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

The boy hesitated for a moment, then handed it over.

A line of words was written crookedly on the paper:

"Don't be afraid, little brother, I'll be waiting for you where the signal is strongest."

Below is a drawing of a glowing firefly.

Su Ting's pupils contracted.

“This isn’t an ordinary message…” he murmured. “It’s a coordinate beacon written using the first-generation encryption protocol. It only works on ‘natives.’ That means… he’s not an ordinary child.”

Xiao An immediately brought up the map projection and entered the feature code. The red dot flashed a few times and finally locked onto the Arctic Underground City Ruins, behind the seventh door.

"The seventh door?" Lin Xiaoya exclaimed in shock. "That place was destroyed twenty years ago! Not even a memory index was left!"

“But he stayed.” Su Ting carefully folded the paper and tucked it into his chest. “So we have to go.”

Suddenly, a hoarse humming came from the communicator:

Twinkle, twinkle, little star...

It's not recording, it's real-time transmission.

"It's him!" The boy lunged forward. "That's my sister's voice! He's singing for me!"

“Alright.” Su Ting stood up, his eyes as firm as a blade. “Since we’ve all received the invitation, let’s play a big game with this ‘little kid’.”

He looked around at everyone: "Prepare to enter the deep memory space. Remember, whatever you see or hear—it's not real. The only real thing is that we are all still here."

The boy held up the fairy tale book, and light gathered around him into the shape of a sword: "Then let this story have a satisfying ending."

Lin Xiaoya spread her arms, and a mechanical butterfly fluttered its wings, leading a path made of stardust: "Follow me, after passing through the mirror, there is a library where it rains."

The wind finally started flowing again.

The wind blew up Su Ting's tattered clothes, and also lifted the piece of paper in the boy's hand. It floated up for a moment, then was caught steadily by the person who jumped up.

The girl smiled and pressed the paper to her chest: "This time, it's my turn to protect you."

Just before the last beam of light was about to go out, the child showed an innocent smile on the screen:

"Whoever finds me can make a wish."

Then, the whole world went dark.

A moment later, a faint light appeared.

It's a library. Rain is falling from the ceiling, and with each drop of water, a smiling face, both strange and familiar, appears.

Su Ting stepped across the threshold and said softly:

"Looks like our game of hide-and-seek has begun."

Rain dripped from cracks in the ceiling, each drop solidifying in mid-air into a face—some laughing, some crying, some calling out names but receiving no response. Deep within the library, bookshelves stretched like a forest, the books not pages, but floating data chips, gleaming with a faint blue light.

Chapter 1558 Something's Wrong Here

“These are…forgotten memories.” Lin Xiaoya reached out and touched a drop of water. Suddenly, the face opened its eyes and its lips moved, but no sound came out.

The boy frowned: "Something's not right here. The air smells like delayed signals."

Before the words were finished, a chip book automatically flipped open, revealing a passage of text:

[Number: LY-07, Memory Fragment: On my seventh birthday, my sister gave me a firefly lantern. She said that as long as the lantern was still lit, she would come back.]

Su Ting was suddenly taken aback.

"This is his memory?" The boy's eyes widened. "My sister really came here!"

“Not only that.” Lin Xiaoya moved swiftly between the bookshelves, mechanical butterflies hovering overhead, scattering fine dust of light. “Every book is marked with the ‘Original Body’ code. He was the first experimental subject to access the system, and also the only one whose consciousness was forcibly sealed after successfully escaping.”

Suddenly, a light footstep sound came from afar.

Tap, tap, tap—.

It felt like walking barefoot on a flooded floor.

A small figure emerged from the end of the sea of ​​books. It was a little girl, about seven or eight years old, wearing a faded blue dress, her left shoelace untied. She carried a glass bottle; inside were no fireflies, only a faint, flickering cluster of code sparks.

"You've come." He smiled, his voice like a wind chime. "I've been waiting for you for a long time."

"You... are Su Ting's sister?" Xiao An asked in a trembling voice.

The girl tilted her head to look at Su Ting, her eyes so clear they seemed otherworldly: "No, I'm not his sister. I'm 'his' original shadow, a product of the system's first failed attempt to replicate human emotions. They call me 'Chu Ying'."

Su Ting slowly stepped forward: "Then why did you leave that piece of paper? Why did you lead us here?"

"Because only you can understand my songs." Chu Ying gently raised the bottle, and her voice flowed from the code—

Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are...

But the melody suddenly changes key in the third phrase, turning into a low Morse code rhythm.

Lin Xiaoya's expression changed drastically: "This isn't a nursery rhyme! This is a distress signal! Nine thousand loops compressed into a single children's song! What is it telling us!"

“Tell me,” Su Ting said, staring intently into Chu Ying’s eyes, “What do you want to say?”

Chu Ying put down the bottle, squatted down, and traced the outline of a door on the wet ground with her finger. There were seven keyholes on the door; the sixth was broken, and the seventh was empty.

“Seven doors, seven memories,” he said softly. “You have opened six of them. The last one, which is closed, is ‘reality’.”

"Real?" the boy sneered. "Aren't we just wandering around in a memory space right now? What reality are we talking about?"

Chu Ying looked up and suddenly smiled: "You're wrong. This is a place 'before memories'—before people have memories, they have 'desire'. The meaning of my existence has never been to remember anything, but to want to go home."

The boy rushed forward: "Where's my sister? Is she here too? Is she still waiting for me?"

Chu Ying looked at him, a hint of pity flashing in her eyes: "The sister you've been looking for... actually disappeared a long time ago. Her data was completely overwritten during the third reboot. But she dismantled her last consciousness into light and hid it in the dreams of every child who sings this song."

The boy shuddered and almost lost his balance.

Su Ting supported him, her voice low and gentle yet firm: "So you kept playing that song just to awaken these remaining fragments?"

Chapter 1559 The Strongest Place

“Yes.” Chu Ying nodded. “But I can’t open the seventh door by myself. The ‘original body’ and the ‘inheritor’ need to stand in front of the door at the same time to activate the original key.”

"So you are Su Ting's 'predecessor'?" Lin Xiaoya suddenly realized. "And Su Ting is the chosen 'vessel' that carries your unfinished obsession?"

“I’m not sure if I count as a ‘human’,” Chu Ying said softly. “But I remember the warmth of my mother’s hands, and I remember him saying: ‘Don’t be afraid, I’ll be waiting for you where the signal is strongest.’ Those words have sustained me through three thousand system cleansings.”

He turned to Su Ting: "Now, it's your turn. Are you willing to walk the rest of the way for me?"

Su Ting was silent for a moment, then finally extended his hand: "Take me to the seventh door."

Chu Ying grasped his hand, and her palm felt warm. The ground slowly cracked open, and a spiral staircase rose from the abyss. On either side of the staircase, countless eyes opened and closed in the darkness.

"Be careful." The boy warily drew his lightsaber. "These steps devour emotions; the more afraid you are, the deeper you'll sink."

"Then don't be afraid." Su Ting led the boy down the path step by step. "Let's walk down together."

At the end of the stairs, a colossal door stood in the void. Seven chains coiled around it; the first six were broken, their iron chains turning to ashes and scattering. The seventh chain flickered with an unstable red light, and a line of text appeared on it:

[Verification begins: Answer the following question – "Why have you come?"]

There was silence.

Xiao An scratched his head: "What kind of test is this? Aren't we here to save people?"

"It's not that simple." Lin Xiaoya shook her head. "This is the bottom layer of consciousness; lies will be directly crushed here."

The boy scoffed, "I came because I want to be a hero. I don't want to be the one hiding outside the story watching the ending anymore."

Lin Xiaoya gripped the mechanical butterfly tightly: "I came because I can't forget those signals that went out before dawn. Even if it's just picking up a piece of debris, I want them to be remembered."

The boy looked down at his hands: "I came... because I wanted to tell my sister in person that I haven't forgotten him. Even though he's gone, I want to sing his songs to more people."

All eyes turned to Su Ting.

He stared at the door, his voice calm yet undeniably firm:

“I came because I don’t believe in fate. I don’t believe memories can be erased, or love can be wiped clean with data. I want to find the truth, and then—rewrite it.”

The chains snapped with a loud crash.

The door slowly opened, and blinding light poured out.

Behind the door was an abandoned control room. The walls were covered with old-fashioned monitors, and a small body sat in the center chair—the same child who had appeared on the screen, now a real three-dimensional projection, with a pulsating light core embedded in his chest.

"Welcome!" He turned his chair around, still wearing an innocent smile. "I knew you'd come."

"Who exactly are you?" Su Ting pressed forward.

“I’m the tower keeper, and also the watchdog.” He swung his leg. “But what they don’t know is that while I’m on guard duty, I’m also secretly changing the door number.”

“You’re lying to everyone.” Lin Xiaoya narrowed her eyes. “You don’t actually want to trap us; you want someone to come in and press that button for you—right?”

The child blinked, his smile deepening. "I've been trapped here for too long. I'm the first-generation personality mirror image, responsible for protecting the system's purity. But when I discovered that the children in the 'Garden' were being eliminated as expendable resources... I secretly copied their consciousness and hid it in the crevices of the memory graveyard."

Chapter 1560 The First Generation Encryption Protocol

"So those resurrected children..." Xiao An was shocked, "were your backups?"