Revolving lantern, back to zero

Chapter Seventeen: Seven Trees

When Lin Shen returned home, all the lights in the living room were on. They weren't cool white fluorescent lights, but warm yellow ones—Yuan Dian Su Wan had changed the bulbs. The mirror on the floor was now intact; the silvery-white halo at the crack had disappeared, leaving a smooth surface that reflected the entire living room. Chen Yuan stood in the center of the mirror, looking down at his reflection. His reflection and his reflection outside the mirror were out of sync.

Chen Yuan in the mirror raised his left hand, while Chen Yuan outside the mirror raised his right hand.

"You saw it?" Chen Yuan didn't look up.

Lin Shen walked to the edge of the mirror, squatted down, and looked at the "misaligned" Chen Yuan in the mirror. "Has the Origin World split?"

"It split seven times." Chen Yuan squatted down, his fingers touching the mirror. In the mirror, his fingers touched the same point, but he was using his left hand. "I released one mirror, and the original world branched into a new parallel world. You released seven mirrors, and I branched seven times. Now there are seven original worlds, and seven versions of myself. Each of me believes I am real, and the other six are fake."

Lin Shen took seven mirrors out of his pocket and placed them side by side on the floor. The seven stars in the mirrors flashed simultaneously, then went dark.

"What do you need me to do?"

Chen Yuan stood up and pulled a handful of mirror shards from his pocket—not a complete mirror, but fragments of varying sizes and shapes. Each shard reflected a face. Chen Yuan's face. Seven different Chen Yuans—some young, some old, some wearing white coats, some in hospital gowns, some with shoulder-length hair, some bald. Seven Chen Yuans, seven expressions, seven gazes.

"I need you to enter the world of origin, find these seven versions of myself, and tell them—I am not fake, and they are not fake either. We are all real. We are seven parts that split off from the same fragment. Only when we come together are we whole."

Lin Shen stared at the seven faces within the seven fragments. "Do they listen to me?"

“They won’t listen,” Chen Yuan said. “They won’t even listen to me. Each of them thinks they are the only Chen Yuan, and everyone else is an illusion created by the ‘Reaper.’ They will attack and devour each other until only one is left.”

"Then what should I do?"

Chen Yuan placed the seven fragments in Lin Shen's palm, stacking them together with the seven mirrors. The moment the fragments touched the mirrors, they emitted a blue light—the exact same light as Chen Yuan's Gate of Creation.

"Go and tell them the truth. Not with your words, but with your memories. You released seven mirrors, and your consciousness contains seven fragments of Lu Ming's memories. Those seven memories are also my memories, because Lu Ming's memories and mine share the same network. Show those seven memories to the seven versions of me, and they will know that you came from the future, and that you didn't lie to them."

Lin Shen gripped the shards and the mirror tightly. The edge of the shards cut his palm, and blood seeped out, dripping onto the mirror's surface. The blood droplets didn't slide off; instead, they seeped into the mirror, like water droplets falling into sand.

How do I get to the seven origin worlds?

Chen Yuan pointed to the mirror on the floor. "This mirror is the door connecting all the original worlds. Stand on the mirror, close your eyes, and think about the world you want to go to, and you will fall in."

Lin Shen stood up and walked to the center of the mirror. He looked down at his reflection—his movements in the reflection were perfectly synchronized, without any misalignment. There were seven stars in his eyes, silvery-white, like diamonds.

"Where's Su Wan?" Lin Shen asked. "The new 'Gardener' said the sixth seed is in her world. Who is she? The original world Su Wan or the origin point Su Wan?"

Chen Yuan was silent for a few seconds. "Both of them. The sixth seed isn't for one person, it's for two people. Two Su Wans, sharing the same seed. The seed split between them, one half inside the original world's Su Wan, and the other half inside the original point's Su Wan. Only when the two Su Wans merge into one will the seed bloom."

"Merge into one? How?"

"They need to acknowledge at the same time—that they are the same person. Not just looking alike, not sharing memories, but having the same soul. They come from different worlds, but their consciousness frequencies are exactly the same. They are two halves of one person split off. Only when they are willing to merge can they become whole."

Lin Shen glanced towards the kitchen. Yuan Dian Su Wan stood in front of the stove, her back to him. The water in the pot was boiling; she was making dumplings. Her movements were slow and meticulous, like someone searching for peace in a repetitive action.

"Would she agree?" Lin Shen asked.

Chen Yuan didn't answer. He walked to the kitchen door and looked at Yuan Dian Su Wan's back.

"Su Wan," he called her.

Yuan Dian Su Wan turned around, holding a soup spoon in her hand, her face expressionless.

"Lin Shen is going to the Origin World to find my fragment," Chen Yuan said. "Are you willing to go with him? There's a fragment of the second mirror in your heart; you can sense the coordinates of the Origin World."

Yuan Dian Su Wan glanced at Lin Shen, then at Chen Yuan, before lowering her head to look at the dumplings in the pot. The sound of the boiling water was loud, drowning out all the silence.

"The dumplings are almost cooked," she said. "Let's eat first, then we'll go."

Lin Shen sat on the sofa, a plate of dumplings in front of him. They were filled with pork and cabbage, perfectly seasoned. Su Wan from the Origin Point sat beside him, also eating. Chen Yuan stood by the window, not eating. He looked at the night sky outside; the city lights were too bright to see the stars, but he knew that behind those lights were seven Origin Point worlds, seven versions of himself, locked in a fierce battle.

"Is it delicious?" Yuan Dian Su Wan asked.

"It's delicious," Lin Shen said.

"You always say it's delicious."

"Because you always cook so well."

Yuan Dian Su Wan's lips twitched slightly—not a smile, but a very small, tentative expression. She placed the last dumpling from her plate into Lin Shen's bowl.

"Eat more," she said. "There are no dumplings where you're going."

Lin Shen finished the last dumpling and placed the plate on the coffee table. He took out seven mirrors and seven shards from his pocket, stacked them together, and held them in his palm.

"Let's go." He stood up.

Yuan Dian Su Wan also stood up. She went to the kitchen, washed her hands, and then returned to the living room, standing next to Lin Shen.

Chen Yuan walked over from the window and stood in front of them. He raised his right hand, put his index and middle fingers together, and touched Lin Shen's brow, then touched Su Wan's brow.

"Your consciousness frequencies are matched," Chen Yuan said. "When you enter the Origin World, she will follow you in. You won't get separated. But you must remember—the flow of time in the Origin World is different from here. What you spend one second here might take a day over there. Don't stay inside for too long. Your bodies won't be able to handle it."

Lin Shen nodded. He reached out and took Yuan Dian Su Wan's hand in his. Her hand was cool, but not icy; it was the kind of cool that comes from being left in a shady place for a long time.

"Ready?" he asked.

Yuan Dian Su Wan looked down at their clasped hands and remained silent for two seconds. "Ready."

Lin Shen closed his eyes, following his heartbeat as he sank inward. He folded once, twice, three times, seven times. Darkness. Then light. A door. Not a white door, not a wooden door, but a door made of mirrors. His face was reflected in the mirror, as were Su Wan's face and Chen Yuan's face behind them.

He pushed open the door.

Beyond the door lies a world. A gray sky, a gray ground, and in the distance, a black tree. Exactly the same as when I first entered the Origin World, but different—the tree's shape has changed. It's not a withered, cracked tree, but a young, growing one. Its trunk is dark brown, its leaves are emerald green, and its roots are deeply embedded in the gray earth, like an outstretched palm.

A man stood under the tree. Chen Yuan. But not the Chen Yuan he knew—this Chen Yuan wasn't wearing a white coat, but a black hoodie, his hair was cut very short, and he had no beard. He looked very young, around thirty years old, and his eyes were bright, not a fleeting, artificial brightness, but a normal, living brightness.

He watched Lin Shen and Yuan Dian Su Wan walk out of the mirror without surprise or fear, only tilting his head as if looking at two expected guests.

"The seventh seed," said young Chen Yuan. "I've been waiting for you for a long time."

Lin Shen released Su Wan's hand and walked up to the young Chen Yuan. "Which one of the seven Chen Yuans are you?"

"I was the first," the young Chen Yuan said. "I appeared when the Origin World first split. I thought I was the only Chen Yuan, until a second Chen Yuan walked out from another mirror. He was older than me, had longer hair, and wore a dirty white coat. He said he was real, and I was fake. I said I was real, and he was fake. We fought."

"Who's winning?"

Young Chen Yuan smiled. That smile was exactly the same as Chen Yuan's—a slight upturn of the corners of his mouth, eyes narrowed to slits, as if he had seen an intriguing answer. "No one wins. In the end, we realize that neither of us can kill the other. Because we come from the same body, the same consciousness, the same soul. We can't kill each other, just as the left hand can't kill the right."

Lin Shen took out seven fragments from his pocket and spread them out in his palm. The fragments reflected seven faces of Chen Yuan—young, old, wearing a white coat, wearing a hospital gown, with long hair, bald, and a face he had never seen before, smiling warmly.

"You are one of these seven people," Lin Shen said. "You are not the first, not the biggest, not the strongest. You are just one of the seven."

Young Chen Yuan stared at the fragments containing people who looked exactly like him yet were different from him, and remained silent for a long time.

"I know," he finally spoke. "I know I'm not whole. I knew it from the first time I met the second Chen Yuan. But I don't know what to do. Kill them? I can't do that. Let them kill me? I don't want to either."

Lin Shen collected the fragments and took out seven mirrors from his pocket. The seven stars reflected in the mirrors shimmered with a silvery-white light against the gray sky.

"You need to integrate with them," Lin Shen said. "It's not about one person eating another, it's about everyone becoming one. It's not about eliminating individuals, it's about bringing together everything."

"How do we fuse them?"

Lin Shen held up the seven mirrors, pointing them at the gray sky. Sunlight—if it could even be called sunlight—passed through the mirrors, projecting a complex pattern onto the gray ground. Seven concentric rings overlapped, with a seven-pointed star in the center. At the very center of the seven-pointed star was a point. Very bright, very white, like a burning star.

"Stand at that point," Lin Shen said.

Young Chen Yuan stared at the point of light, hesitating for a second. Then he walked over and stood in the center of the seven-pointed star. The point of light expanded beneath his feet, transforming into a mirror—exactly the same mirror he had passed through when he emerged from it. His face was reflected in the mirror, but behind him stood six other Chen Yuans: young, old, in white coats, in hospital gowns, long-haired, and bald.

Six Chen Yuans simultaneously reached out and pressed their hands onto the mirror. The mirror rippled like water, and their fingers passed through the mirror, reaching out to the young Chen Yuan.

Young Chen Yuan looked at the six hands, each one exactly like his own, yet different—some hands wore watches, some were wrapped in gauze, some were stained with ink, and some had nothing on them except for clean, slender fingers like a pianist's.

He reached out and grasped those six hands.

The mirror shattered. Not into fragments, but melted—like ice turning to water in the sunlight. The mirror became a pool of silvery-white liquid, flowing onto the ground and spreading along the slopes. Where the liquid flowed, the gray earth turned golden. Golden light rose from the ground, engulfing young Chen Yuan's body, the six hands, and the entire black tree.

The tree changed. It turned from black to gold, from withered to lush, from lonely to abundant. New branches sprouted from the trunk, new leaves grew on the branches, and new flowers bloomed among the leaves—not black roses, but small, white, star-like flowers.

A person stood beneath the tree. Not the young Chen Yuan, not the aged Chen Yuan, not any individual Chen Yuan. He was a complete, unified Chen Yuan, reborn from all the fragments. His hair was black, neither long nor short, his eyes were brown, and his skin was wheat-colored. He wore a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing his muscular forearms.

He looked down at his hands, clenching them, then loosening them, then clenching them again. Then he looked up at Lin Shen.

"Thank you," Chen Yuan said, "thank you for helping me put it back together."

Lin Shen walked up to him and took the seven shards out of his pocket. The shards were empty; there was no reflection inside, just ordinary shards of glass.

"You're free." Lin Shen handed the fragments to Chen Yuan.

Chen Yuan took the shard and held it in his hand. The edge of the shard cut his palm, and blood seeped out, dripping onto the golden earth. Where the blood fell, new flowers grew—not white, but red, like roses, like blood, like life itself.

"I am free." Chen Yuan repeated, as if confirming a word he hadn't spoken in a long time, "But the 'Harvesters' are still here. The new 'Gardeners' are still here. The sixth seed is still inside your Su Wan. My freedom is not the end, but the beginning."

He turned and looked at the golden tree. There was a hole in the trunk—not a rotten hole, but a door-shaped hole. Light shone from inside, a warm, blue light, like the gate of creation.

"Where does that door lead?" Lin Shen asked.

Chen Yuan didn't answer. He walked to the tree, reached out, and placed his hand on the doorframe. The doorframe was warm, like the temperature of skin.

"The world that leads to the sixth seed," Chen Yuan said. "The world of Su Wan. Not the original Su Wan, not the origin Su Wan, but the depths of Su Wan's consciousness. The seed sprouts, blossoms, and bears fruit there. You need to go in and pick the fruit."

"What kind of fruit?"

Chen Yuan turned around and looked at Lin Shen. His eyes were brown, normal, and warm, but deep in his pupils was a small, almost invisible shadow—a woman with long hair, wearing a dark windbreaker, standing in a white void, head bowed, as if waiting for someone.

"Su Wan's tears," Chen Yuan said. "The tears she shed for you didn't disappear. They went deep into her consciousness, became seeds, sprouted, blossomed, and bore fruit. The fruit is a mirror. The seventh mirror. Not the seventh mirror in Lu Ming's memory, but your seventh mirror. Once you get that mirror, you'll see the true face of the 'Reaper' leader."

Lin Shen walked to the tree and stood in front of the doorway. The blue light shone on his face, turning the seven stars in his pupils the color of the deep sea.

Yuan Dian Su Wan walked over and stood beside him.

"I'll go with you," she said.

Lin Shen shook his head. "You stay here. There's a fragment of the second mirror inside your body; if you go in, it will interfere with her consciousness."

Yuan Dian Su Wan was silent for a few seconds, then nodded. She took a step back, standing under the golden tree, her hands hanging at her sides, like someone waiting for a car.

Lin Shen walked through that door.

Behind the door was a room. White walls, white floor, white ceiling. Exactly the same white room he had seen in his own consciousness. But there was no chair, no table, no mirror in the center of the room. There was only one person.

Su Wan. Su Wan in the original world.

She stood in the center of the room, head bowed, hands hanging at her sides. Her hair was loose and untied, and she wore a white dress—Lin Shen had never seen her wear a dress before. She looked like a different person, like a princess trapped in a dream, waiting to be awakened.

Lin Shen walked up to her.

"Su Wan".

She didn't react. Her eyes were closed, and her eyelashes were fluttering slightly, like butterfly wings.

"Su Wan." He raised his voice slightly.

Her eyelashes fluttered, then her eyes slowly opened. Brown, tired, but warm. She looked at Lin Shen for a long time, as if looking at an old friend she hadn't seen in ages.

"Lin Shen," she said softly, "what are you doing here?"

"I've come to find you."

"What do you want from me?"

Lin Shen took seven mirrors out of his pocket, stacked them together, and pointed them at the white ceiling. Sunlight—if it could even be called sunlight—passed through the mirrors, projecting a complex pattern onto the white floor. Seven concentric rings overlapped, with a seven-pointed star in the center. At the center of the seven-pointed star was a tiny, silvery-white, teardrop-like point of light.

"Your tears," Lin Shen said, "the tears you shed for me. They're here. You need to take them back."

Su Wan looked down at the point of light. Under her gaze, the point of light grew larger, from the size of a teardrop to the size of a coin, from the size of a coin to the size of a palm, and from the size of a palm to a mirror.

The seventh mirror. It wasn't made of stainless steel, copper, or wood. It was a transparent mirror, like ice, with seven stars around its edge.

Su Wan squatted down and picked up the mirror. Her face was reflected in the mirror—pale, tired, with deep dark circles under her eyes. But the expression on the person in the mirror was different. The person in the mirror was smiling.

Su Wan looked at her smiling self in the mirror, and her eyes reddened.

"Who are you?" she asked.

The person in the mirror didn't answer. She just smiled, and as she smiled, tears streamed down her face. The tears seeped from the mirror and dripped onto Su Wan's hands. Warm, salty, like seawater.

Su Wan turned the mirror over to look at the back. There was a line of text engraved on the back, the handwriting exactly the same as hers:

"You're not waiting for him to come back. You're waiting for yourself to come back."

Su Wan's tears finally flowed. They weren't silent; they were audible—a soft, suppressed sob, like a deep, rising whimper. She squatted on the ground, holding the mirror in her hands, her forehead pressed against the surface, her shoulders trembling violently.

Lin Shen squatted down and placed his hand on her back. Beneath his palm, her body was trembling, like a machine that had just been started.

"Su Wan," he said, "you're back."

Su Wan looked up, her face covered in tears, but she was smiling. That smile was warm and genuine, like sunshine.

"I'm back," she said.

The white room began to collapse. Not shatter, but melt—like ice turning into water in the sunlight. The walls became water, the floor became water, the ceiling became water. The water flowed to the ground, forming a river, flowing into the distance, where there was light.

Lin Shen took Su Wan's hand and walked towards the light.

They stepped out of the mirror.

Living room. Warm yellow light. Mirror on the floor. Yuan Dian Su Wan sits on the sofa. Chen Yuan stands by the window. A plate of dumplings sits on the coffee table.

Su Wan stood in the center of the living room, holding a transparent mirror with seven stars around its edge. Tears still clung to her face, but her eyes shone brightly—not with a fleeting, artificial light, but with a normal, living, hopeful glow.

Yuan Dian Su Wan stood up from the sofa and walked over to her. The two Su Wans stood facing each other, one wearing a dark windbreaker, the other a white nurse's uniform. They looked into each other's eyes, reached out, and clasped hands.

"You're back," Yuan Dian Su Wan said.

"I'm back," Su Wan said.

They hugged each other.

Lin Shen stood aside, watching the two Su Wans hug each other, without saying a word. Chen Yuan walked over and stood beside him.

"What about the sixth seed?" Lin Shen asked.

Chen Yuan looked at the two Su Wans and remained silent for a few seconds. "The seed blossomed. The flower withered. There was no fruit."

"What do you mean?"

"Seeds are not meant to bear fruit. They are meant to bloom. When the flowers bloom, they recognize each other. When the flowers wither, the seeds have fulfilled their purpose. Now, they are two people, and also one person. They don't need to merge; they were always one."

Lin Shen looked at the two Su Wans. They released each other, but their hands were still clasped together. They were smiling. Not a loud laugh, but a small, quiet smile, as if saying, "Everything is alright."

Outside the window, dawn was breaking. The eastern horizon was beginning to turn white, just like when the original world collapsed.

Lin Shen took out seven mirrors from his pocket, stacked them together, and placed them on the coffee table. The seven stars in the mirrors stopped twinkling; they stood quietly and steadily, like seven ever-burning lamps, illuminating a certain place deep within the mirrors.

That place is the intersection of all worlds.

That place is the origin of the "gardener".