Mu Xi slowly surfaced from the depths of darkness, but her senses felt as if they were imprisoned in an invisible cage.
She lay on a cold bed, her limbs and torso ruthlessly restrained, leaving her unable to manage even a slight tremor.
The air was thick with the pungent scent of disinfectant, mixed with a strange odor of scorched metal and plastic that scraped against her sensitive nostrils.
The piercing glare of the shadowless surgical light above enveloped her in a deathly pale halo, yet it only illuminated her face and head.
Everything else around her remained hidden in the darkness.
Mu Xi tried to turn her head to investigate where she was, only to find that her neck was firmly fixed in place by some kind of device.
All she could see was the cold, glowing ceiling and that unsettling lamp.
“Subject response is normal. EEG shows consciousness is recovering,” a calm female voice came from the right, her tone so mechanical she sounded less than human.
“Continue monitoring frontal and temporal lobe activity. Do not let her fully wake up,” another male voice commanded, a hint of impatience bleeding through.
“The chip implantation requires her to remain in a semi-conscious state.”
‘The chip implantation.’
Those words hit Mu Xi like a heavy hammer, sending a surge of fear through every nerve in her body.
She wanted to scream, to resist, but she found her vocal cords seemingly frozen.
She could only squeeze a faint whimper from her throat.
“She is trying to vocalize. Muscle tension is rising,” another voice reported, tinged with a flicker of alertness.
Someone leaned over her.
Mu Xi saw a pair of hands encased in rubber gloves and eyes hidden behind a surgical mask.
Those eyes were cold and focused, as if they were examining a piece of laboratory equipment rather than a living, breathing human being.
“Increase the sedative dose. Do not let her become too awake,” the man ordered, his voice carrying both authority and a touch of anxiety.
“We cannot afford a mistake at this stage.”
With a slight sting, more drugs were injected into Mu Xi’s veins.
She felt her thoughts begin to wander, fragments of memory floating in her consciousness.
Ye Lan’s face flashed before her eyes.
Those eyes, always so full of a desire for control, were now something she inexplicably yearned to see.
‘Is it Ye Lan who sent me here?’ Mu Xi pondered through the chaos.
‘Or is this another torture she’s carefully orchestrated?’
‘No, this doesn’t seem like Ye Lan’s style — Ye Lan likes to witness her prey’s struggle and submission firsthand, rather than handing it over to cold strangers.’
“Brain scans show her memory center is abnormally active,” a researcher reported, fingers sliding quickly across a screen.
“It might be a flashback caused by the drugs.”
“It is irrelevant,” the lead researcher said with a wave of his hand, his tone a mix of disdain and urgency.
“Continue the upload. Set the priority to maximum and override all resistant neural circuits.”
Mu Xi felt a strange, stinging sensation spread from the top of her head to the rest of her body, as if countless tiny insects were crawling through her veins and nerves.
Her memories suddenly became fragmented, the speed of the flashes breathtaking and suffocating.
She saw her former Luxurious Castle, her father’s gentle gaze, Ye Lan’s eyes filled with both hatred and longing, Ling Yue’s patient guidance as she taught her to play the piano, and the hesitant yet kind smile Li Xin had once shown her.
All of these memories were being pulled, reassembled, and rewritten under an invisible force.
“Damn, her resistance is much higher than expected,” the lead researcher suddenly cursed, his voice thick with tension.
“Increase input power. Bypass the hippocampal defense mechanisms.”
“But this could cause permanent memory loss,” the female assistant reminded him, her fingers hovering over the keyboard.
“Execute the order!” the man snapped, a look of grim determination in his eyes.
“She only needs to keep what we want her to remember.”
Mu Xi felt a violent headache, as if someone were repeatedly striking her skull with a hammer.
She thought of the small Gun.
The small Gun Ye Lan had given her—the weapon that was supposed to protect her.
Now, it was somewhere far away, unreachable.
The irony was that, at this moment, she actually hoped Ye Lan would appear and rescue her from this nightmare.
“Abnormal fluctuations in the EEG. She might be fighting the implantation program,” the young assistant cried out, her voice colored with unease.
“Increase the dosage!” the leader roared, sweat dripping from his forehead.
“Failure is not an option!”
Mu Xi felt her consciousness being eroded bit by bit.
A cold, mechanical way of thinking was trying to replace her original thoughts.
She resisted desperately, clinging to the memories that were most important to her — her musical talent, her past with Li Xin, and even the distorted yet real emotional connection she shared with Ye Lan.
“Her heart rate is unstable. Blood pressure is rising sharply,” an anxious voice reported.
“Hold on for five more minutes, and the program implantation will be complete,” the lead researcher insisted, a maniacal light shining in his eyes.
“She will be our most successful subject.”
“But we might lose her!” the female assistant countered, her voice trembling with obvious fear.
“That is the price,” the man replied coldly, his hands moving rapidly over the control console.
“Proceed.”
Mu Xi felt a powerful current surge through her brain, and her consciousness was torn into countless fragments.
Before falling completely into the abyss, she saw a blurry figure rush into the room…
***
Mu Xi drifted in the darkness, her consciousness like shredded paper scattering and reassembling in the void.
Her Dream began to unfold like a fading scroll, edges blurred, but the center exceptionally vivid.
The seawater was biting cold, and salty waves lashed against her small body.
Mu Xi felt herself floating on the boundless surface of the ocean, her limbs numb from being submerged for so long.
At the horizon where the sky met the sea, a blurry shadow gradually became clear.
“Is anyone there? Help me!” She tried to call out, but her voice was torn apart by the sea breeze, and her throat was dry and painful from dehydration.
The shadow drew closer, finally revealing the silhouette of a medium-sized cargo ship.
On the deck, a figure leaned against the railing, eyes locked onto Mu Xi as she struggled in the water.
“Fish her out,” the woman’s voice said with an unquestionable sense of command, yet it held a strange hint of tenderness.
A rough rope fell beside Mu Xi.
She grabbed this lifeline with all her strength, feeling herself being pulled from the water by a powerful force.
When she was finally dragged onto the deck, soaking wet with lips turned purple from a lack of oxygen, a pair of long legs appeared in her line of sight.
Mu Xi looked up and saw a face she would never forget for the rest of her life.
Long blonde hair flew in the sea breeze like flowing sunlight.
Her deep blue eyes were as profound as the ocean she had just escaped, yet they held a warmth the sea lacked.
Beneath a high bridge of a nose was a well-defined mouth, currently curved into a smile that was both gentle and dangerous.
She was tall with a stunning silhouette.
Her tight captain’s uniform outlined a full bust and a slender waist, while leather boots hugged her long legs.
The woman radiated an aura of combined wildness and elegance.
“Who are you? Why are you at sea?”
The woman knelt down, placing a hand against Mu Xi’s cold cheek.
The warmth from her fingertips caused Mu Xi to instinctively lean closer.
“I… I was abandoned,” Mu Xi whispered, her chest tightening at the memory of her parents’ cold faces and the hands that had pushed her away.