The moment the black shoots took root on the metallic earth, the frozen soil under Chu Yun's feet suddenly boiled. Gears and bearings broke through the ground like spring shoots, twisting into a mechanical forest. The young girl Xiao Man's white skirt was hooked by the gears, and the fabric ripped open to reveal the data stream woven lining - her body was adapting to the rules of this purely mechanical universe.
"Seeding countdown in 30 minutes." A blood-colored projection floated in the air, and below the numbers was Dr. Lin's genetic signature. Chu Yun tried to pull up the shoots, but realized that the root system was already connected to the earth's core furnace. The shrill whine of ripping metal came from the distance, and giant garden golems crawled out of the horizon - their scissor arms spliced together from countless miniature Chu Yun's mechanical bones.
The gardening golems had Zero's mechanical heart embedded within their eye sockets, releasing pruning commands with each heartbeat. Chu Yun tugged Xiao Man to flee through the Gear Forest, the metal vines behind him strangling the path. Data streams oozed from Xiao Man's fingertips, and the mechanical plants that touched them suddenly reversed and wrapped around the pursuing golem.
"There's a virus code in your body!" Chu Yun realized that Xiao Man's pupils flashed with lines of black shoots. She tore open her wrist, revealing silver veins, "You're the one who turned me into a weapon." Memory fragments suddenly flooded into Chu Yun's mind: in some erased reincarnation, he had injected the black shoots' genes into the spinal cord of the embryonic Xiao Man.
At the end of the escape was the entrance to the Earth's nuclear furnace, with 999 seeds of the universe floating on the boiling steel. The countdown jumps to 00:05:00, and the Garden Golem suddenly stops attacking and collectively kneels in prayer. An alabaster throne rose from the center of the furnace, the seat entwined with the mechanical remnants of the original Chu Yun.
"Sacrifice her and restart the seeding protocol." The chest cavity of the remnant body cracked open, revealing the incubation chamber - within it was sealed the healthy baby girl Xiao Man. The teenage girl, Xiao Man, sneered as the data stream turned into a sharp blade and stabbed into the culture pod. The steel water suddenly ripples, swirling the two into a vortex.
Chu Yun grabbed Baby Girl Xiao Man in the steel water while Teenage Girl Xiao Man's data stream wrapped around his ankle, "We can only survive one!" The depths of the furnace reached out with primordial mechanical tentacles, yanking the baby girl towards the core. The moment the countdown hit zero, Chu Yun stabbed his heart with a black shoot-
The furnace froze, and all the mechanical universes came to a standstill at the same time.
The silhouette of the young girl, Xiao Man, laughed softly before dissipating, "You've finally learned how to be a gardener ..."
A new countdown projection condenses on the surface of the steel:
Seeding protocol interrupted, ultimate purification initiated - 00:30:00
The cries of baby girl Xiao Man came from the frozen furnace, and the same tender bud birthmark as Chu Yun's surfaced on the back of her neck. At the end of the horizon, countless mechanical eyes opened, their pupils reflecting the Magnolia Tree in a higher dimension - underneath the tree stood the elderly Chu Yun, dressed in a gardener's uniform, handing scissors to his ten-year-old self.