When the flowers at the top of the Magnolia Tree fully bloomed, the walls of the laboratory suddenly became transparent. Chu Yun saw countless universes hanging from the branches like leaves, each vein flowing with a liquid that mingled machinery and flesh and blood. Embryonic Chu Yun stood up from the stamen, golden blood dripping from the scissors in his hand - the beads of blood crashed to the ground and transformed into the silhouette of Dr. Lin, who was injecting his infant self with a silver potion.
"You can't escape the cycle." The embryo smiled, its pupils splitting to reveal mechanical gears. The baby girl in Chu Yun's arms suddenly levitated, black shoots drilling out of her chest and resonating with the roots of the Magnolia Tree. The floor of the laboratory began to metallize, welding Chu Yun's feet shut.
The embryo swung its scissors to cut off the nearest cosmic blade, and the Chu Yun of that world immediately transformed into a stream of data injected into the scissors. The baby girl's shoots suddenly grew exponentially, piercing the embryo's right shoulder, and a holographic image surfaced at the black blood spray - a time anchor point was buried underneath Dr. Lin's lab, and the anchor center was none other than the baby girl's genetic sequence.
Chu Yun lashed out with his legs welded to the ground, ripping through the metallized floor. As the debris slams into the Magnolia tree, the flower suddenly releases a pulse wave that reorganizes the debris into a swarm of mechanical spiders. The baby girl's pupils are suddenly controlled by the embryo, and the shoots turn to Chu Yun, "Daddy, you're the pathogen."
Chu Yun slammed into the time anchor point, and the metal shell cracked to reveal the blood-colored core. Sealed within the core are the remnants of a first-generation baby girl - she clutches the broken hourglass in her hand, the grains of sand forming Dr. Lin's last words, "Chu Yun is the first success story of the seeding protocol."
The embryo suddenly screams in agony as the scissors fall out of his hand. His body began to melt, revealing the mechanical brain core pulsing inside - engraved with the same number as Chu Yun's temple chip. The baby girl's shoots took the opportunity to pierce the brain core, extracting the silver liquid and injecting it into the time anchor point. The laboratory suddenly stood still, and all mechanical creations stopped functioning.
The flowers of the Magnolia Tree withered, their petals turning to ashes in their fall. When Chu Yun picked up the baby girl, he realized that her body temperature was disappearing. The blood-colored core of the Time Anchor Point suddenly burst open, releasing pure white light - the mechanized cosmic blades recolored, and grass grew out of the ruins.
Countdowns emerge from the withered trunks:
Protocol terminated, dimension stabilized at 100%
The baby girl's eyelashes fluttered, her pupils returning to human brown: "Daddy... Come home..." Her body suddenly quantumized and fused with the white light. Chu Yun reached out and grasped the light mass, but only held half of an alabaster petal - the back of which was engraved with a projection of a miniature universe:
Somewhere in an uncontaminated time and space, five-year-old Chu Yun was planting a tree in an orphanage, and underneath the tree stood a smiling Dr. Lin.
The laboratory suddenly shook as shadows from a higher dimension pierced through the ceiling. A pair of giant hands made of mechanical pupils slowly descended, holding new Magnolia seeds in their palms, a familiar countdown pulsing on the surface of the seed shells:
Seeding protocol restart preparation - 00:30:00
Chu Yun crushed the petals and held the falling scissors in the dust of light. The blade reflected his reflection - his left eye was a human pupil, and his right eye had become the mechanical blue of the embryonic Chu Yun.