Revolving lantern, back to zero

The gray sky hung low overhead, like a ceiling that could collapse at any moment.

Lin Shen walked towards the seven bright spots. The ground beneath his feet was grayish-white, hard, like a dried-up riverbed. Each step produced a faint, crackling sound—not the sound of footsteps, but the sound of shattering glass. The ground was covered with shards of mirror, large and small, each reflecting the gray sky and black trees. His shadow was fragmented into countless tiny versions of himself by the countless shards, scattered beneath his feet like a swarm of ants trapped in glass.

Chen Yuan followed behind him, his white clothes standing out starkly against the gray world.

"Do you know anything about the 'Reapers'?" Lin Shen asked without turning around.

"A little more than you." Chen Yuan's voice was low, as if afraid of being overheard. "They are not seven people. They are seven mirrors. Each mirror is an ability user, but their abilities are not independent—they are shared. The seven people share a single ability system. One person's eyes are everyone's eyes, one person's ears are everyone's ears, and one person's knife is everyone's knife."

"What is an ability?"

"Mirror Image," Chen Yuan said. "They can replicate the abilities of any ability user. As long as they've seen you use the 'Lantern' ability once, they can replicate your ability and use it even better than you. Because they have seven people analyzing, optimizing, and executing it simultaneously."

Lin Shen gripped the shard of mirror tightly in his pocket. The edge of the glass pierced his palm, the pain keeping him conscious.

"Whose abilities did they copy?"

"Everyone." Chen Yuan's tone was calm, as if stating a theorem that had been verified countless times. "Lu Ming's revolving lantern, Shen Ruo's consciousness weaving, your leap, my zeroing out. They have backups of all the abilities that every ability user has awakened. They are the natural enemies of ability users—the stronger you are, the stronger they become after replicating you."

The bright spot ahead grew larger and larger, turning from a star into a fist, from a fist into a head, and from a head into—a person.

Seven people.

They emerged from the gray sky, like water rising to the surface. No doors, no mirrors, no passageways; they appeared out of thin air. Seven people dressed identically in black, wearing identical black masks, only their eyes visible. Seven pairs of eyes, seven colors—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. The colors of the rainbow.

The man standing at the very front had red eyes. He was half a head shorter than the other six, but he stood the straightest, like an iron rod nailed to the ground.

"Lin Shen," the red-eyed man spoke, his voice flat and emotionless. "The seventh seed. Awakening time: seven days. Number of returns: once. Current ability level: A-level Zero-Returner, early stage. Threat assessment: low."

Lin Shen stopped about twenty meters away from them.

Who are you?

“The Harvester,” said the red-eyed man. “Our mission is to harvest before the seeds mature. You have sprouted, but haven’t blossomed yet. Harvest now, and your abilities will be at their purest.”

"And then what?"

"Your abilities will be stripped away and sealed inside a mirror. Your body will be used as a vessel. Your consciousness—will be erased."

The red-eyed man's tone remained unchanged throughout, like a machine reading an instruction manual. Lin Shen looked into those red eyes and suddenly remembered something—in the Origin World, Su Wan had said Shen Ruo's eyes were black, like two abysses. Red and black, harvest and slumber, destruction and protection.

"Next to the seventh seed is an unregistered ability user." The red-eyed man's gaze shifted to Chen Yuan behind Lin Shen. "Identity verification in progress—Chen Yuan. Third seed. Awakening time: five years. Number of times he returned: four. Current ability level: mid-S-rank Weaver. Threat assessment: medium."

Chen Yuan smiled. It wasn't a confident smile, nor a mocking one, but a relieved smile that said, "Finally, someone has recognized me."

"It's been five years," Chen Yuan said. "You've been chasing me for five years. From the first world to the seventh, from the beginning to the end. Today, let's settle this here."

He raised his right hand and drew a circle in the air. Where his fingertips touched, the air cracked open, and blue light shone through—exactly like the door created by the shadow in the white room, but larger, brighter, and more stable.

"The Gate of Creation." For the first time, the red-eyed voice wavered, not with fear, but with excitement. "The second fragment is in your hands."

"It's not the second piece," Chen Yuan said. "It's the first piece. The core ability of the 'Holy Spirit' is the Gate of Creation, but its ability isn't a single complete fragment; it's countless fragments scattered throughout all worlds. The piece I obtained is the largest."

The blue door opened completely, revealing not a room or a corridor, but a starry sky. Countless points of light, each a parallel world. Lin Shen recognized this starry sky—he had seen it in Ward B7 of the Origin World; after killing the Shadow, the walls peeled away, revealing this starry sky.

"You can go to any world through this door," Chen Yuan said to Lin Shen. "Leave here, leave the world of origin, leave the 'Reapers.' Go somewhere they can't find you."

"And then?" Lin Shen asked.

"And then you live."

Lin Shen glanced at the blue door, then at the seven pairs of colorful eyes. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet—seven colors, seven abilities, seven mirrors.

"I won't run," Lin Shen said.

Chen Yuan paused for a moment. "The odds of winning are only three percent."

"I know."

"Three percent means you try a hundred times, succeed three times, and fail ninety-seven times."

"I know."

Lin Shen took the shard of mirror from his pocket and held it up to his eyes. His own face was reflected in the shard—no scars, no tattoos, no weariness. Just a twenty-nine-year-old policeman, standing on a gray wasteland, facing seven enemies a hundred times stronger than him.

He pressed the shards against his chest.

The edge of the shard of glass pierced his skin, drawing blood that stained his T-shirt. The pain was intense, but he didn't flinch. He could feel the shard merging with his body—not entering, but merging, like a drop of water falling into the surface, disappearing, becoming part of the water.

Chen Yuan's pupils contracted as he watched this scene.

"What are you doing?"

"You said the shards of the mirror are doors." Lin Shen looked down at his chest, where the wound was healing, and the glass shards beneath his skin were glowing—a faint, blue light, like fireflies. "Doors don't necessarily have to be in a wall; they can be in a person."

A mirror appeared on his chest.

It wasn't big, about the size of a palm, embedded in his skin like a piece of blue amber. The mirror didn't reflect his internal body, but a starry sky—exactly the same starry sky behind Chen Yuan's door, but from a different angle. Chen Yuan's door showed the entire starry sky, while the mirror on his chest showed only a point in the starry sky—a very small, very bright point, like a diamond.

"That point is your world," Chen Yuan said. "You've opened a door within yourself, leading to your world."

"It doesn't lead to my world." Lin Shen looked down at the mirror on his chest, where the dot in the mirror was flickering, as if breathing. "It leads to myself."

He looked up at the seven "harvesters".

Red eyes stared at the mirror on his chest, the starry sky reflected in his red pupils. "The seventh seed is mutating. Ability level is rising. Mid-A-rank Zeroer – Late-A-rank Zeroer – Early-S-rank Weaver – Mid-S-rank Weaver –"

His voice grew faster and faster, like a machine running out of control.

"Stop him!" the red-eyed man shouted.

All seven people moved at the same time.

Their movements were perfectly synchronized, like one person and their reflection in six mirrors. The red-eyed man raised his hand, and the other six men followed suit. A knife appeared in the red-eyed man's palm—a black knife that reflected no light. The other six men also had the same knife in their palms.

Seven knives, seven people, from seven directions, simultaneously stabbed into the forest.

Chen Yuan stood in front of Lin Shen.

He spread his arms like a bird spreading its wings. His body began to glow—not with blue light, but with a white, dazzling light, like the sun. The light seeped from his skin, shone from his eyes, and flowed from his mouth.

"Gate of Creation—Open Fully!"

The blue door behind him suddenly exploded open. The door frame shattered, the door panels crumbled, and blue light surged out like a flood, rushing towards the seven "Reapers." Wherever the light touched, the gray ground turned white, the gray sky turned blue, and the black trees turned gold.

Seven people were engulfed by the light.

But it only lasted for three seconds.

The light faded. Chen Yuan knelt on the ground, blood flowing from his seven orifices, his white clothes stained red with blood. His eyes were still open, but the pupils were dilated and unfocused.

"Chen Yuan!" Lin Shen rushed over and supported his shoulder.

Chen Yuan's lips moved, his voice very soft, as soft as the wind blowing through withered leaves:

"Three percent...that's a lie...it's actually only...one percent..."

He smiled. Blood dripped from the corner of his mouth down his chin onto the gray ground.

"But you still... stayed..."

His eyes closed.

Lin Shen felt Chen Yuan's shoulder in his hand becoming lighter—not lighter, but smaller. Chen Yuan's body was shrinking, like a piece of melting ice. His skin became transparent, revealing his bones, blood vessels, and muscles underneath. Then his bones became transparent, his blood vessels became transparent, and his muscles became transparent. Finally, nothing remained, only a white, blood-stained garment, slumped on the ground.

Chen Yuan is dead.

Or rather, Chen Yuan vanished. He was not human; he was a mirror image of the "Holy Spirit," a projection pieced together from fragments of consciousness. He had no body, no soul, no death—he simply returned to where he came from, becoming one of countless fragments, scattered in the gray sky, beneath the black trees, and among the shards of the mirror.

Lin Shen knelt before the white robe, head bowed, the small mirror on his chest still glowing. The dot in the mirror flickered faster and faster, like a star about to explode.

"The seventh seed." A red-eyed voice came from ahead. "Your guardian is dead. You have no shield. You have no door. You have no way out."

Lin Shen stood up and turned around.

Seven "Reapers" stood before him, seven black knives, seven pairs of colorful eyes. They were unharmed. The Gate of Creation, released by Chen Yuan with his life, was fully open, yet it hadn't struck a single hair on their heads.

"One percent," Lin Shen said. "Chen Yuan said the chances of winning are only one percent."

"Not one percent," the red-eyed man said, "it's zero percent. Because we've copied your abilities. The mirror on your chest—we have that too."

Seven people simultaneously pulled open their shirts. Each person had a mirror on their chest. Exactly the same mirror as Lin Shen's—palm-sized, embedded in the skin, reflecting the starry sky. But the point in the starry sky was different: Lin Shen's point was his own world, theirs was—

"Your seven parallel versions," the red-eyed man said. "We've locked onto your backups in seven parallel worlds. Killing you won't erase your consciousness; it will transfer to one of your backups. But we'll kill all seven backups simultaneously. You have nowhere to escape."

Lin Shen looked at the seven mirrors, and the seven points in the mirrors were flashing at the same time, with the same frequency and rhythm, like seven hearts being connected by the same thread.

His hand rested on the mirror on his chest.

"You've copied my abilities," Lin Shen said, "but you can't copy my choices."

His fingers plunged into the mirror—not pressed against the surface, but inserted, as if into water. His fingers passed through the mirror, touching that point in the starry sky. That point was cold, like ice, like metal, like death itself.

He grasped that point.

Then he pulled it out of the mirror.

He didn't just pull it out, he pulled it in. He dragged that point from the starry sky into reality—that point wasn't a star, a point of light, or a coordinate. It was a person.

a woman.

She wore a white nurse's uniform, her hair was tied up, and her face was expressionless. Her eyes were black—completely black, reflecting no light.

Su Wan.

But it wasn't the Su Wan he knew. It was the Su Wan from the original world. The Su Wan who waited for him for three years in ward B7, holding a scalpel, ordered to kill him.

"You called me here." Yuan Dian Su Wan looked at him, her voice calm. "I'm here."

Lin Shen released his grip and took a step back. Yuan Dian Su Wan stood in front of him, her dark eyes sweeping over the seven "harves," without any emotional fluctuation.

"What did you ask me to do?" she asked.

"Kill them," Lin Shen said.

Yuan Dian Su Wan tilted her head slightly, as if pondering the meaning of the sentence. Then she turned around, facing the seven "reapers," and took out the scalpel from her pocket—the same scalpel as the one in ward B7 three years ago, with blood still dripping from the blade, whose blood she didn't know.

"Seven people," Yuan Dian Su Wan said, "Seven cuts."

She walked toward the seven people.

Red eyes stared at her, and for the first time, fear appeared in those red pupils—not because of her immense power, but because she didn't belong to any power spectrum. She wasn't an Echoer, a Reflector, a Leaper, a Zeroer, or a Weaver. She was an ordinary person. An ordinary person who had worked as a nurse in a mental hospital for three years, bathing Shen Ruo, changing her dressings, and recording her vital signs every day.

But her scalpel was stained with Shen Ruo's blood.

Shen Ruo is an S-rank weaver, the core of the Carousel Network, and the server for all ability users. Her blood is the source of all ability users' abilities.

On Su Wan's scalpel at the origin point was Shen Ruo's blood. This scalpel couldn't kill ability users—it absorbed their abilities.

The red-eyed blade pierced Su Wan's throat. She didn't dodge, didn't block, didn't even blink. The blade tip pierced her skin, but no blood flowed—the tip melted. The black blade melted like wax, dripping onto the ground and turning into a puddle of black water.

Yuan Dian Su Wan's scalpel pierced the chest of the red-eyed man.

Not the heart, but the chest mirror. The knife tip pierced the mirror, causing it to ripple like water before shattering. The mirror on Red Eyes' chest broke into pieces, scattering on the ground. The fragments didn't reflect the starry sky, nor a backup image, but a face—Red Eyes' own face, without a mask, without sunglasses, just an ordinary, thirty-something-year-old man with a face filled with terror.

The scalpel was pulled out. Red-eyed man knelt on the ground, his hands clutching his chest, blood gushing from between his fingers. His eyes had changed from red to brown—a normal, human color.

The other six people simultaneously took a step back.

Yuan Dian Su Wan raised the scalpel, blood still dripping from the blade. She looked at the remaining six people, her dark eyes expressionless.

"Six cuts," she said.

Lin Shen stood behind her. The mirror on her chest had disappeared, leaving only a round, shallow scar on her skin, like a coin imprinted on her chest.

As he watched Su Wan's retreating figure, he suddenly remembered something—what Shen Ruo had said in ward B7: "My consciousness is still connected to the revolving lantern network. Even if the root of the 'Holy Spirit' is severed, the network remains. I can still see some things."

Shen Ruo knew that Yuan Dian Su Wan would come. Shen Ruo had arranged all of this three years ago—she smeared blood on a scalpel, handed it to Yuan Dian Su Wan, and told her, "One day, a man named Lin Shen will come looking for you. When he comes, go with him."

Lin Shen stared at the blood dripping from Su Wan's scalpel at the origin point. That blood was Shen Ruo's, the blood of an S-rank weaver, the source of all ability users. The blood dripped onto the gray ground, seeping into the shards of the mirror, and each shard began to glow—not with blue light, but with white, warm light, like sunlight.

The gray sky began to crack. Not from being shattered by anything, but from within, like a bird hatching from its shell. Through the cracks, the blue sky shone through—the real sky, a sky with clouds, wind, and sunshine.

The world of Origin is collapsing.

It was not destruction, but liberation. The world, imprisoned by the "Holy Spirit" for countless years, finally saw the sunlight of freedom.

Lin Shen walked to Su Wan's side at the origin, looking at the remaining six "Reapers." Their masks were still on, but their eyes were no longer colorful—red had turned back to brown, orange back to brown, and all the colors had returned to the same color. Ordinary, normal, human color.

"Your mirror is broken," Lin Shen said. "Your abilities come from the mirror. Now that the mirror is broken, your abilities are gone."

Six people stood motionless. Their hands were still raised, but the knives in their palms had vanished. It wasn't that they didn't want to run; they didn't know how—they had lost their abilities. They were just ordinary people, standing in a collapsing world, with a cracked sky above them and shattered earth beneath their feet.

"Let's go," Lin Shen said. "Go back to your own world. Don't chase after anyone anymore."

The six men neither spoke nor moved. They simply stood there, like six abandoned stone pillars.

Yuan Dian Su Wan put away her scalpel and turned to look at Lin Shen. Her black eyes turned a deep brown in the sunlight—not a normal brown, but much warmer than black.

"I've finished," she said. "Shen Ruo said that after I finish, you will take me somewhere."

"Where?"

She said you knew.

Lin Shen was silent for a few seconds. Then he reached out and took Su Wan's hand. Her hand was cool, but not icy; it was the kind of cool that comes from being left in the shade for a long time.

"Let's go," Lin Shen said. "I'll take you home."

He turned around and looked at the black tree. The cracks in the tree were still there, and the red light still flickered. But around the tree, something new was growing from the ground—not grass, not flowers, but tiny mirrors, sprouting from the cracks in the earth like tender spring buds. Each little mirror reflected a different scene: some reflected the city skyline, some the rural fields, some the sea, some the snow-capped mountains, and some unfamiliar faces, all of which wore smiles.

Countless parallel worlds, countless possibilities, countless people living, struggling, loving, hating, hoping, and despairing.

The root of the "Holy Spirit" has been severed, but the network remains. The abilities of the superhumans have vanished, but the world continues. The mirror is shattered, but the door remains.

Lin Shen, holding Su Wan's hand, walked towards the blue door—the door Chen Yuan had left behind. Behind the door, the starry sky still twinkled, countless points of light, each a world unto itself.

He found his point—small, bright, like a diamond. He pulled Su Wan, the origin point, and walked through that door.

The world of origin behind them collapsed completely the moment they left.

The gray sky turned into a blue sky, the black trees turned into golden trees, the shattered earth healed, and the fragments of the mirror melted into water, forming a river that flowed into the distance. In the distance lay a city—a city he had never seen before, belonging not to any parallel world, but only to the original world itself.

The world of origin is free.

Lin Shen returned to his own world.

When he opened his eyes, he was standing in his rented room. The living room light was still on, casting a cold, white glow. The mirror on the wall was shattered, its fragments scattered all over the floor. He stepped on the shards, making a cracking sound.

Yuan Dian Su Wan stood beside him, still holding the scalpel in her hand. Her black eyes had completely turned brown, a normal, warm, and vibrant color.

"Is this your home?" she asked.

"Yes."

"It's a mess."

Lin Shen smiled. He walked to the window and drew back the curtains. Dawn was approaching, and the eastern horizon was beginning to lighten, just like the sky when the Origin World collapsed.

My phone vibrated. An unknown number, a message:

"Of the seven Reapers, two died and five survived. Chen Yuan died. Su Wan from the Origin survived. You won this round. But you won't be so lucky in the next round. Because the enemy in the next round isn't the you in the mirror, but the you outside the mirror."

"—Another You"

After reading the message, Lin Shen placed his phone on the windowsill.

He turned around and looked at Su Wan at the origin. She stood amidst the shards of the mirror, a scalpel in her hand, her white nurse's uniform stained with blood—not someone else's blood, but Shen Ruo's, the blood of the red-eyed woman, Chen Yuan's, and her own.

"What are you planning to do in the future?" Lin Shen asked.

Yuan Dian Su Wan looked down at the scalpel in her hand and remained silent for a long time.

"Shen Ruo said that after I finish my mission, I can be myself again." She looked up at Lin Shen, "But I don't remember what it's like to be myself. I've waited for you for three years. In ward B7, every day was the same routine—bathing, changing dressings, recording, waiting. I've forgotten who I was when I wasn't a nurse."

Lin Shen walked up to her, gently took the scalpel from her hand, and placed it on the coffee table.

"Then take your time thinking about it," Lin Shen said. "No rush. There's plenty of time."

Yuan Dian Su Wan looked at him, and the corner of her mouth twitched slightly—not a smile, but a very small, almost invisible, tentative movement, like when she had just learned a new move.

"Okay," she said.

Outside the window, the sun rose. Golden sunlight streamed into the rented room, falling on the shards of mirror, each shard refracting a rainbow of colors, like countless tiny rainbows.

Lin Shen stood in the sunlight and closed his eyes.

He heard a voice, coming from a great distance, yet it seemed to be whispering in his ear:

"A revolving lantern".

But this time, it wasn't death, it wasn't awakening, it wasn't battle. Just those three words, softly and quietly, like an old friend greeting him, rang in his ears.

He opened his eyes and smiled.