Jinxi Town, a water town renowned for its Suzhou embroidery.
It was late spring, and willow catkins were flying everywhere. The countless white catkins resembled a grand, silent snowfall, carpeting the stone bridges and draping the awnings of the covered boats.
Shen Qingqiu reined in his horse and stopped beneath the white marble archway at the town's entrance.
The wind here was very light, eerily so. The willow catkins, instead of swirling wildly, drifted down slowly in an extremely even, smooth trajectory.
Upon closer inspection, one would notice that each catkin rotated at the exact same angle.
"Seventeen, look at these catkins," Shen Qingqiu said, catching one in his hand. "Don't they look like… torn code?"
Seventeen didn't look at the catkins.
He stood in front of Shen Qingqiu, his eyes, hidden behind a silver mask, warily scanning the excessively quiet town.
"No… heartbeat."
His voice was very low.
Although the town was bustling with people, shops open, and wine flags fluttering, it was like a silent film muted. There were no hawkers' cries, no friendly greetings, and even footsteps were barely audible.
The people on the street were all smiling.
The old man selling candied hawthorns smiled at a 15-degree angle, the peddler carrying his load smiled at a 15-degree angle, and even the young girl washing clothes by the river had a precisely 15-degree smile on her face.
Those smiles seemed like mass-produced masks, welded to every face.
"Let's go in and take a look." Shen Qingqiu dismounted, casually tying the reins to a withered willow. She straightened her sleeves, a glint of excited coldness flashing in her eyes.
…On the stage in the town center, a play was being performed.
It was a scene from *The Peony Pavilion*, "The Dream in the Garden."
On the stage, the female lead and the young male lead sang softly, their movements incredibly graceful. Especially the female lead, with a flick of her water sleeves, her waist arched backward at an angle no human spine could withstand, yet she remained steady, her singing melodious and poignant.
The audience was packed.
Hundreds, even thousands, sat in neat rows. They held teacups, the tea already cold, covered with a layer of grayish-green grime, but no one drank it.
"Bravo—" Someone started it, and a thunderous roar of applause erupted from the audience.
Everyone's movements were perfectly synchronized: clapping, opening their mouths, shouting.
Clap, clap, clap.
The applause was perfectly synchronized, not falling in waves, but overlapping flawlessly. It didn't sound like a group of people clapping; it sounded more like a giant machine performing some kind of piston motion.
Shen Qingqiu stood at the back of the crowd, feeling a chill run from her feet to the top of her head.
She activated [Overclocked Vision].
The world instantly lost its color, turning into a black and white line drawing.
Within the dense black and white lines, she saw countless gleaming **"silver threads**.
These silver threads were extremely fine, invisible to the naked eye. They hung from the top of the stage, like a giant spider web, connecting the backs of the heads of every audience member.
Not just the audience.
The limbs of the leading actors and actresses on stage were also densely wrapped with these silver threads.
This was no opera performance.
It was a marionette extravaganza.
"Fiber optics," Shen Qingqiu concluded in her mind. In this low-dimensional world, they appeared as resilient silk, but in essence, they were data lines transmitting control signals.
Just then, the melody on the stage suddenly changed.
The originally melodious Kunqu opera transformed into a rapid, sharp sound of a pipa. The sound was like metal striking stone, carrying some kind of high-frequency command signal.
Zheng—zheng—zheng— The thousands of audience members below the stage suddenly turned their heads in unison.
Thousands of dull, unfocused eyes simultaneously locked onto Shen Qingqiu and Seventeen, who stood at the back of the crowd.
The 15-degree smile on their lips instantly widened to 45 degrees.
It cracked.
It was a real crack. Their mouths were torn open to their ears, revealing bright red gums, and a hissing sound like a bellows leaking air escaped their throats:
"Outsider..."
"Assimilate..."
Boom!
Thousands of people stood up simultaneously, like a black tide, surging towards the two.
"Seventeen, don't kill them all, it's too much power consumption."
Shen Qingqiu took a half step back and calmly commanded, "Find the source."
Seventeen didn't draw his sword.
Faced with these "zombies" who, though controlled, were essentially still mortal bodies, he chose a more efficient method.
He raised his hand, and a ball of eerie blue light erupted from his palm.
[System Interference Wave: Activated.]
Buzz— A blue ripple spread out from him.
The dozens of puppets at the forefront suddenly froze. Like a television with a poor signal, their bodies began to convulse violently; some even tripped over their own feet and fell flat on their faces.
But the people behind continued to surge forward.
"Up there." Shen Qingqiu abruptly looked up, his gaze piercing through the stage's dome, into the depths of the dark beams. "That person is up there!"
There, sat a man in red.
He sat cross-legged on a beam, his fingers flying, countless silver threads dancing at his fingertips, as if playing an invisible piano.
"I've been discovered." The man in red lowered his head, revealing a face painted with black and white. It was a standard Peking Opera mask, the black, white, and red lines outlining an eerie smile.
"I originally wanted to make you into the most perfect collectibles… what a pity." The puppeteer sighed, his fingers suddenly tightening.
Whoosh whoosh whoosh— The female and male leads on the stage suddenly exploded!
Instead of flesh and blood flowing from their bodies, countless silver needles shot out. Each needle trailed a long silver thread, raining down on Shen Qingqiu.
These were nano-cutting threads.
Anyone caught in them would be instantly sliced to pieces.
"Qingqiu!" Seventeen's pupils constricted sharply.
He didn't have time to use his interference waves.
Faced with an absolute physical attack, he chose the most primal form of protection.
He whirled around, shielding Shen Qingqiu tightly in his arms, his back braced against the rain of silver threads.
Thud thud thud— The sounds of sharp blades piercing flesh rang out rapidly.
Seventeen groaned, his body trembling violently.
While the silver threads couldn't cut through his bones (which were made of a high-strength alloy), they did slice through his skin and sever his bionic muscles.
His black clothes instantly ripped apart, revealing a crisscrossing network of wounds. The blood flowing from these wounds wasn't red, but a pale golden coolant mixed with that silvery demonic blood.
"Seventeen!" Shen Qingqiu, nestled in his arms, heard that agonizing, cutting sound, her heart aching as if gripped tightly by a hand.
"Don't...move." Seventeen held her head firmly against his chest, preventing her from looking up.
His voice trembled with suppressed pain, but more than anything, it was a near-obsessive reassurance, "It's alright...it doesn't hurt."
He looked up at the puppeteer on the roof beam.
His eyes, beneath the silver mask, had now turned a terrifying deep blue. A sign of his core processor operating at full power.
He was angry.
Very, very angry.
[Threat Assessment: Extremely High.]
[Restriction Released. Weapon System...Overload Mode Activated.]
"You...ruined...my clothes." Seventeen spoke slowly, his tone as cold as a hellish wind. These clothes were the ones Shen Qingqiu had bought for him just yesterday.
He released one hand, grabbing at the air.
The silver threads binding his back and body snapped with a crisp snap when he grabbed them.
He not only grasped the threads, but also, along them, grasped the other end of the data stream.
*Zzzzz—* A violent surge of blue electricity flowed upstream along the silver threads!
"Ah!!!" The puppeteer on the roof beam screamed in agony. He felt as if his ten fingers were on fire; the threads that had once obeyed him were now burning hot irons.
"How is this possible?! This is 'Heavenly Silk,' a gift from the gods! How could you control it in reverse?!" The puppeteer cried out in terror, trying to sever the connection.
Too late.
Seventeen yanked hard.
Boom!
The roof beam snapped. The puppeteer, like a kite with a broken string, crashed heavily onto the stage, kicking up a cloud of dust.
Seventeen, carrying Shen Qingqiu, walked step by step towards the stage.
With each step, the puppets that had been trying to attack him automatically collapsed. The high-level pressure emanating from Seventeen directly shattered the low-level control worms in their minds.
He walked up to the puppeteer, looking down at the man with the painted face.
At this moment, Shen Qingqiu peeked out from his embrace. She saw the wound on Seventeen's back healing at a visible speed, the pale golden liquid solidifying into new skin. A brief moment of relief followed by a surge of rage.
She walked up to the puppeteer and stomped on his still twitching fingers.
"Tell me, who gave you this technology?"
Shen Qingqiu leaned down, her [Overclocking Vision] locking onto the puppeteer's brain.
There, she saw a worm.
It wasn't a biological worm. It was a mechanical worm, no bigger than a grain of rice, made of liquid metal. It was perched on the puppeteer's brainstem, flashing a red breathing light.
"God…it's God…" The puppeteer's eyes were unfocused, foam dripping from his mouth, still laughing hysterically. "God said…human beings suffer too much; only by becoming puppets can they attain eternal bliss…"
"God?" Seventeen scoffed.
He reached out and plunged his hand directly into the puppeteer's skull. The movement was precise and brutal.
*Thud.*
When his hand was withdrawn, the still-struggling mechanical insect was held between two fingers.
The moment the mechanical insect left his body, the puppeteer's body convulsed violently, then slumped down like a lump of mud, completely lifeless.
Seventeen held the insect, his eyes flashing wildly with blue light, seemingly performing some kind of data reading.
Suddenly, the insect made a sound.
Not a chirping insect, but a fragmented, synthesized electronic voice:
"Warning…Recycler No. 007…has betrayed us…"
"Location locked…Uploading…" Seventeen's expression changed.
*Snap!* He squeezed hard, crushing the insect.
A wisp of black smoke rose, carrying a pungent, burnt smell.
"It's sending a signal," Seventeen said, turning to Shen Qingqiu, his tone grave. "To that… big guy."
Shen Qingqiu stared at the metallic dust remaining in his palm, her eyes deep.
"It seems these puppets throughout the city are nothing more than a large signal base station."
She looked around. With the puppeteer's death, the controlled townspeople collapsed unconscious. Although they lost consciousness, the "silver threads" on the back of their heads didn't disappear; instead, they withered rapidly, turning into wisps of black smoke and dissipating into the air.
"Recycler 007…"
Shen Qingqiu chewed on the number, gently stroking the mask on Seventeen's face. "So, this is your name in that system?"
Seventeen lowered his eyes uneasily.
"It doesn't sound good," he said sullenly. "I like… Seventeen."
Shen Qingqiu smiled.
On the stage, amidst the corpses and devastation of the city, she tiptoed and kissed his tightly pursed lips.
"Yes, there's no 007. Only Seventeen."
"Since they've discovered us, let's not hide anymore." Shen Qingqiu turned around, looking at the rolling dark clouds on the distant horizon. There, it seemed, a giant eye was slowly opening, watching this out-of-control area.
"The puppet show is over."
Shen Qingqiu pulled a tinderbox from her sleeve and threw it onto the stage piled high with willow catkins.
Boom— Flames instantly erupted. The dry willow catkins became the perfect accelerant, and the flames soared into the sky, engulfing the city's gloom and sin.
"Next act, it's our turn to go on stage." The firelight reflected in her eyes, dancing with a mad and captivating light.
Seventeen stood behind her, watching her back, silently tightening his grip on his sword.
The wound on his back had completely healed, but the instinct to protect her was branded into every line of his code.
Those who manipulate the threads are ultimately bound by them.
But those who cut the threads will tread upon the ashes and journey to true freedom.