Lin Ye did not respond immediately to He Lian's proposal.
Not out of distrust—that had long become a permanent condition of his existence—but because he understood the true weight of what she was offering. A place where his actions would not vanish with him was neither refuge nor alliance. It was something far more dangerous: shared persistence. It meant that, past a certain point, his decisions could no longer be withdrawn from the world—not even at the cost of his own history.
"The Western Continent…" he said at last. "The Empire doesn't control it directly."
"No," He Lian nodded. "And that's why it can still breathe."
She took a few steps among the trees, carefully touching the bark of one of them. The tree did not react strangely. There was no correction. That, in itself, was a sign.
"There, archives aren't just records," she continued. "They are narrative anchors. When something happens and is recorded in a certain way, the world has a much harder time erasing it without consequences."
The fragmented clock vibrated with restrained interest.
"You're talking about imposing meaning," Lin Ye said. "Not through power, but through collective coherence."
"Exactly," He Lian replied. "The Core can erase isolated events. It can correct solitary anomalies. But when memories are interwoven—when multiple regions, people, and structures agree that something happened—correction becomes costly."
"And the world hates high costs," Lin Ye murmured.
He Lian studied him with renewed attention.
"You learn quickly."
A brief silence followed.
"Why me?" Lin Ye asked. "There are older Released. Custodians. People who understand this better."
He Lian shook her head gently.
"They're already classified," she said. "You're not."
"Not yet."
"And because you don't just survive corrections," she added. "You turn them into narratable events."
The fragmented clock beat heavily.
Lin Ye closed his eyes for a moment.
He remembered the caravan.The halted road.The pain that returned when the world stopped dampening it.
That had been an event.
"If I go with you," he said, "the Core will react."
"Yes," He Lian replied bluntly. "Not immediately. But it will adjust priorities. The Western Continent will move from 'inefficient zone' to 'zone under observation.'"
"And that will bring victims."
He Lian held his gaze.
"It already is."
Lin Ye drew a deep breath.
"Then I don't have many real options."
"You never have," she said calmly. "You've only ever had decisions with different kinds of debt."
The fragmented clock vibrated in confirmation.
"I accept," Lin Ye said at last. "But on one condition."
He Lian raised an eyebrow.
"I'm listening."
"I won't be a symbol," Lin Ye said. "Nor an archived martyr. If I go west, I'll act when I deem it necessary—not when the archive finds it convenient."
He Lian smiled.
"That was implied."
She turned and began walking, assuming Lin Ye would follow.
"Prepare yourself," she said as they moved. "The journey won't be direct. Space has already begun resisting your long trajectories."
Lin Ye followed.
As they moved deeper into the forest, Spatial Memory began to reveal unusual routes. Not efficient paths, but persistent ones—trajectories that had been used many times because they always 'worked,' even if no one remembered exactly why.
They walked for hours without encountering anyone.
Then the fragmented clock vibrated with a new kind of warning.
It wasn't the Core.
It was something else.
"Do you feel it?" He Lian asked, stopping.
"Yes," Lin Ye replied. "It's not correction. It's… response."
The air before them rippled.
A figure emerged slowly, as if it had been walking in from another plane with absolute calm. It was a young man with a serene expression, dressed in simple clothes without insignia. His aura was clear, stable—and painfully compatible with the current world.
"Lin Ye," he said. "Archivist."
He Lian frowned.
"I didn't expect a Conciliator so soon."
The man inclined his head.
"The Core didn't send me," he said. "I came on my own initiative."
He looked at Lin Ye.
"You've begun creating structured memory," he continued. "That disrupts the balance of resolution."
"Are you here to stop me?" Lin Ye asked.
The Conciliator shook his head.
"I'm here to offer you something more dangerous than opposition."
The fragmented clock vibrated sharply.
"An alternative," the man said. "If you accept partial integration—not as a component, but as an authorized narrative node—the Core will reduce collateral compensation."
He Lian stepped forward.
"That's an elegant lie."
The Conciliator looked at her calmly.
"It's a concession," he corrected. "The world prefers negotiation to breaking."
Lin Ye felt the weight of the moment.
Accepting would mean immediate relief.Fewer collapses.Fewer indirect victims.
Refusing would mean continuing to force friction… with a growing human cost.
The fragmented clock offered no clear answer.
It only displayed two possible trajectories.
Both heavy.
Lin Ye lifted his gaze.
"If I accept," he asked, "what do I lose?"
The Conciliator answered without hesitation.
"The right to decide which events deserve to be remembered."
Silence.
The forest seemed to hold its breath.
Lin Ye understood then that this was not a conflict of power.
It was a struggle over narrative authority.
Who decided what became history…and what was dismissed as noise?
Lin Ye closed his eyes.
And for the first time since stepping outside the world's consensus, he did not answer immediately.
Because this decision would not only shape his fate.
It would shape how the world learned to remember the future.