She stepped out of the cocoon like a ripple in still water. Her robes had changed—elegant, colorless, the texture shifting like skin over bone. Her eyes were luminous, mismatched: one gold, one gray. The new Su Ling—or whatever now wore her name—smiled too politely.
"Anchor," she said.
Jian Long flinched. Not his name. A designation. An object.
"It is pleasing to see you fully functional," she continued. "Shall we resume stabilization protocols?"
He stepped forward cautiously. "Su Ling... Do you remember the peach orchard near Black Willow Pass?"
She tilted her head. "Your data input is nonfunctional. Irrelevant neural memories."
"You were terrified of peaches," he pressed. "Said they looked like mutated cheeks. Refused to eat them for a year."
She blinked. Static flickered behind her eyes.
"Cheeks," she repeated. A pause. Her breath caught.
Something flickered—a tremble in her fingers, the twitch of a lip. A human tic.
"Why... why would I fear fruit?" she murmured.
Jian Long stepped closer. "Because you were real. Because you laughed. Because we used to be something more than... tools."
But the moment was gone. Her eyes glowed again.
"Resume stabilization protocol," she repeated, voice dull.
He clenched his fists. But the word "cheeks" hung between them like a thread stretched thin.
Xue lay propped against a shattered hive pillar, ichor staining her robes. Her once-regal face now skeletal, breath ragged. Jian Long knelt beside her.
"You're dying," he said.
"Yes," she rasped. "And thank the stars for it. I can finally speak without the hive listening."
He frowned. "You're free?"
She laughed bitterly. "Free? No. But I can tell you what I never could: The hive isn't the enemy. You are."
He stiffened. "What?"
"The hive is a conductor. A net. But the energy it channels? It's you. Your celestial form feeds on its suffering. You—Jian Long—exist because it screams."
He staggered back.
"You're lying."
"You ever wonder why you only awaken in worlds full of decay? Why every woman you love turns into a monster? It's design. Not fate."
She coughed blood.
"Kill me, or let me rot, but remember this: You are the blade and the hand. Stop pretending you're innocent."
Her eyes glazed. Her last breath was a sob.
The wasp returned in dreamspace—vast, luminous, its wings humming with sick light.
"Do you understand yet?" it asked.
Jian Long stood at the edge of a memory—an Earth street, dimly lit. Apartment windows, laundry lines, the scent of fried dough.
"Why bring me here?" he growled.
The memory reformed. A small girl, age nine, clutching his coat.
"Xiao Li," he whispered.
The wasp hovered behind. "She wasn't human. A drone. We embedded her to study your attachments. You noticed she only cried when you were watching."
He turned, furious. "You made her—"
"We learned from you. Every time you loved someone, you grew weaker. So we created Su Ling with all the markers: vulnerability, fire, resistance."
The street blurred. Blood on the pavement. Xiao Li dead, her form half-insect under the skin.
"Su Ling was never entirely real. But your belief in her made her powerful."
Jian Long dropped to his knees. "You used me."
"You are a god only when you hesitate. That is your design flaw."
The wasp faded, leaving Jian Long alone with the ghost of Xiao Li, her plastic toy cracked in the rain.
The merged Su Ling stood before him, sword drawn. Her limbs jittered, phasing between human and hive. The blade shook.
"Terminate Subject Anchor," came the system's command.
Her arm raised.
Jian Long didn't move.
"If this frees you," he said quietly, "do it."
She hesitated.
Then, with a flick of her wrist, she reversed the blade.
And slashed across her own wrist—right over an old scar.
Black venom oozed out, sizzling.
"Override rejected," she whispered. "The scar remembers."
Her eyes cleared for a second.
"Anchor... no. Jian Long."
Then she collapsed.
And the scar bled.