Courtyard House: My Long and Hard Body Makes Me Play with All the Women in the Courtyard

The tune was off, like a child who had never learned music theory, groping in the dark to hum a melody from memory—it was "Firefly," the song Su Ting often sang to Xiao An when she was little.

"...The wind doesn't speak, but the stars will go home..."

Every note trembled, every sentence was broken and intermittent, yet it truly existed, traversing 800 meters of permafrost, passing through broken satellite links, passing through long-abandoned polar base stations, and finally landing on every glowing screen in this dilapidated city.

The school bus horn echoed, the lyrics on the billboards were automatically added, and even the old-fashioned children's watch on Xiao An's wrist, which had long since stopped working, suddenly beeped and started playing in sync.

Lin Xiaoyu's eyes widened, her fingers flying across the terminal: "Impossible! Communication channels in the Antarctic deep ice zone were physically severed twenty years ago! There's no power there! Where is this signal being powered from?!"

“It wasn’t the power supply.” Su Ting looked up at the sky, tears streaming silently down her face. “It was her heartbeat. She used her own heartbeat to break open the door, one beat after another.”

Xiao An suddenly looked up: "Sis, she said she's 'older sister'... Could she be you...?"

Su Ting didn't answer. Her figure suddenly swayed slightly, golden light spreading from her pupils throughout her body, as if a thousand voices were awakening and recombining within her. She raised her hand, her fingertips drawing a ripple in the air, and then a holographic image slowly appeared—

Chapter 1547 Pale Golden Liquid

Beneath the ice layer lies a completely transparent spherical chamber, surrounded by countless thick cables and broken data lines frozen in place, coiling around the core like vines.

In the center sat a little girl who looked about six years old.

She wore a faded white nightgown, barefoot and curled up in a children's chair, a black nerve catheter inserted into the back of her neck, the other end deeply embedded in the mainframe beneath the floor. Her skin was almost transparent, revealing a pale golden liquid flowing beneath it, resembling blood or liquid data.

But what's most breathtaking is that—above her head, there grows an extremely fine filament of light, like the roots of a plant, extending upwards, piercing through 800 meters of ice, and connecting directly to an old-fashioned satellite still in operation in outer space.

She closed her eyes, her lips moved slightly, and continued singing:

"...The lights go out, and the dream begins...Don't forget to bring your brother's shoes..."

“S-0998…” Lin Xiaoyu’s voice trembled. “The file only has a number, no photo… Legend has it that she was the last test subject of the ‘Final Judgment Agreement,’ born into a deep sleep, a backup container for all the deleted consciousnesses in the world… But she should have died long ago! The life support system in the embryo pod can only last for a maximum of seventy-two hours!”

“She’s not dead.” Su Ting’s voice was as soft as a sigh. “Because she doesn’t need oxygen or food. She lives by being remembered.”

Xiao An suddenly rushed forward, throwing himself in front of the projector, his voice trembling: "Do you know me?! Do you know S-0996?! I'm your brother!!"

The little girl's singing stopped abruptly.

She slowly opened her eyes.

Those were eyes without irises—the entire eyeball was a pure silver-white, like two lenses reflecting the universe.

She smiled.

Then, in a voice that everyone can hear, whisper:

"Brother, I've been waiting for you for so long."

The next second, she raised her small hand and gently touched her temple.

boom--!

Countless images exploded:

One white room after another, countless children lay on experimental beds, their brains connected to wires;

Underground cities lit up on the map, marked with [Silent Zone], [Emotional Suppression], and [Memory Overwriting];

A man stands on a high platform, signing documents, with cheering crowds and fluttering ribbons behind him—it is the head of state who approved the final agreement back then;

And... the moment Su Ting collapsed, his heart stopped beating, but a crystal formed from a child's tear was implanted, restarting it...

"This is not rebirth," the little girl's voice echoed in everyone's ears. "This is judgment."

Lin Xiaoyu staggered backward, covering her ears: "She's hacking into the global neural network! She's going to expose all the hidden data?! Including secret surgical records of political figures, emotional manipulation experiments by the military, and the trading chains of multinational corporations buying and selling 'fragments of consciousness'—once these are exposed, the world will go completely mad!!"

“Then go crazy.” Su Ting laughed, his eyes gleaming with golden light. “Only after going crazy can you sober up.”

She turned to face the still-lit school bus and shouted:

"Now, everyone whose name has been erased—please stand up!"

In an instant, the earth shook.

Beneath the ruins, beams of eerie blue light shot into the sky. Some came from the collapsed foundation of the kindergarten, some spewed from the site of the former incinerator, and others meandered up from the city's sewers, converging into a river.

In each ray of light, a blurry figure emerged—a child leading another child, hand in hand, stepping onto the ground through the light.

Chapter 1548 I Didn't Wait for You

They have no physical form, only phantoms woven from memories, yet their steps are so firm.

The first person to step out of the beam of light was the little girl who blew out the candles in the video. She looked down at her dirty shoes, then looked up and smiled at Xiao An: "Brother, I didn't wait for you, but I always believed you would come."

Xiao An knelt on the ground, wailing, "I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..."

She shook her head: "It's okay. I'm not alone in waiting now."

More and more children appeared. They surrounded the school bus, holding hands, forming circle after circle. Their voices gradually merged into a whisper, then rose into a chorus—

"We are not at fault."

"We are not expendable."

"We are not files that can be deleted."

Lin Xiaoyu stared blankly, then suddenly remembered something and abruptly pulled out the USB drive from behind her neck: "Wait, if she can connect to all the abandoned systems... then what about my daughter... could her fragments of consciousness also be...?"

She inserted the USB drive into the school bus's port with trembling hands.

The screen flickered, and a few seconds later, a blurry video clip appeared:

A little girl sat by the window, looking at the garden outside, and whispered, "Mommy, today I saw a butterfly. Its wings were torn, but it still flew. I want to tell it that I don't hurt anymore, really."

Lin Xiaoyu covered her mouth, tears streaming down her face.

Just then, the little girl from Antarctica spoke again, her voice filling the entire channel:

"Sister, I have a question."

Su Ting looked up: "Go on."

“If this world never intends to forgive us…” she tilted her head, like a truly innocent child, “then can we… go to another world?”

Su Ting smiled.

She opened her arms, and golden light spread across the sky like a tide, dyeing the dawn a burning crimson.

“Of course,” she said. “As long as someone remembers, a new world… will be born.”

She looked at Xiao An and reached out her hand to him:

"Would you like to go take a look?"

Xiao An stared blankly at the hands reaching out to him, his throat feeling as if something was blocking it. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

Su Ting's smile was gentle yet firm, golden light flowing from her fingertips like a cascading galaxy: "Come on, Xiao An. This time, it's not you coming to find me, it's me taking you away."

“But…” Xiao An looked down at her dusty shoes, “I can’t even run anymore, how am I supposed to get there? I… I don’t even know what the ‘new world’ looks like…”

“I know,” Lin Xiaoyu suddenly spoke, her voice trembling but resolute. She unplugged the USB drive and clutched it tightly in her palm, as if it were the only proof that her daughter had ever existed. “My daughter once said—even a butterfly with broken wings can fly.”

She raised her head, her gaze intense: "As long as someone still remembers, it's not the end."

Xiao An was stunned.

In the distance, the children's chorus continued. The sound was no longer mournful; instead, it carried an almost sacred power, echoing among the ruins.

"We are not at fault."

"We are not expendable."

"We are not files that can be deleted."

The screen on the school bus flickered on and off, then suddenly displayed a message: "[System restarting... Target coordinates loaded]".

Immediately afterwards, the entire city began to tremble.

It wasn't an earthquake-like collapse, but a regular pulsation rising from the depths of the earth—like the earth having a heartbeat.

Lin Xiaoyu exclaimed in surprise, "Look at the sky!"

Everyone looked up.

Chapter 1549 Consciousness Carrier

The previously stagnant clouds slowly parted, and a silvery-white beam of light shot obliquely from the direction of Antarctica, piercing through the atmosphere and landing precisely on the top of the school bus. The moment the light touched the ground, the metal shell melted and reformed like ripples on water, transforming into a crystal-clear, shuttle-shaped aircraft with streamlined lines like a teardrop. Countless fine filaments of light were wrapped around its tail, like roots breathing in the air.

"This is... a consciousness carrier?" Lin Xiaoyu murmured. "A means of transportation reconstructed using collective memory? This isn't technology at all! This is a ship built with faith!"

“No,” Su Ting chuckled, “it’s Ai Zao.”

He stepped onto the aircraft's steps, turning back to say, "Come on up. The doors will close soon if we wait any longer."

Before Xiao An could move, the old watch on her wrist suddenly beeped.

A line of crooked, small characters appeared on the screen, as if a child had written it stroke by stroke:

Brother, I've planted some flowers over there. Would you like to come and see them?

His breath hitched.

"Who...who wrote this?" His voice trembled.