entertainment giant: "They will forever live in a thorny cage of their own making." As they spoke, all the smart bracelets exploded simultaneously, bursting into rose-shaped fireworks, and those traitors wearing thorn earrings suddenly found their bodies uncontrollably moving toward the nearest rose bush, as if summoned by some invisible force.

Three months later, at the Oscars, the Sang sisters, as founders of the "Thorn Rose Alliance," presented Lifetime Achievement Awards. Their gowns were woven from real roses and thorns, with each petal containing a miniature camera that broadcast the event live to the world. When the presenters opened the envelopes, instead of a list of names, a rose seed fell out.

“True cinematic art should not be a tool for manipulating people’s hearts.” Sang Shuwan smiled at the camera, while Sang Jiyue planted a seed in the base of the Oscar statuette. “From today onward, a rose tree will be planted at every Oscars, allowing cinema to return to its true nature—watered with sincerity, allowing the soul to blossom.”

After the ceremony, the two strolled along the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Sang Jiyue suddenly pointed to a crack in the ground: "Look, a small thorn is growing out of the cement." Sang Shuwan squatted down and sprinkled a little of her blood on it with her fingertip. The seedling instantly bloomed into a thorny red flower, intertwining with the rose seedling next to it.

"Do you think Father might be watching us from somewhere?" Sang Jiyue asked softly.

Sang Shuwan stood up. The setting sun cast long shadows of them, making them look like twin flowers. "Perhaps," she said, holding her sister's hand and feeling the warmth from the emotional synchronizer. "But he'll never know that when we learned to protect each other with our thorns, those things that once hurt us became starlight illuminating our path."

As night fell, a shower of roses suddenly rained down on Hollywood. Holographic projections of the Sang sisters appeared on every building, each holding a giant seed in their hands, inscribed with: "To all souls struggling through thorns—may your thorns always point to the light, may your flowers bloom under the free sky." The gears of the story continue to turn; the legend of thorns and roses will continue to be written in this entertainment industry filled with lies and intrigue. And whenever someone asks about the Sang sisters' secret, the answer is always the same: "When you see thorns and roses growing together, that is the most brilliant moment for the twin flowers."

As white mist rose from the underground cold storage room of the Sang family's old house, Sang Shuwan was calibrating the emotional synchronizer using her mother's gene repair device. Sang Jiyue leaned against the cryogenic chamber, her fingertips unconsciously tracing the number on the chamber—the clone lying in chamber 003 had a face exactly like theirs when they were thirteen.

"Why did Father keep clones of us at different ages?" Sang Jiyue's voice echoed between the metal walls. Suddenly, an encrypted video popped up on the holographic screen, showing "Sang Shuwan" plunging a dagger into "Sang Jiyue's" heart. "This is a simulation program discovered at the hacker base last week. Someone is practicing how to make us kill each other."

Sang Shuwan's pupils contracted. The "herself" in the image wore the same thorn ring as her father, which was now lying on her lab table. She grabbed the ring, and the miniature projector inside suddenly activated, projecting her father's sinister smile: "My dear daughters, when you see this image, one of you will have already stepped into the memory labyrinth I have prepared for you."

A sharp pain suddenly shot through the back of Sang Jiyue's neck. She staggered and steadied herself against the cryo-chamber, seeing a flash of ruthlessness in Sang Shuwan's eyes—the same look her older sister had given her when she killed the vicious dog to protect her when they were eight years old. But the next second, Sang Shuwan's expression returned to calm, as if the ruthlessness from before had been nothing but an illusion.

“Jiyue, come here.” Sang Shuwan’s voice was too gentle, which instead set off alarm bells for Sang Jiyue. She reached out to touch the emotional synchronizer, only to find that the signal had been interrupted, replaced by a loop of white noise. Just as Sang Shuwan’s fingertips were about to touch her shoulder, she suddenly turned to the side, and the mechanical spikes at her waist had already extended three inches.

“You’re not my sister.” Sang Jiyue pressed her mechanical dagger against the other’s throat, but hesitated when she saw the hurt in Sang Shuwan’s eyes. That hurt was so real, just like the look in her eyes when she was twelve and mistakenly thought her sister had stolen their mother’s belongings. The holographic screen suddenly shattered, countless fragments forming an image of her father: “The rules of the maze are simple: only by killing your opponent can you escape the illusion.”

Sang Shuwan suddenly laughed. She removed the thorny earring, revealing the chip interface behind her ear that was bleeding: "Remember the 'Truth or Dare' game we played when we were fourteen? You said you were most afraid of being forgotten by me, so I backed up all our shared memories in the chip." She tossed the earring at Sang Jiyue, and the moment the shards grazed the latter's cheek, a flood of memories rushed back:
In the old house on a stormy night, Sang Shuwan carried the feverish Sang Jiyue into the basement. On her mother's lab table were two petri dishes labeled "001" and "002." Before Sang Jiyue lost consciousness, she heard her mother crying: "They took embryo number 003; that was Wanwan's spare heart."

“My father saved me with the heart of clone number 003.” Sang Shuwan’s mechanical dagger was also drawn, but the tip was pointed at her own heart. “Now this clone is awakening, and its heart is in my chest cavity.” She pressed the button on her earring, and the lights in the cold storage room turned blood red. All the cryogenic chambers opened at the same time, and dozens of “Sang Shuwan” and “Sang Jiyue” of different ages slowly walked out.

Sang Jiyue's mechanical spikes finally fell to the ground. She looked at the nearest clone—a seven-year-old version of herself, her eyes still brimming with lingering innocence. The clone lunged at her with outstretched arms, but vanished into specks of light the instant it touched her. Her father's laughter echoed in the air: "Every time you kill a clone, your true memories are altered. Now, guess who the real Sang Jiyue is?"

Sang Shuwan suddenly rushed towards the central altar, where her father's death mask lay. As she placed the mask on her face, all the clones froze simultaneously; the thorny patterns on the mask overlapped with her birthmark. Only then did Sang Jiyue notice the words etched on the inside of the mask: "Wanwan is the older sister, but Jiyue was the first to open her eyes."

“We are fraternal twins.” Sang Shuwan’s voice came through the mask, cold and metallic. “Father changed our birth order so that I would become your ‘protector.’ Actually, you are the older sister.” These words exploded like a thunderbolt, and countless fragments flashed through Sang Jiyue’s mind: her mother always dressed her in a dress first, but her father insisted that she call Wanwan “older sister”; in all the family videos, she was always standing behind Sang Shuwan.

The largest clone—the adult version of "Sang Shuwan"—suddenly attacked, her mechanical spikes aimed straight for Sang Jiyue's face. Without a second thought, Sang Shuwan lunged forward, shielding her from the attack. The instant blood splattered on Sang Jiyue's face, her emotional synchronizer suddenly regained its signal. She felt not pain, but a sense of relief—all those years of struggle had stemmed from this erroneous identity.

"Enough!" Sang Jiyue grabbed her father's mask and smashed it to the ground, a memory chip falling out from the crack. As the chip was inserted into the altar, all the clones turned into specks of light and merged into their bodies. Her mother's final message appeared on the wall of the cold storage room: "My children, the true labyrinth is never in memories, but in whether you are willing to believe in each other."

Sang Shuwan smiled, touching her bleeding wound: "Now I finally understand why you always end up hurting yourself when you scheme against me." Sang Jiyue snorted, but reached out to bandage her wound: "Isn't it because you always save me at crucial moments, like now?" As their fingertips touched, the memories of all the clones flowed like streams into the ocean, and they finally saw their father in his entirety—the madman who used genetic technology to create twin flowers, who ultimately died in the rebellion of his own clones.

The dawn sunlight streamed through the vents of the cold storage room. The Sang sisters, looking at the bloodstains on each other's faces, suddenly burst into laughter. Sang Jiyue picked up the mechanical spike from the ground and broke it in two: "Next time we play this game, I want to go first." Sang Shuwan shook her head, picked out a whole thorn from the fragments, and stuck it into Sang Jiyue's hair: "No, we should try going second. For example... let those who think we're finished taste the maze first."

Three days later at the Venice Film Festival, the Sang sisters were absent from the red carpet, citing "questionable identities." As reporters waited outside their old house, two mysterious masked figures suddenly appeared at the festival. Their gowns were embroidered with intertwined thorns and roses, and their every move exuded both the coldness of Sang Shuwan and the flamboyance of Sang Jiyue.

"Are you clones of the Sang sisters?" a reporter boldly asked.

Two soft laughs came from beneath the masks. The person on the left removed their gloves, revealing a birthmark identical to Sang Shuwan's: "We are the new heirs of the Sang family." The person on the right displayed Sang Jiyue's tattoo: "As for the original Sang Shuwan and Sang Jiyue... they died in the labyrinth of memories."

The holographic screen suddenly cut off the live stream, and a countdown simultaneously appeared on screens in Sang Family Cinemas worldwide. The instant the countdown reached zero, miniature screens popped out from every cinema seat, playing not a movie, but a joint statement from the Sang sisters: "From this day forward, thorns and roses will no longer be separate entities, but a spirit. Anyone who attempts to divide us will be forever trapped in the mirrored labyrinth."

Meanwhile, in the underground laboratory of the Sang family's old mansion, the real Sang Shuwan and Sang Jiyue were watching the farce unfold on the monitor. Sang Jiyue fiddled with her father's memory chip: "So, those clones' memories were actually leaked intentionally by us?" Sang Shuwan nodded, switching her mother's gene repair device to reverse mode: "Father thought he could control us with clones, but he didn't know that when we shared all our memories, even he couldn't distinguish which one was the real twin."

As dusk fell, the two women simultaneously donned masks identical to those worn by the mysterious figure on the red carpet. Sang Jiyue's mask featured a thorn pattern, while Sang Shuwan's was adorned with a rose totem. On the inside of each mask were engraved two small characters: "Sister" and "Younger Sister." They smiled at each other, then walked hand-in-hand towards the stairs leading to the ground. Behind them, in the cold storage room, new clones were slowly taking shape in a petri dish—this time, their genes contained no hatred, only the code of symbiosis.

The entertainment industry's rumor mill is at work again, with speculations about the Sang sisters' true identities, clones, and memory labyrinths flooding the internet. But no one knows that in a secret base, two souls are sharing the same dream: they stand beneath an archway woven with roses and thorns, their mother smiling and opening her arms to them, while their father's figure has long been swallowed by a sea of ​​flowers.

"What should we call the next trap?" Sang Jiyue's voice was filled with anticipation.

“The Mirror Garden.” Sang Shuwan’s fingertips traced the edge of the mask. “Let all those with ill intentions lose their way in their own reflection.”

In the secret base late at night, Sang Jiyue pushed the last reagent into the petri dish. In the pale blue nutrient solution, the fingertips of the new batch of clones began to glow with a rose-colored fluorescence—the neural link code they had been injected with was taking effect. Sang Shuwan leaned against the operating table, picking up two silver brooches with tweezers. Moonlight swept across the tips of the pins, revealing lines as fine as mosquito legs: one was a rose entwined with thorns, the other a rose blooming among thorns.

“It’s time to set the stage for the ‘Mirror Garden’.” Sang Jiyue pulled off her lab gloves and ran her fingertips over her sister’s throbbing pulse. “At next week’s charity auction, the actress who’s always hyping up her ‘independent woman’ persona on the trending topics will receive a special item.”

Sang Shuwan pinned the brooch to the other woman's collar. The moment the needle pierced her skin, the nano-trackers inside both of them buzzed simultaneously. This was their unique ritual—to stamp the conspiracy with blood. "Remember to remind the tech team to implant several more 'threatened by a sugar daddy' memory fragments into the actress's clone." She lightly licked the blood from the corner of her lips. "Those keyboard warriors who call us 'rich heiresses' on the forums love this kind of plot twist."

On the red carpet of the charity gala, the Sang sisters stunned the audience in black and white fishtail gowns. Sang Jiyue's skirt was adorned with three-dimensional thorn embroidery, while Sang Shuwan's neckline was decorated with 3D-printed rose petals. As she walked, the petals trembled, revealing hidden miniature cameras—precise instruments used to capture the micro-expressions of the guests.

As the actress raised the sapphire brooch priced at tens of millions, Sang Shuwan's fingertips lightly tapped the remote control in her sleeve. The crystal chandeliers in the auction hall suddenly went out, and when they came back on, the actress's face appeared on all the screens, but she was smiling obsequiously at the air: "Mr. Zhang, I've already had the team withdraw that press release… the role you mentioned last time…"

"This is an AI-generated fake video!" The actress's agent rushed onto the stage, but gasps of shock echoed from below. Sang Jiyue watched the trending topics explode on social media and suddenly noticed a man in the crowd wearing sunglasses—the cigar he held between his fingers had the same gold-plated pattern on the end as the one in their father's laboratory.

“Sister,” Sang Shuwan’s voice came through the Bluetooth headset, trembling as she tried to suppress it, “The surveillance footage in the cold storage shows that the pupil color of the third batch of clones has changed… just like it did before Mother disappeared.”

In the pouring rain of the back alley, the Sang sisters huddled behind an abandoned billboard. Sang Jiyue tore open her sleeve, revealing a tracking device burning hot on her forearm—the pocket watch they considered their father's keepsake, now sending signals from an old watch shop three kilometers away. Sang Shuwan touched the damp wall, suddenly feeling a protruding brick. Pressing it down, she discovered a dusty surveillance screen behind the wall.

“March 17, 2015,” Sang Jiyue said, her voice suddenly tightening as she looked at the date on the screen, “the night before my mother disappeared.” In the video, the young mother was adjusting a petri dish, and the man standing behind her turned around, his sunglasses sliding down—it was the cigar-smoking man from the charity gala!

“They are cloning themselves.” Sang Shuwan pointed to two embryos in the picture that looked exactly like them. “But there is a modified sequence in our genes…” She suddenly remembered the clones with colored pupils in the cold storage, and the crossed-out sentence in her mother’s diary: “Only when twin flowers learn to devour each other can they break the curse of symbiosis.”

The billboard shook violently the instant the thunder roared. Sang Jiyue pressed her hand, cut by shards of glass, against the brick wall, and blood seeped into the mechanism—the wall burst open, revealing a safe filled with documents. On the topmost file folder was their father's death certificate, and the date of his death was three years earlier than their "birthdays."

“We are clones.” Sang Shuwan slammed the paternity test report onto the workbench. The paper brushed against the petri dish, creating ripples of fluorescence. The words “not biological” on the report stung her eyes, but even more glaring was the experimental log in the safe: the father had already transferred his consciousness before the car accident, and the current “cigar man” was the true original genetic material.

Sang Jiyue suddenly laughed, grabbing her sister's hand and pressing it to her left chest: "Can you feel it? Our heart rates are always 0.3 seconds apart. This is not a coincidence, it's a 'death switch' they set up—if one of them stops beating, the other will fail synchronously within 0.3 seconds."

An alarm suddenly went off in the cold storage. When the two rushed in, they found all the culture dishes of the clones were shaking violently, and faces identical to theirs were pressed against the glass, their fingertips tracing the same symbols—the coordinates of their mother's laboratory. Sang Shuwan's phone suddenly received an unfamiliar MMS message, which, when opened, turned out to be a surveillance video: their mother was tied to an experimental table, and the man in front of her was the "father" they had always believed.

“They want us to kill each other.” Sang Jiyue crushed her phone, the shards cutting her cheek. “But the rules of the Mirror Garden are…” She licked away the blood, grasped her sister’s bloodied fingertips, and drew crossed roses and thorns on the control screen. “Only when two reflections touch the core at the same time can the true exit be opened.”

Amidst the cracking sounds of petri dishes splitting open, the Sang sisters simultaneously donned their masks. The shadows of thorns and roses overlapped on the wall, forming a complete rose totem. The roar of a helicopter echoed in the distance, while their footsteps pierced the downpour—this time, they were no longer manipulated pawns, but the players wielding the sword.

As the helicopter's searchlight pierced the rain, Sang Jiyue was using a dagger to pry open the combination lock on her mother's laboratory. Sang Shuwan leaned against the damp rock wall, listening to the synchronized heartbeats of the clones behind her—those rhythms, in sync with theirs, now sounded like some ancient war drum. The clone embryo specimens brought from the cold storage were still warm in her palms; the label on the specimen bottles read "Second Amendment: Symbiote Rejection Inhibitor," dated the very day they were "born."