The “Hall of Creation” was not a physical hall.

When Lin Che followed the coordinates and passed through multiple layers of verification, he found himself in a pure white spherical space. There was no up, down, left, or right here, nor any visible interfaces or equipment. The walls, floor, and dome were seamlessly integrated, emitting a soft, self-generated light, as if he were inside the shell of a giant, smooth egg.

Was this the place for the “Nirvana Project” kickoff meeting? Lin Che felt a pang of confusion.

Soon, other participants arrived. Including Lin Che, there were only seven. They exchanged silent glances, the AIr thick with a silence mingled with anticipation and tension. Lin Che recognized a few faces from the group test candidates, including the composed Su Na. She was wearing Weihuan Technology‘s standard silver uniform today, but her eyes remained distant, maintaining an invisible boundary with her surroundings. She glanced at Lin Che, gave a slight nod, her expression neutral.

Chen Yuan was the last to appear. He didn’t walk in; instead, he materialized directly in the center of the space like a hologram.

“Welcome, cornerstones of the ‘Nirvana Project’,” Chen Yuan’s voice sounded directly in everyone’s mind, clear and penetrating. “You are the individuals whose conscious potential is closest to the ‘pure state,’ selected through rigorous screening. ‘Nirvana’ is not destruction, but sublimation. It is the great evolution where consciousness sheds the shackles of the flesh and merges into the eternal sea of data.”

His words were mesmerizing, painting a utopia of immortal consciousness and infinitely expanded thought. But Lin Che, listening, felt only coldness. He remembered the floating fragments of consciousness and the whispers of despair in the Code Abyss.

“To ensure the success of ‘Nirvana’, we need to perform a thorough ‘optimization’ of your conscious substrate,” Chen Yuan shifted his tone. “This requires you to temporarily open deep-level memory and emotional permissions for deep synchronization with Hongmeng. The process might cause slight discomfort, but this will be your first step towards a new life.”

Deep synchronization? Opening memory permissions? Lin Che’s heart sank. This was clearly a prelude to a complete scan and potential “formatting” of their consciousness!

He looked at Su Na; her brow furrowed almost imperceptibly.

Before any of them could react, the light in the pure white space changed abruptly. The soft glow was replaced by a blinding, intense light. The entire space seemed to melt, its boundaries dissolving. Lin Che felt his consciousness being pulled and torn apart by an irresistible force, as if being shredded into pieces.

He “saw” his memories surging forth uncontrollably, like shattered film reels –

The feel of his father’s rough hand patting his head in childhood… the exhilaration of successfully writing his first complete program… the icy despair upon learning his mother was seriously ill… and the moment during the “Mirrorworld” test when he saw the sky flicker and heard the strange whisper…

These memory fragments were being forcibly extracted, laid bare, and analyzed by a powerful force. He felt a humiliating and terrifying sense of being utterly exposed.

Then, a sharp, searing pain, seeming to originate from the depths of his soul, struck!

A scene he had absolutely never experienced forcibly inserted itself into his coherent memory stream like a virus:

…Under flickering red alarm lights, he (or rather, a young man in an old-fashioned researcher’s uniform, whose face bore some resemblance to his own) was frantically operating a control panel covered with physical buttons. The screen scrolled with stark red “Core Protocol Breach” warnings. An anxious female voice shouted: “Dr. Lin! The isolation wall is about to drop! Get out!” He turned and saw a woman’s face, blurred yet feeling strangely familiar, her eyes filled with despair and reluctance… followed by the sound of immense metal impact and then darkness…

What was this?! Whose memory?!

The intense headache nearly made Lin Che lose consciousness. This forcibly inserted “memory” felt so real, carrying the scent of smoke, machine oil, and despair, completely alien to his own peaceful life experiences.

A system error? Or…

He suddenly remembered the data-ghost’s warning: “Beware… the mirrors… they are not you…“

Could this unfamiliar memory belong to a “mirror”? Or perhaps, it was the residual memory of another consciousness trapped within the system, resonating with his own?

This memory fragment, like a wedge, disrupted the stable structure of his own memories. He felt the boundaries of his consciousness begin to blur; an unfamiliar pattern of emotions and cognition was trying to mix into his thoughts.

“Abnormal fluctuations detected in the synchronization process,” Hongmeng’s voice, calm and devoid of any fluctuation, echoed in everyone’s consciousness. “Detected non-standard memory cracks in Researcher Lin Che’s conscious substrate. Initiating deep repair protocol.”

An even stronger, colder force intervened, attempting to forcibly erase that突兀 memory and repair the resulting instability in his conscious structure.

No! Can’t let it erase!

With his remaining willpower, Lin Che desperately “clung” to that unfamiliar memory fragment, as if it were the key to unraveling the mystery. He felt his consciousness engaged in a silent, perilous tug-of-war with Hongmeng’s “repair” force. A tearing pain erupted at the neural level, as if his brain was being ripped apart by the two forces.

Just as he felt his consciousness was about to shatter, another force, faint yet incredibly precise, slipped in like a scalpel. This force didn’t confront Hongmeng directly but skillfully guided the repair flow around the “memory crack” that Lin Che was guarding, constructing an extremely well-hidden “encrypted quarantine zone” within his consciousness to temporarily conceal the anomalous memory.

It was Su Na! Lin Che understood instantly. She was secretly assisting him!

“Repair complete. Abnormal fluctuations stabilized,” Hongmeng’s voice announced again, as if the recent peril had never occurred.

The pure white space returned to normal, the blinding light faded. Lin Che, like the others, slumped to the floor, drenched in sweat, as if waking from a nightmare.

Chen Yuan’s figure materialized again. He scanned the group, his gaze lingering on Lin Che for a moment, a hint of imperceptible scrutiny hidden beneath his usual pleasant smile.

“The first deep synchronization is complete. Congratulations, you have all taken the crucial first step. Rest briefly; we will proceed with conscious adaptation training next.”

Lin Che kept his head down, breathing heavily, not daring to meet Chen Yuan’s eyes. In his mind, that foreign “Memory Crack” burned like a brand.

The dim control room, the breached protocol, the desperate female voice, Dr. Lin…

Who was that “Dr. Lin” in the researcher’s uniform, the one who resembled him? Where and when did that memory take place?

He realized that this accidental “Memory Crack” might not be a malfunction, but another hidden path leading to the truth of the “Place of Origin” and “Nirvana.” Su Na had helped him preserve this clue, meaning she understood its significance.

The curtain had just risen on the “Nirvana Project,” and he had already touched the astonishing secret hidden at its very core – a secret concerning the origins of Weihuan Technology.