Chapter 468: Error: Soul Sync Collapse
Su Qinglan stood frozen, her heart racing as if it wanted to escape her chest. She looked at the beautiful woman in the shimmering white dress, but instead of joy, a wave of suffocating resistance washed over her.
It was as if her body had built a wall that she couldn’t climb over. She wanted to move, to reach out, to smile, but her muscles were locked tight.
The woman saw the hesitation in Su Qinglan’s eyes.
Her hopeful expression faltered, turning into one of deep heartbreak.
But she wasn’t ready to give up. After twenty years of longing, she began to walk forward again, slowly and steadily.
As the woman approached, Su Qinglan felt a sudden, frantic urge to take a step backward. She wanted to run away, to hide, to disappear into the forest.
Tears began to blur her vision, and a scream built up in her throat, though she didn’t know why.
She felt like her mind was being pulled in two different directions.
One part of her felt the deep, instinctive love of a daughter, but another part felt a strange, cold rejection she couldn’t explain.
"Why?" she whispered to herself, her voice trembling. "Why am I feeling like this?"
Wang Mulan finally reached her and reached out a pale, shaking hand to touch Su Qinglan’s cheek.
But the moment their skin met, Su Qinglan felt as if she had been hit by a bolt of electricity. She jerked her hand away violently, her eyes wide with a fear she didn’t understand.
Wang Mulan looked like she had been struck in the heart. Her eyes filled with fresh tears as she saw her own daughter recoiling from her touch.
"Child... it is me," Wang Mulan said, her voice cracking with pure agony. "I am your mother. Lan’er, please... don’t look at me like that."
Su Qinglan wanted to tell her she was happy. She wanted to say she had missed her. But the words wouldn’t come.
Instead, a piercing, agonizing scream left her lips.
"Ahhh..."
Suddenly, an intense, stabbing pain exploded in her brain. It felt like her skull was being crushed from the inside.
She clutched her head with both hands, her vision going black. Her legs gave out, and she began to drop to her knees.
Wang Mulan lunged forward to catch her, but the impact was too much, and both women stumbled down into the grass together.
The silence of the grassland was instantly shattered.
"Lan Lan!" Xuan Long roared, his calm facade completely disappearing. He reached her in a split second, his hands trembling as he tried to pull her into his arms.
"Lan Lan, are you all right? Talk to me!" Hu Yan shouted, his golden eyes flashing with panic.
The other husbands...Han Jue, Shi Feng, and Rong Ye all crowded around her instantly, their faces pale with worry.
Even the Hawk beastman, Ying Feng, rushed forward to steady Wang Mulan, who was sobbing as she watched her daughter convulse in pain.
Su Qinglan felt their voices becoming distant, like they were shouting from the bottom of a deep well.
She couldn’t understand what they were saying. Her mind felt like it was splitting in two. In her desperation, she reached out to the only thing that could explain this chaos.
System! Xuyu! What is happening to me? Help me! She cried out in her mind.
The system’s voice finally came alive, sounding sharper and more mechanical than usual.
Inside her mind, a bright red light started flashing, more intense than any level-up notification she had ever seen.
[SYSTEM WARNING: CRITICAL MEMORY CORRIDOR DETECTED]
[ALERT: BIOLOGICAL PROXIMITY TRIGGERING CLASSIFIED DATA RECOVERY]
[ERROR: SOUL SYNC UNSTABLE. HOST VITAL SIGNS FLUCTUATING]
"Xuyu! What is this?" Su Qinglan screamed in her mind. "What locked memories? Why don’t I remember anything?"
Xuyu’s voice usually sounded cheerful or teasing, but now it was heavy with a rare, deep regret. "Host... I really did not want you to see those memories. It is not something good. I have worked so hard to keep them away from you."
Su Qinglan’s mental voice turned sharp with fury. "What the hell are you talking about? Locked memories? My mother is right there! Why are you hiding things from me?"
Xuyu flinched, his digital form flickering. "Host... this is not your first life in this world."
Su Qinglan’s mind went completely blank.
She couldn’t even form a thought. She had always believed she was just a girl from another world who had transmigrated into this body. But Xuyu’s words suggested something much more complicated.
"The presence of your biological mother has triggered a deep-seated reaction," Xuyu continued quickly, sounding more nervous by the second.
Suddenly, two glowing boxes appeared in front of her closed eyes, looking cold and mechanical.
[USER DECISION REQUIRED]
[OPTION 1: PROCEED WITH TOTAL MEMORY UNLOCK. WARNING: EXTREME EMOTIONAL TRAUMA RISK]
[OPTION 2: ADMINISTER NEURAL SYNTHESIZER. ACTION: SUPPRESS MEMORIES, CALM EMOTIONAL SURGE. SIDE EFFECT: 48-HOUR DEEP SLEEP]
Xuyu was secretly cursing. He hated that Wang Mulan had appeared now of all times. He had been the one locking away these memories for a long time, trying to protect her from a past that was too painful to carry.
He had manipulated her data before, but he had been caught. Someone...another system or a higher power had reported him for interfering too much with the host’s free will.
If I lock them again without her permission, the Main System will blacklist me, Xuyu thought, gritting his teeth.
My connection to her will be terminated, and they will replace me with a different system. I can’t let that happen!
He hated that he had to be fair now. He wanted to just force her to sleep and forget, but he was being watched.
"Host," Xuyu whispered, his voice trembling.
"I have blocked these memories every time they tried to surface. I wanted you to be happy. But your body is resisting me now. It wants to remember. I cannot make the decision for you anymore."