After I died, they cried in the live studio

Chapter 201 Film Festival

"We're clones?" Sang Shuwan's neural interface overheated, and countless fragments of memories flashed before her eyes: her grandmother always staring blankly at their group photos, her mother's sighs as she mixed the developing solution, and even Sang Jiyue's subtle expressions every time she "plagiarized" her ideas. It turned out that the so-called "twin sisters" were nothing more than two carriers of the same gene, used to complete that forbidden quantum experiment.

The film reel suddenly started playing automatically. The father's voice, mixed with the roar of the flood, came through: "If you see this footage, it means the 'emotional black hole' has begun to devour humanity's true memories. Remember, the real key is not our genes, but..." The image was suddenly interrupted by a violent electrical current, and the last frame showed the mother placing the two halves of the star pendant into the swaddling clothes of the two babies.

Sang Jiyue touched the pendant around her neck and discovered that the other half was glowing under Sang Shuwan's collar. As the two pendants came together, the film cabinet in the warehouse opened simultaneously, and all the silver halide particles from the flood film began to recombine, piecing together a three-dimensional star map of the Dunhuang darkroom on the ground. The coordinates at the center of the star map flashed red, pointing to a corner of the darkroom's basement that they had never noticed before.

On the return spaceship, Sang Shuwan looked at the flood film in her arms and suddenly remembered her mother's last words before she died: "Your tears are the best catalyst for the developing solution." The moment she and Sang Jiyue looked at each other, they both cut their fingertips. The instant their blood dripped onto the film, the starlight of the entire universe suddenly changed direction, like a flock of migratory birds that had heard a call.

In the basement of the Dunhuang darkroom, when the two halves of the star pendant embedded themselves in the stone wall, the ground cracked open, revealing a tunnel leading to the Earth's core. At the end of the tunnel was a huge altar made of film, with the quantum afterimage of the father suspended in the center. His body was composed of countless fragments of emotional data, each shimmering with the joys and sorrows of human history.

"The truth about the emotional black hole is that we've built a cage with our pain." The father's voice was no longer disturbed by static. "But the true starlight always grows deep within the cracks." He reached out, and the neurofilm of the Sang sisters automatically peeled away, transforming into millions of points of light that merged into his body. As the first ray of sunlight from Dunhuang shone into the tunnel, all the film altars began to collapse, revealing the true image of the 1998 flood hidden deep within.

In the scene, the mother struggles in the raging torrent, cradling only her infant. Sang Shuwan and Sang Jiyue's breaths catch in their throats simultaneously—they are not twins, but two consciousnesses split from the same person by a quantum experiment. The father uses his last strength to seal her soul into film, attempting to deceive the "emotional black hole's" monitoring with the illusion of twins.

“Now, it’s time to become one.” The lingering image of her father gently touched their foreheads, and Sang Shuwan felt countless memories flooding back: she was both the older sister who was repairing film alone in the darkroom and the younger sister who was forcing a smile on the red carpet. All the struggles and misunderstandings were just the same soul searching for its complete self.

As their bodies began to merge, the lavender in Dunhuang suddenly bloomed in full glory, each flower displaying the form of twin petals. A rumble of gravitational waves emanated from the direction of Centaurus, and the "emotional black hole" began to collapse under the impact of real emotions. Meanwhile, the consciousness of the Sang sisters was traversing every frame of the universe at the speed of light, releasing imprisoned human emotions one by one.

In the end, only a wooden plaque remains at the entrance to the Dunhuang darkroom, which reads: "Two souls once lived here, until they understood—the most brilliant starlight never needs the light of others to prove its existence." And in every corner of the universe, those tears and laughter that were once analyzed into data are now waiting for their own developing moment in the darkrooms of every civilization, in the most primitive form of film.

The merged consciousness floated in the cosmic film stream, and Sang Shuwan/Sang Jiyue sensed the emotional pulses of millions of civilizations. Centaur photon tentacles delivered a stream of information: "You have cracked the core code of the 'emotional black hole,' but have awakened an even more ancient existence." A holographic star map unfolded in the sea of ​​consciousness, and deep within a forgotten nebula floated a giant whale-like creature formed from the condensed "false memories" of countless civilizations.

Suddenly, the developing solution in the Dunhuang darkroom boiled, and oracle bone script, never seen before, emerged from the bottom—the last warning etched by her father in quantum state: "When the boundary between reality and falsehood dissolves, the reflection will become the new entity." Sang Shuwan watched as her palm became translucent in the sunlight, the silver halide particles under her skin resonating with the fluorescent patterns on the darkroom walls, forming a quantum circuit that transcended time and space.

In prehistoric film discovered by the interstellar archaeology team in Andromeda, an image appeared that bore the exact same features as the deceased. The "twin priestesses" in the image were performing a "starburst reincarnation" ritual, sealing the memories of a defeated civilization into the film, and the altar structure in the background was identical to the basement of the Dunhuang darkroom. "This is no coincidence," the Centaurus messenger's gravitational waves trembled with a rare chill. "You are the carriers of cosmic memory, the reflection of all civilizations' cycles of reincarnation."

In the darkroom late at night, Sang Shuwan held up her father's pocket watch to the quantum mirror. Suddenly, the mirror shattered, revealing another version of herself from another universe reaching out to her—in that world, Sang Jiyue had chosen to confess the truth at fourteen, and the two had joined forces to destroy the "emotional black hole." Now, they were wearing old-fashioned film aprons and mixing developing solution. "Every choice creates a new film universe," they smiled in the mirror, displaying the star-shaped birthmark on their palms. "And you are the observer of all reflections."

As the "false memory whale" approached the solar system, Sang Shuwan made a startling decision: she injected her quantum consciousness into her father's experimental film, carrying real images of the 1998 flood into the whale's core. There, she saw countless imprisoned "twin souls"—every civilization had created similar "mirror beings" to fight against data domination, and their fragments of consciousness were forming the whale's skeleton.

“We are not the vessel, but the key.” Sang Shuwan’s voice echoed inside the giant whale. The silver halide particles of the flood film suddenly burst out with dazzling light. Those distorted and false memories melted like ice and snow, revealing the true emotions sleeping beneath: the mother’s nursery rhymes, the grandmother’s darkroom, and even the tears that Sang Jiyue shed while secretly repairing her film in the dressing room.

Suddenly, a beam of light shot from the developing solution pool in the Dunhuang darkroom, projecting the silhouette of the giant whale onto the entire Milky Way galaxy. Interstellar civilizations were astonished to discover that the enormous shadow gradually disintegrated into countless shimmering starlight, each a real moment a civilization had tried to forget: the unpublished manuscript of the Orion poet, the first letter from the Taurus mother, and the last diary entry written by a father during the 1998 Earth flood to protect his wife and children.

When Sang Shuwan's consciousness returned to her body, the lavender field outside the darkroom had evolved tentacles capable of receiving quantum signals. They swayed gently, weaving the real emotions from all corners of the universe into ribbons of light, which wrapped around her wrist, forming a natural mark more beautiful than any starlight tattoo.

The new gift from the Centaurus civilization is a special memory crystal, which contains the "twin legend" of their home planet—it turns out that every advanced civilization goes through a "mirror split" phase, and only when the two consciousnesses choose to merge rather than fight can they break through the data prison and touch the true texture of the universe.

In the final chapter of the story, the Dunhuang darkroom becomes an "emotional transit station" for the entire universe. Sang Shuwan sits by the developing solution pool, watching envoys from different civilizations arrive with their respective films. Some come to preserve precious memories, while others come to destroy painful pasts. But she always smiles and shakes her head: "The meaning of film is not to preserve or destroy, but to let light pass through the cracks and tell you—behind every shadow, there is a luminous entity."

As the last rays of the setting sun sank below the horizon, Sang Shuwan saw her shadow stretched by the developing solution, overlapping with the starlight patterns on the bottom of the pool, forming the shape of a giant whale with outstretched wings. She knew that it was not a reflection, but rather the result of countless souls from countless universes who had once searched for light in darkrooms, finally swimming in the quantum sea towards the same radiant starlight.

Sang Shuwan's high heels crushed the recording pen by the dressing room door, silver fragments shimmering on the carpet amidst the scent of lavender—this was the third "accidental leak" this week. A holographic screen was playing a loop of footage of her on set yesterday: "This shot needs more emotional depth," edited to "Sang Shuwan publicly belittling a newcomer's acting," and the "newcomer" was none other than a rising starlet recently signed by Sang Jiyue's studio.

"The nominations for the 37th Golden Film Awards have been announced, with the Sang sisters sweeping both Best Director and Best Actress." Agent Chen Mo's voice carried an anxiety masked by electronic accents. "But the voting system shows that your 'audience empathy value' is being overtaken by Sang Jiyue's 'controversial topicality.'" Sang Shuwan stared at her deliberately understated starlight eye makeup in the mirror, recalling how her sister had used the same makeup three years ago to steal the Lifetime Achievement Award that should have been hers.

As the champagne tower at the celebration banquet suddenly collapsed, Sang Shuwan was negotiating with investors about quantum-themed product placement for her new film, "The Mystery of the Darkroom." The splashed champagne refracted strange starburst patterns on the holographic projection, and the neural interface on the back of her neck instantly detected a familiar electromagnetic frequency—the quantum interference wave unique to Sang Jiyue's team. Sure enough, the next day's entertainment headlines read: "Sang Shuwan Suspected of Drunken Misbehavior, Investors Indirectly Withdraw Funding for New Film."

In the underground film restoration room, Sang Shuwan used tweezers to pick up a piece of altered neurofilm. The original scene of her demonstrating choreography to a newcomer had been replaced with a violent scene of pushing and shoving the other person. The background noise used for the replacement contained Morse code that only she and her sisters could understand: "Your kindness is the sharpest target."

“It’s time to fight back.” Chen Mo pushed an encrypted file onto the table, which contained information about Sang Jiyue’s recent involvement in the “emotional black hole” capital operation—harvesting traffic by fabricating sisterly conflicts, and then using data to manipulate the fan base to complete capital cash-out. Sang Shuwan’s fingertip hovered over the “Dunhuang Old House Demolition Plan.” Her sister actually planned to transform the darkroom that held the family’s memories into an “interstellar internet celebrity hotspot.”

On the night of the premiere, Sang Shuwan's nerve film suddenly triggered an alarm at the security checkpoint. The "contraband" that security personnel found was a lavender brooch, but a miniature listening device "accidentally" fell out in full view of everyone. The media cameras immediately turned to Sang Jiyue in the audience, whose star-shaped necklace bore a logo identical to the listening device's brand. The live stream chat was instantly flooded with comments like "capital manipulation" and "confirmed sisterly rift," and the data screen showed that Sang Shuwan's "victim index" soared to its annual peak.

Backstage in the dressing room, Sang Jiyue's cold laugh came through the anti-eavesdropping mask: "You think you can turn things around with a self-inflicted injury? Don't forget, the demolition permit for the darkroom was just stamped today." She took off her necklace, revealing a collarbone scar that was the same as Sang Shuwan's—a "medal" from a childhood accident while playing with fire, which was packaged as "evidence of sisters fighting each other for a role" in a publicity stunt three years ago.

Sang Shuwan's palms were sweating, but she suddenly calmed down when she touched the old film in her pocket. This roll of 16mm film, left by her grandmother, contained the original design drawings for the Dunhuang darkroom, and the star-shaped mark in the lower right corner of the drawings perfectly matched the logo at the beginning of Sang Jiyue's latest film. She finally understood that all the "plagiarism" was a clue deliberately left by her sister, just like the watermarks on the dressing room mirror, slowly developing the words "Meet in the darkroom at three in the morning."

In the old Dunhuang house at midnight, moonlight streamed through the hole in the dome, illuminating the developing solution tank. Sang Jiyue emerged from the shadows, clutching not demolition documents, but a yellowed family photo album. "You think I want to demolish the darkroom?" She turned to a page where a young grandmother was teaching two little girls how to mix developing solution. "Capital has implanted bombs in our neural interfaces. Only by destroying the physical darkroom can we sever their emotional data chain."

Sang Shuwan's gaze fell on a hidden compartment in the photo album, where half a film reel of the 1998 flood was tucked away. In the image, a mother was holding a baby with a shimmering star pendant on its chest—a perfect match for the fragments they were wearing now. Memories suddenly flooded back: the "accidental fire" when they were six was actually their joint effort to destroy the emotional monitoring chip implanted by the conglomerate, and the so-called "sisterly feud" was nothing more than a charade staged for capital.

“It’s time to end this charade.” Sang Jiyue immersed the photo album into the developing solution. Suddenly, the water boiled and a holographic image rose up. It was the real memory that the conglomerate had deleted: the two of them set up a secret server in the darkroom and used fake “internal strife data” to counter-monitor the capital’s movements. And every seemingly confrontational interview was actually transmitting encrypted intelligence.

As the first rays of dawn painted the sand dunes of Dunhuang red, the Sang sisters stood before the ruins of their old house, watching the demolition ship of a conglomerate explode outside the quantum barrier. A news notification popped up: "Entertainment Industry 'Emotional Black Hole' Capital Chain Exposed; Sang Sisters Launch 'Real Film Movement'." The accompanying photo was a childhood picture of them, the developing solution pool in the background reflecting the unpolluted starry sky.

Three months later, the newly built "Starlight Darkroom" museum opened. In the center of the exhibition hall, a holographic device played two film clips in a loop: one was a "history of sisterly feuds" edited by capital, and the other was an unedited restored scene—Sang Shuwan tidying up Sang Jiyue's costume, Sang Jiyue shielding her sister from an out-of-control mechanical arm, and their fingertips accidentally touching in front of the camera, forming starlight more dazzling than any special effect.

Beyond the spotlight of the entertainment industry, an uncensored video circulated on an encrypted channel: the Sang sisters sat on the ruins of a real darkroom, sharing the last lavender cookie. Sang Shuwan suddenly chuckled: "Next time, how about 'sisters teaming up to fight against AI hegemony'?" Sang Jiyue raised an eyebrow: "Let's make it clear, this time I'm playing the brains." Their laughter, mixed with the sandstorm, was secretly recorded by a quantum recorder in the distance, becoming the most authentic "emotional noise" in the entire universe.

Six months later, on the red carpet of the Holographic Film Festival, Sang Shuwan wore a gown inlaid with 16mm film fragments, her star-shaped pendant shimmering with an unusual luster. Sang Jiyue followed in high heels, the ring on her ring finger a modified gear part unearthed from the ruins of a darkroom. The two seemed to whisper intimately in front of the cameras, but in reality, they were exchanging the latest quantum key—the AI ​​spy planted by the conglomerate within the "Real Film Movement" had been located.

“The red light frequency of camera number 3 is incorrect.” Sang Shuwan turned around, arm in arm with her sister, her fingernails rapidly tapping Morse code into her sister’s palm. Sang Jiyue’s pupils contracted slightly. She noticed a cold glint of a chip behind the ear of a staff member at the control room in the distance—a trace of biomechanical modification unique to the conglomerate. The two simultaneously switched their neural interface to an interference frequency, mixing garbled data streams into their seemingly casual conversation, successfully cutting off the other party’s real-time monitoring.

Midway through the awards ceremony, the holographic screen on stage suddenly went blue. Gasps erupted from the audience, but amidst the chaos, Sang Shuwan caught a glimpse of silver light flashing from Sang Jiyue's fingertips—it was a miniature decoder they had forged from metal melted from the ruins of their darkroom. When the screen lit up again, it wasn't a montage of nominated films playing, but a projection of the conglomerate's top executives in a secret conference room: "The Emotional Data Chain is about to complete global coverage; human joys and sorrows will become tradable quantum currency."

Amid screams, the Sang sisters rushed backstage. Sang Jiyue kicked open the ventilation duct, revealing a dense array of quantum repeaters inside: "The 'fan gifts' sent last week were indeed rigged." Sang Shuwan pulled out her portable film scanner, and the metal sheets disguised as fan letters revealed a horrifying truth—each sheet stored samples of the audience's brainwave emotions.

“They want to turn the entire planet into an emotional mine.” Sang Shuwan’s voice was cold, but her fingertips precisely connected the decoder to the main server. Sang Jiyue suddenly chuckled and pulled a roll of yellowed film from the lining of her dress: “Remember the ‘light gate’ that Grandma talked about? She used it to swindle the conglomerate’s first investment.” The film unfolded in the holographic beam, revealing what appeared to be a chaotic combination of light spots, which precisely corresponded to the twelve security keys of the quantum barrier.

When the conglomerate's security forces broke down the door, they found the two sisters standing back-to-back in the center of the data core. Sang Shuwan's neural interface glowed with a ghostly blue light, forcibly deciphering the final firewall; Sang Jiyue, meanwhile, hurled a lavender scented flask at the vent, and within the purple smoke, the chips of all the bio-mechanical modders simultaneously overloaded. "The firewall will break through in 30 seconds." Beads of sweat appeared on Sang Shuwan's nose, and the interface on the back of her neck emitted a faint glow due to overload. Sang Jiyue suddenly ripped off the scar patch on her collarbone—where half a quantum key was embedded. "The flaw I deliberately left three years ago, it's time to put it to use." The moment the key was inserted into the slot, the entire building's energy system trembled violently, and an image of her grandmother in her youth appeared on the holographic screen. Behind her, the darkroom developing solution pool slowly rotated into the shape of a cosmic star map.

"Welcome to the real darkroom." The moment Sang Shuwan pressed the confirm button, all the repeaters simultaneously erupted with blinding blue light. In the audience, the film critics, who had been implanted with emotional chips, groaned in despair. The algorithmic viruses that had once been used to manipulate public opinion were now backfiring on the conglomerate's quantum central control via the data chain. Sang Jiyue pulled out a miniature bomb hidden in her lipstick, raised an eyebrow at her sister, and said, "If we blow this up, we'll truly have no way out."

"An escape route?" Sang Shuwan embedded the last piece of film into the core device. It was a scene of them playing in the darkroom when they were children. "We cut the escape route into film long ago and hid it in the memory of every viewer." The moment the explosion rang out, the two sisters looked at each other and smiled, letting the torrent of data envelop them—this was not the end, but the moment when a new roll of film began to turn.

Three months later, outside the Interstellar Federation Court. The Sang sisters' neural interface was connected to a global live broadcast. Sang Jiyue waved the evidence film in her hand: "What you see as the 'sisterly rift' is actually the scene of the 37th transmission of encrypted intelligence. As for this—" She pointed to the conglomerate's funding chain scrolling on the holographic screen, "They thought they were harvesting our emotions, but they don't know that since three years ago, every tear has been a trap."

The protesters outside the courthouse suddenly erupted in cheers. Sang Shuwan glanced at her old-fashioned film watch, the hands pointing to three in the morning—that mysterious hour reserved for the darkroom. Sang Jiyue suddenly leaned closer to the lens, the star-shaped pendant shattering into countless points of light in the sunlight: "For the script of our next film, we want to invite everyone to be the lead. After all—" she intertwined her fingers with her sister's, "genuine emotions are always more powerful than algorithms."

Amidst the livid faces of the conglomerate executives, the two sisters turned and walked towards the setting sun. In Sang Shuwan's pocket, the newly developed film rustled softly; it was the last image they had salvaged before the explosion: two brooches floated in the developing solution, the silhouettes of two little girls running were reflected on the water, and in the distance, the untouched starlight rose over the sand dunes.

As Sang Shuwan stuffed the newly developed film into her trench coat pocket, her fingertips brushed against the raised pattern of the brooch. Outside the holographic courtroom, the protesters were singing songs adapted from old film soundtracks. She and Sang Jiyue exchanged glances amidst the clamor; the lingering lavender scent from her sister's eyes hadn't faded yet—misleading odor molecules they had deliberately left in the data haze.

“The Federal Chairman’s gaze at the brooch just now was strange.” Sang Jiyue shook her wrist, the gears of her old-fashioned film watch making a barely audible clatter. “The cufflinks on his cuffs are Kodak metal labels that were discontinued in 1999.”

Sang Shuwan stroked the film in her pocket; the star map, which had been developing in the darkroom, was now glowing hot through the film. They had thought that what their grandmother had left behind was just some old-fashioned film nostalgia, until the rotating developing tank on the holographic screen completely overlapped with the star map on the dome of the Federal Building—that building, a symbol of democracy and technology, actually had the core components of the first-generation emotional data mine poured into its foundation.

“To the archives.” Sang Shuwan suddenly grabbed her sister and turned into the alley. Her high heels splashed a faint blue fluorescence as they stepped through the puddles—traces of emotional data contaminated by the conglomerate left on the ground. In the back alley of the abandoned film projector shop, they lifted up the paving stones to reveal the entrance to a secret passage engraved with the words “Kodak-35”, the “projectionist’s passage” that their grandmother used to talk about.

In the era when darkrooms were declining, real film projectionists used these tunnels to move between cinemas, transmitting real images that were banned by capital. Sang Jiyue took out a lipstick bomb and detonated it to open the rusty door lock. As the scarlet laser beam swept across the tunnel, she suddenly chuckled: "Maybe my grandmother's 'light shutter' project, which tricked the conglomerate into investing, used these tunnels to run films."

At the end of the passage was a metal door covered in vines. Just as Sang Shuwan's neural interface touched the keyhole, countless points of light suddenly lit up the entire wall—the preamble to the Federal Constitution pieced together from film grains, each frame releasing interference waves. Sang Jiyue's decoder suddenly heated up; the viruses they had implanted in the conglomerate's central system were now tracking their location via the data link.

“They want to trap us here.” Sang Shuwan tore off the star-shaped pendant from her neck. Suddenly, fragments of film inside the pendant revealed her grandmother’s face. Behind the old woman was a melting film camera. “She said, the real darkroom isn’t in physical space.”

Before she could finish speaking, Sang Jiyue suddenly pressed her palm against the wall, and the nanobots remaining in the lavender scented grenades burrowed into the circuitry through the cracks. The vines covering the entire wall instantly transformed into ivy composed of data streams, turning into particles of light the moment they touched it, revealing neatly arranged film storage cabinets behind them—each cabinet door engraved with the name of a federal congressman.

“Cabinet number 42.” Sang Shuwan read out the holographic number projected from the pendant fragments. The moment the drawer was pulled open, hundreds of rolls of film fluttered out like a flock of birds taking flight, unfolding into flowing images in the dimly lit space. They saw conglomerate executives and the federal chairman raising their glasses in toasts, saw the emotional chip production line operating on the far side of the moon, but in a roll of film marked “1977,” they discovered their grandmother in her youth placing a brooch into the developing solution.

“Those are…my mother’s belongings.” Sang Jiyue’s voice trembled. When her grandmother turned around in the video, a nerve interface scar, identical to theirs, was revealed on the back of her neck—this “film terrorist” hunted by the conglomerate was actually one of the Federation’s first experimental subjects to undergo biomechanical modification.

An alarm blared overhead. Sang Shuwan grabbed a film reel labeled "Truth" and handed it to her sister, while she embedded the star pendant into the control panel. A torrent of data suddenly exploded before their eyes, plunging them into a galaxy composed of countless film reels. Each frame was a piece of history altered by the conglomerate—the so-called "Real Film Movement" riot scene was actually a fuse lit by federal agents posing as rioters.

"Look there!" Sang Jiyue grabbed her sister's wrist. In the distance, a melting film was slowly unfolding, showing two babies placed in different incubators. The nurse holding them had a corporate gear logo on her armband. They were not biological sisters at all, but clones implanted with the same memories, so that the "sisterhood breakup" drama could better infiltrate the enemy's ranks.

A burning pain suddenly shot through Sang Shuwan's neural interface. The conglomerate's tracking program materialized into black tentacles, following their brainwaves, tearing at the surrounding film galaxy. Sang Jiyue pressed the lipstick bomb against the memory core, but as the countdown began, she saw the scar on the back of Sang Shuwan's neck—the mark they had always thought was a childhood burn—which was exactly where her grandmother's interface was located.

“We are her backup.” Sang Shuwan suddenly laughed. As the data tentacles pierced through her shoulder, she grabbed the nearest roll of film, which contained footage of them playing in the darkroom when they were “childhood.” “But backups can also tamper with the original data.”

As the bomb's purple light engulfed the memory core, the Sang sisters simultaneously pressed their palms onto the projection of the developing solution pool. Countless real emotional data flooded in from all over the world; those fragments labeled as "useless tears" by the corporation were now converging into a new roll of film. In the instant the data collapsed, Sang Jiyue finally saw the truth about her grandmother's last roll of film—the so-called "light gate" was never a defense system, but an engine that transformed human emotions into quantum energy.

Three months later, in the interstellar junkyard. Sang Shuwan picked up half a brooch with tweezers; it gleamed faintly amidst a pile of discarded chips. Sang Jiyue kicked open a rusty emotional chip recycling bin, revealing a secret passage entrance engraved with "Kodak-35." In the distance, amidst cosmic dust, new film was slowly taking shape in a darkroom-like nebula.

"Shall we go take a look at the foundation of the Federal Parliament Building?" Sang Jiyue shook the decoder in her hand, which was modified from fragments of their neural interface. "I heard that something older than the conglomerate is hidden there."

Sang Shuwan pinned the brooch to her trench coat. Suddenly, the screen of an abandoned space station in the distance lit up with static, then unedited, real images appeared one after another: a child crying, an old person smiling, and the afterimages of two "sisters" smiling at each other amidst a torrent of data. She took out her film watch; the hands were stopped at three in the morning—but this time, the second hand was starting to turn counterclockwise.

“The rules of the darkroom,” she raised an eyebrow at her sister, letting the data dust settle on her hair. Those grains that were once considered flaws were now forming a new star map, “always leave a roll of film for the unknown next frame.”

Sang Jiyue laughed and jumped into the secret passage. The hem of her trench coat swept across the holographic projection of "No Entry," and the line of red light suddenly distorted into the rewind symbol of an old-fashioned film camera. As their figures disappeared into the data stream, in the ruins of the junkyard, countless discarded film reels were developing in the dim light—the most authentic human emotions, breaking through all the pre-set scripts.

Sang Shuwan's fingertips traced the serrated edges of the brooch, suddenly touching a hidden pattern on a raised area. It was a string of binary code, gradually becoming visible as the neural interface heated up, projecting the coordinates of her grandmother's laboratory onto her retina—an abandoned space darkroom located inside Saturn's rings. Sang Jiyue whistled, pulled half a mint from her pocket, the same ringed star map clearly printed on the back of the wrapper.

“Back then, she always said that the darkroom should be built in ‘the place where light and shadow are most balanced.’” Sang Shuwan inserted the brooch into the watch’s slot. As the gears turned, a holographic star map appeared on the dial, with an asteroid marked “Kodak-35” twinkling outside Titan’s orbit. “The consortium thought it was the crazy talk of a romantic, but it turns out it refers to the gravitational equilibrium point.”

As the space shuttle traversed the asteroid belt, Sang Jiyue suddenly pointed out the porthole and laughed, "Look at that 'space junk'!" Rows of discarded film canisters floated in space, each bearing the conglomerate's gear logo—a method they had used in their early years to destroy real images, which inadvertently created a natural barrier for their darkroom. Sang Shuwan pulled up the film scanner on her wristwatch; those metal canisters, gleaming with cosmic rays, still contained unformatted emotional data.

The airlock door of the darkroom, covered in rust, opened automatically under Sang Jiyue's lavender-scented diffuser spray—the nanobots had resonated bioelectrically with the original access control system. The low temperature inside caused the developing solution tank to freeze into ice crystals. As soon as Sang Shuwan's neural interface was connected to the control panel, all the film cabinets suddenly slid open automatically, and hundreds of rolls of film unfurled in the weightless environment. Every frame played the same scene: the grandmother standing in front of the developing solution tank, placing a brooch into the swirling liquid.

"This is... a looping image?" Sang Jiyue caught the drifting film roll, only to find the image frozen forever at the moment the brooch touched the water. Sang Shuwan noticed the scratches on the edge of the control panel; the varying depths of the scratches formed Morse code—"Don't trust reflections." Before the words were finished, the ice crystals in the developing solution pool suddenly cracked, revealing a mirror device at the bottom. The reflections of the two people within it distorted into a data stream, overlapping with the image of the conglomerate's executive.

“Quantum mirror trap.” Sang Shuwan pulled her sister back, only to see her reflection emerge from the mirror, revealing a mechanical arm. “They’ve made a backup using our genes, trying to turn the darkroom into a perpetual motion machine for emotional data.” Sang Jiyue bit open the acid capsule hidden in her dentures and sprayed the corrosive liquid at the mirror, only to see an even more horrifying truth in the splashing droplets—dozens of clones were sleeping at the bottom of the pool, each with the same neural interface embedded in the back of their necks.

“The ‘breakup scene’ during the 37th intelligence transmission wasn’t just an act for the conglomerate.” Sang Jiyue’s voice trembled as the reflections used their emotional fluctuations to break the access control. “The Federation is also afraid of the power of real emotions, so they created us ‘perfect pawns.’” Sang Shuwan suddenly laughed. She took off her wristwatch and threw it into the developing solution pool, where gears collided with ice crystals, sparks flying. “But pawns can also rewrite their own scripts.”

Just as the reflected robotic arm was about to touch them, Sang Shuwan plunged the last lavender scented dart into the control panel. Nanobots surged into the quantum mirror system along the circuitry; the algorithms once used to replicate emotions were now transforming real emotional data into weapons. The developing solution pool began to boil, and the clones' hibernation pods exploded one after another. Sang Jiyue seized the opportunity to grab a floating brooch, only to find that it had melted into a key in the high temperature—the pattern on the key handle was the crooked star they had carved on the wall of the darkroom when they were children.

"Look at this!" Sang Shuwan pointed to the holographic screen. Suddenly, her grandmother's image pierced through the interference signal. The darkroom behind the old woman was projecting a starry sky. "The light gate isn't a defense mechanism, it's a resonator. When humanity collectively experiences a certain emotion, it can transform the fluctuations into—" Before she could finish speaking, the entire darkroom suddenly shook violently. The ice dust in Saturn's rings was attracted by some force, forming a huge film-like shape outside the window.

Sang Jiyue inserted the key into the control panel, and a global map appeared on the surface of the developing solution pool. Countless points of light were converging into a network—those were people who had been implanted with emotional chips, now receiving the resonant waves of the darkroom through the remaining chips. The conglomerate's quantum hub sounded a piercing alarm. Sang Shuwan looked at the fluctuating emotional spectrum on her retina and finally understood what her grandmother meant by the "real darkroom": it was not a physical space, but a quantum cloud woven from all unmanipulated emotions.

“They want to harvest emotions, but they forget that emotions themselves are weapons.” Sang Shuwan turned the neural interface power to the highest level, and the trackers that the conglomerate had planted in their bodies were overloaded. “Jiyue, do you remember the first time we developed film?” Sang Jiyue smiled and pulled open her collar, revealing a scar in the same spot as her sister’s—where the anti-tracking program they had secretly implanted was hidden. “Of course I remember. You used fixer instead of developer, and the result was a completely black waste film.”

In the blinding light of the explosion, the two simultaneously pressed their hands against the mirror of the developing solution tank. Genuine emotional fluctuations surged across the quantum barrier like a tidal wave; those tears, laughter, and anger labeled "inefficient" by the corporation were now transforming into the purest flow of energy. As the space shuttle burst from the darkroom, Sang Jiyue saw through the porthole that the icy dust of Saturn's rings was reforming into a giant film reel, each frame a genuine expression of people on Earth.

Three months later, in the interstellar black market. The Sang sisters, wearing hoods, sat at a holographic gambling table. Sang Shuwan's chips were rolled-up film, while Sang Jiyue drew darkroom symbols on the table with lipstick. Just as the dealer was about to verify their identities, all the screens suddenly went blue, followed by a projection of their grandmother: "Now, an unedited news report—" The scene switched to the Federal Parliament Building, where the emotional mines in its foundations were spewing out torrents of data imbued with warmth.

“It’s our turn.” Sang Shuwan pushed the film chips into the pot, the developing solution seeping from the edges of the chips spreading out a star map on the table. Sang Jiyue bit into a mint, the tiny quantum key hidden inside rolling into her palm. She winked at her sister, and in the distance, in the direction of the space junkyard, countless discarded film cans were converging towards the same coordinates.