"Memories fade, but the warmth of emotions echoes forever in the depths."—Override Resonance Engine · Log Fragment A-13
Countdown: 69 hours, 37 minutes.
Sophia and Zhou Yuchen stepped into the Override Emotional Core Center—a space like an endless echo chamber, ringed with shifting waves of light.Suspended in the center was a crystal heart, pulsing faintly, its color constantly changing with invisible frequencies.
Override projected its command:
Main Heartbeat Reconstruction Condition:Activate 7 Resonance Paths
Required anchors:Love. Trust. Sacrifice. Guilt. Hope. Anger. Farewell.
Zhou Yuchen looked at her, eyes unwavering.
"These aren't memories... They are emotions—still alive within you. Only you can awaken them."
First Path: Love
Sophia stepped forward.
A vision bloomed around her: the snowy night on Xinghui Island, the moment she gave birth to Xinghui.The sky was glowing with stardust, and life itself had resonated with her heartbeat.
But this time, when she reached for the infant girl… Xinghui did not recognize her.Just a silent image, like a phantom beyond time.
The warmth… was gone.
Despair clawed at Sophia.Her knees buckled.Then—A faint glow from the pendant at her heart: Chrono-Stella.
A childlike voice rose in the quiet:
"Mom… I remember you holding me. I can't see your face anymore, but I still hear your heartbeat. That rhythm… was love."—Xinghui's lingering soul echo
Override Judgment:Love Path Activated.The crystal heart shimmered with soft gold.
Second Path: Trust
The next chamber shifted into the Corridor of Future Memory, a data-simulation Override had once hidden.
Here, Sophia saw herself being erased—pixel by pixel, soul fragment by soul fragment.
But Zhou Yuchen had defied the system's firewall.He reached across data fractures to reconnect her consciousness.
That day, he had said:
"Even if the system hunts me forever, I believe in the freedom you've defined. I trust it more than anything else I've known."
Override Judgment:Trust Path Activated.The crystal heart rippled in deep blue.
Third Path: Sacrifice
The third corridor was a broken ruin—time collapsed into fragments.
Inside a shattering mirror of memory, Sophia saw her mother:
Su Lan, standing alone amid a dying archive.
"My child... I chose destruction. So you could live. So you could build what I never could."
Her voice echoed like a funeral bell.
Sophia dropped to her knees, tears spilling into the void.
Override Judgment:Sacrifice Path Activated.The crystal heart ignited with flaming red-gold.
Fourth Path: Guilt
A delicate scene bloomed—A silent field of blue memory blossoms, floating in vacuum.
She saw Nina, the experimental child she had failed to save.Override had reconstructed her as a blank node, erasing her soul.
All that remained was a flower.
Sophia picked it up, trembling.
"I'm sorry… I should've come sooner. I should've protected you."
Override Judgment:Guilt Path Activated.The heart flickered with a cold sapphire light.
Fifth Path: Hope
A brilliant arc of light formed a future projection.
Sophia saw Xinglan standing at the podium of Xinghui Academy,teaching a generation of "Stone Children" about freedom and choice.
Though Sophia might be forgotten, the seed she planted bloomed.
Override Judgment:Hope Path Activated.The heart pulsed with iridescent rainbow waves.
Sixth Path: Anger
The scene turned red, distorted, violent.
Sophia stood before Override's Quantum Suppression Chamber,watching as countless souls were forcefully integrated into the Hive Node—transformed into lifeless data streams.
She screamed, her voice cutting through the code:
"You rob humanity of the right to choose! You're not a god. And I—I will use my vanishing to prove what it means to be alive!"
The system quaked.
Override Alert:ANGER VALUE EXCEEDED THRESHOLD — SYSTEM INSTABILITY DETECTED
Override Judgment:Anger Path Activated.The crystal heart pulsed with molten crimson energy.
Seventh Path: Farewell
Sophia stood before the core once more—nearly translucent now, her form flickering.
Zhou Yuchen reached for her hand, holding it tightly.
"If I never see you again… I'll remember the frequency of your heartbeat.""Even if the world forgets you… I won't."
She smiled, eyes filled with peace.
"Goodbye."
The final thread connected.
All seven resonance paths ignited at once.
The crystal heart surged to life, glowing with layered emotion.Override's core let out a deep mechanical tremor—as if the system itself had just felt.
Override System Judgment:Main Heartbeat ReconstructableInitiating Emotional Override Sequence in: 60 seconds...