When I woke up, the sky was the color of death.
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The cracks in the shattered dome sprawled like spiderwebs, carving the heavens into jagged fragments. The ashen clouds hung low, like a waterlogged shroud, pressing heavily upon the ruins. The wind howled through the broken pillars of the temple, its mournful wail resembling the murmurs of a forgotten god in its dreams.
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I lay sprawled across the crumbling stone steps, half-buried in dust and withered leaves. A mutilated statue loomed over me—its face long eroded, leaving only hollow sockets that still stubbornly stared in my direction, as if scrutinizing a failed creation.
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I had no heartbeat.
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Yet my silver hair fluttered faintly in the wind, like a strand of moonlight that had no place in this world. It spilled across the steps, a stark contrast to the surrounding gloom.
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"Bai Cen." The name surfaced in my consciousness without warning. No memories, no emotions—just a cold label, like a serial number hastily carved onto a vessel.
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I flexed my fingers. The joints creaked stiffly, like rusted machinery unused for years. When I pushed myself up, dust cascaded from my robes, revealing the silver-white fabric beneath—clearly not of mortal make, its weave faintly pulsing with light.
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On the temple walls behind me, weathered reliefs chronicled the birth of the Five Nations. But on the final slab, a violent fissure tore through the stone, as though someone had deliberately erased a fragment of existence.
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Perhaps what had been erased… was me.
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"You're finally awake."
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The voice came from the shadows. I turned and saw a girl standing on the fractured edge of the ruins. Her gray cloak was stained with dark crimson, and her long blade dragged against the ground, sending up tiny blue sparks as it scraped over rubble.
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She couldn’t have been older than twenty, but her eyes carried the weariness of countless lifetimes.
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"Who are you?" I asked. My voice was unexpectedly steady, as if this body already knew how to speak.
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She lifted her gaze, her pupils like two shards of obsidian.
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"Xu Wu." She pronounced her name like a verdict. "Here to determine whether you need to be destroyed."
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The wind caught her hood, revealing a glowing brand on her collarbone—identical to the broken sigil at the base of the statue. The discovery sent a phantom twinge through a nonexistent organ deep in my chest.
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"Bai Cen." She chewed on my name, then suddenly pressed the tip of her blade to my throat. "Do you know what this means?"
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"A serial number."
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"No." The steel bit into my skin, but I felt no pain—only the cold seep of metal. "This is the mark they stamped onto you."
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When she withdrew the blade, I realized my fingers were unconsciously tracing my neck—no wound remained, but the ghostly sensation of being scanned lingered.
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Xu Wu smirked, her lips curling into a humorless arc. "As I thought… you don’t even have a pain module installed."
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But as she turned away—
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In the fractured reflection at my feet, those pale golden eyes were fixed intently on her retreating figure.
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The wind carried the scent of scorched earth and rust.
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Xu Wu walked ahead, her gray cloak now draped over my shoulders, concealing my conspicuous silver hair and inhuman golden irises. The cloak’s inner lining bore a jagged tear, hastily stitched back together in crooked seams—as if she’d repaired it herself in a hurry.
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"Don’t let anyone realize you’re a construct," she said tersely, tightening the hood around my face. "Especially not in the Fire Nation."
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I didn’t ask why she was helping me. Maybe it was because my silence was too absolute, or because I lacked the confusion a newly awakened construct should possess. My very existence was a paradox—conscious yet devoid of emotion, bearing a name yet stripped of memories.
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Her steps maintained a precise distance, but at every turn, she hesitated for half a second—as if her body still remembered someone who should have been following behind. That tiny flaw reminded me of the deliberately defaced relief on the temple wall.
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"Saleht—the so-called Fire Nation—is collapsing." She spoke abruptly, her voice nearly lost in the wind. "The Ember Abyss is stirring. The armies are gathering. You need to learn how to run."
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"Run…?" The word felt foreign on my tongue. My vocabulary contained more elegant verbs: walk, patrol, purge.
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Xu Wu glanced back at me. "Right now, you’re like a blind idol. The day you learn to run for your life is the day you’ll start resembling something human."
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The cloak weighed heavily on my shoulders, saturated with blood and the fading warmth of another body. It made me think of the statue’s hollow eyes—had they once witnessed something warm, too?
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As we crossed the scorched plains, geothermal heat seared through the soles of my boots. On the horizon, flames gnawed at the sky, staining the clouds a sickly orange. This land seemed to be suffocating under some immense pressure.
*【System Alert】Next chapter reveals:
"Why Xu Wu killed her 7th clone"
[UNLOCK FOR 300P ≈ 2MYR]*
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The ambush ca
ns216.73.216.176da2
