20demayo Chapter 335 Bronze Mirror
Chapter 335 Bronze Mirror
Three hundred years into the Nanzhao calendar, in the martial arts arena of the Nine Apertures Academy, seventeen-year-old Yun Zhao frowned at a suspended mechanical target. He flicked his wrist, but the specially crafted hidden arrow missed the bullseye by three inches. His classmates, watching, burst into good-natured laughter, until the Nine-Tails leaped down from the eaves, its tail wrapping around the boy's collar: "You brat, concentrate! Your great-grandmother could shoot an arrow through a willow leaf from a hundred paces when she was only ten!"
"Senior Jiuli is telling stories again!" A clear voice came from the corridor. Qingwu, a girl carrying ancient books, skipped in, the silver bells in her hair clinking with the star-wish bead pendant at her waist, making a pleasant sound. She raised the yellowed notebook in her hand: "I discovered a new secret in the library—the time-space coordinates left by Great-Grandpa Xiao Jingchuan actually overlap with a certain place on modern Earth!"
This statement sent the entire academy into a frenzy. Since Shen Nianli reconstructed the Eternal Heart, the Nanzhao Kingdom had already established a faint connection with parallel universes. However, the 21st century, from which Xiao Jingchuan and his wife came, remained shrouded in mystery. Yun Zhao snatched the notebook, looking at the entry stating "The time-space anchor point is Erhai Lake in Yunnan," and suddenly gripped the Star Wish Bead tightly: "Let's go take a look!"
As the moonlight blanketed the surface of Erhai Lake, Yun Zhao and his companions slowly approached the center of the lake in their mechanical boat. Suddenly, the Star Wish Bead in Qing Wu's arms heated up, resonating with the bronze stele at the bottom of the lake. When the group submerged, they discovered the stele was inscribed with characters from both lifetimes. One line of modern simplified Chinese characters made them gasp: "If fate allows in future lives, please come to the 'Time-Space Café' for a chat—Xiao Jingchuan and Gu Liuli."
After the dizzying sensation of time travel subsided, Yun Zhao opened his eyes to find himself in a room filled with strange devices. A holographic map of the Nanzhao Kingdom flickered on a giant screen, and bookshelves displayed products combining mechanical arts and modern technology. Behind the bar, the white-haired Xiao Jingchuan was wiping two cups of coffee, while Gu Liuli was adjusting a uniquely shaped mechanical bird model.
“Children, it’s been a long time.” Gu Liuli turned around, her eyes crinkling with laughter. With a flick of her wrist, the mechanical bird immediately flew to Yun Zhao’s shoulder, spitting out a slip of paper wrapped with the latest battle report from Nanzhao. Xiao Jingchuan pushed over a tablet computer, displaying their research results over the years: “We have been using modern technology to reinforce the spacetime barrier, but…” he suddenly became serious, “recently, we detected abnormal energy fluctuations, the source of which points to the northwestern border of Nanzhao.”
Meanwhile, at the ruins of the Netherworld Abyss in the northwest of Nanzhao, an altar made of black crystal was quietly taking shape. The man in black robes removed his hood, revealing a face that bore a striking resemblance to Yun Zhao—it was none other than Yun Zhao's long-lost elder brother, Yun Que. Holding a shattered fragment of the Xuanming Token in his hand, he grinned maliciously at the illusory figure in the center of the altar: "The curse of the Nine Apertures Bloodline has never disappeared; I have merely allowed it to be reborn in a different form!"
Around the altar, the eyes of the modified mechanical beasts gleamed with a ghostly blue light, their cores embedded with evil power stripped from the Star Wish Bead. Yun Que placed his palm on the altar, and spacetime began to distort. Countless black tentacles stretched out from the cracks, and wherever they passed, the steel cannons of the mechanical city began to rust.
The Nine Apertures Academy sounded the highest alarm. Shen Nianli stared at the distorted image in the monitoring crystal and suddenly remembered her mother's prophecy when she disappeared a hundred years ago: "When protection becomes an obsession, darkness will grow from the light." She gripped the Xuan Tie sword left by Xiao Qicheng and led the guardian alliance composed of Star Wish Beads to the battlefield.
On the battlefield, Yun Zhao's mechanical hidden arrow clashed fiercely with Yun Que's Netherworld Chains. The moment Yun Zhao's Star Wish Bead was shattered, Qing Wu suddenly pressed his own Star Wish Bead against his chest: "Remember? The power of the Star Net comes from every guardian!" All the allied forces simultaneously raised their Star Wish Beads, and the light converged into a giant golden net, severing all the black tentacles.
At this moment, Yun Que activated his ultimate curse. His body transformed into countless black mists, seeping into every one of his nine orifices: "Since you cannot be destroyed, then let you be reincarnated in endless suffering!" Seeing this, Shen Nianli injected the core power of the Eternal Heart into the Star Network and shouted loudly: "Not reincarnation! It's inheritance!"
Within the golden light, the phantoms of guardians from past generations appeared one after another. Xiao Jingchuan and Gu Liuli brought the seeds of modern technology, Shen Mingyue's medical skills transformed into healing rain of light, and Yun Zhao suddenly understood that his brother's downfall stemmed from his fear of the responsibility of guardianship. He opened his arms, bringing all the cursed nine-aperture bloodlines into the protection of the Star Network: "We are not fighting alone!"
As the first rays of dawn pierced the darkness, the ruins of the Netherworld Abyss blossomed with dazzling lotus flowers. Yun Que's consciousness awoke in the light. Looking at his younger brother and companions' wounded yet resolute eyes, he finally shed tears of regret. Shen Nianli handed him the reconstituted Star Wish Bead: "True protection is daring to face the darkness within your own heart."
After the war, the Nanzhao Kingdom established the "Star River Council," where guardians from different times and races discussed matters together. Yun Zhao built the "Two Generations Pavilion" on the shore of Erhai Lake, displaying the crystallization of civilization from Nanzhao to the modern era. Every night, the light of the Eternal Heart echoes the starry sky on Earth, outlining an everlasting protective net in the river of time.
In the introductory classes at Jiuqiao Academy, the teacher would always point to the star network diagram on the wall and ask the children, "What is the meaning of protection?" The answer was no longer the sacrifice of a particular bloodline, but a resounding reply in the hearts of every child: "It is the spark that becomes a torch, it is the endless cycle of life!"
The Return of All Things to Nothingness: An Eternal Symphony in the Long River of Civilization
Thirty years after the founding of the Star River Council, the connection between the Nanzhao Kingdom and modern Earth has become as natural as breathing. In Yun Zhao's "Two Generations Pavilion," the bronze mechanical bird of Nanzhao is displayed side by side with modern drones, and holographic projections recreate the scene of Xiao Jingchuan and his wife traveling through time. But beneath this seemingly perfect balance, a crisis that transcends dimensions is quietly brewing.
One day, the light of the Eternal Heart suddenly turned dark red. The monitoring crystals of the Nine Apertures Academy shattered one after another, indicating the appearance of an abnormal energy vortex in the depths of the universe. Even more alarming, the mechanical arts and modern technology of the Nanzhao Kingdom simultaneously malfunctioned—mechanical beasts stopped operating, Earth's satellites lost signal, as if the very foundation of the entire civilization was collapsing.
“It’s a dimensional rift,” Xiao Jingchuan’s voice came from the holographic projection, and the laboratory alarm behind him blared. “The universe contains countless parallel universes. When the development of civilization in a certain universe becomes unbalanced, it triggers dimensional resonance. Now, our Star Network Guardian System has become the focal point of the vortex.”
Yun Zhao gripped the Star Wish Bead tightly in his hand; its surface was covered with spiderweb-like cracks. He suddenly recalled a similar record he had seen in the ancient texts of the Two Worlds Pavilion: in ancient times, the first awakening of the Nine-Aperture Exquisite Heart was precisely for the purpose of repairing the shattered dimensional barrier. "Could it be... that this is the true mission of the Nine-Aperture Bloodline?"
At an emergency meeting of the Star Council, representatives from different timelines held differing opinions. Mechanics from the steampunk world advocated filling the rift with a giant gear mechanism, wizards from the magical civilization proposed pacifying the dimensional wrath with a blood sacrifice, while the mechanical masters of the Nanzhao Kingdom silently pulled up a topological map of the Star Network—when all the connecting lines of the Star Wish Beads were lit up, they perfectly overlapped with the distribution of galaxies in the universe.
"We have always used the StarNet as a tool for protection," Shen Nianli's illusory figure appeared in the center of the council, her voice carrying the wisdom of a thousand years, "but perhaps, it is itself part of the cosmic order." In the ancient scroll she displayed, each awakening of the Nine-Aperture Exquisite Heart corresponded to a major shift in the cosmic dimensions.
Qingwu suddenly held up the tortoise shell he had found in the library: "I've deciphered the oracle bone script on it! It turns out that sealing the evil god back then was just a temporary measure; the real key was maintaining dimensional balance!" The patterns on the tortoise shell showed that the evil god's essence was chaotic energy generated by dimensional imbalance.
By the time everyone finally pieced together the truth, the dimensional rift had expanded to the point of blotting out the sky. Yun Que's vanguard attempted to bombard the vortex with mechanical cannons, but only resulted in even more violent tremors. Within the black mist, the phantom of the evil god coalesced once more, this time its form no longer material, but rather transformed into distorted spacetime itself.
“We need a new resonance.” Xiao Jingchuan displayed a complex formula in the holographic projection, “combining the energy of the StarNet with the collective consciousness of human civilization to create a dimensional adhesive. But this requires the simultaneous participation of life forms from all of spacetime.”
The Star River Council sprang into action. Earth sent out consciousness waves via satellite networks, the magical world mobilized the mental power of all wizards, and the Nanzhao Kingdom activated the ancient star chart instrument buried underground. Yun Zhao stood atop the Two Worlds Pavilion, watching the Star Wish Bead in his hand connect with points of light from countless times and spaces, forming a golden bridge spanning the universe.
The roar of the evil god shattered countless stars, but the moment the golden bridge touched it, the entire universe fell into an eerie silence. Yun Zhao's consciousness was pulled into the depths of a dimension, where he witnessed the moment of the universe's birth—the power of the Nine-Aperture Exquisite Heart originated from the laws of order at the creation of the universe.
"We are not guardians," a voice transcending time and space echoed in his mind, "we are the universe's self-healing system." The moment Yun Zhao understood these words, all the Star Wish Beads burst forth with brilliant light, merging with the power of human civilization's beliefs to form a massive dimensional patch.
The phantom of the evil god vanished in the light, transforming into energy that nourished all things. Dimensional rifts began to heal, and the universe regained its order. But this crisis left a profound lesson: the Star Council established the "Dimensional Observatory," where different civilizations collaborated to study how to maintain balance in their development.
In the post-war Nanzhao Kingdom, Yun Zhao expanded the Two Generations Pavilion into a "Civilization Museum." The most precious exhibit in the museum is a crystal suspended in the center of a star network model, which contains the memories of all the guardians. Whenever a child touches the crystal, they can feel the guardian's will that transcends time and space—from the first time travel of Xiao Jingchuan and his wife to the moments when countless ordinary people stepped forward in times of crisis.
Nine-Tails remains active at Nine Aperture Academy, its current "students" being children from various time periods. When it recounts those thrilling tales, it always points to the starry sky outside the window: "Remember, protection is not the responsibility of a particular bloodline, but a survival skill that every civilization must learn."
Mirroring Two Worlds: A Meeting of Emperors Across Time
In the 350th year of the Nanzhao calendar, the Xianyang Palace was bathed in the sounds of cicadas and the fragrance of lotus blossoms on a midsummer night. The current emperor, Xiao Mingche, trembled slightly as he held the secret report. Suddenly, the Star Wish Bead on his desk emitted an eerie purple light—a warning from the Star Network detecting a spacetime anomaly. The report stated that an ancient mirror capable of reflecting otherworldly visions had appeared in a witch village on the southwestern border, frequently displaying the figures of men and women dressed in strange attire.
"Prepare the horses, I will go there myself." Xiao Mingche unfastened the black iron token from his waist, its gilded patterns shimmering with the glory of his ancestors under the moonlight. He recalled the records in the Nine Aperture Academy's books that Xiao Jingchuan and Gu Liuli had used the Qiankun Mirror to travel through time and space. Could it be that the legendary artifact has reappeared in the mortal world?
Three days later, the sound of horses' hooves dispersed the morning mist of Wuzhai. The village elder knelt on the ground, holding a bronze mirror. The mirror was covered with ancient Taotie patterns, but its surface was as dark as a deep pool. When Xiao Mingche's fingertips touched the mirror, the icy touch suddenly turned into an electric current, and the entire mirror burst into a dazzling light.
When Xiao Mingche opened his eyes again, he found himself in an unfamiliar place. Skyscrapers stood like a steel forest, and the sunlight reflected off the glass curtain walls made him squint. Outside a coffee shop not far away, the white-haired Xiao Jingchuan was wiping a vintage coffee cup, while Gu Liuli was bending over adjusting a glowing mechanical box. The gears on the surface of the box were exactly the same as those used in the Nanzhao mechanical arts.
“Great-grandfather?” Xiao Mingche’s voice was filled with disbelief. The two turned around at the same time, and the mechanism box in Gu Liuli’s hand clicked open, releasing a mechanical butterfly made of optical fibers and metal, which landed on his shoulder.
"I never imagined I'd live to see a descendant of the Xiao family again." Xiao Jingchuan put down the coffee pot, tears welling in his eyes behind his glasses. On the wall behind him, a huge photograph showed a comparison between the mechanical city of the Nanzhao Kingdom and a modern laboratory; time seemed to lose its meaning at that moment.
Gu Liuli poured two cups of tea, the tea leaves unfurling in the clear glass. "We've also noticed the anomalies in the StarNet." She brought up a holographic projection; the StarNet, composed of countless points of light in the universe, was trembling, and a dark rift in a certain corner resembled the maw of a behemoth. "The essence of the evil god is dimensional entropy increase; we need a new solution."