The crying just wouldn't stop.
It echoed through the wrecked factory in faint waves, shifting direction like it was searching for the easiest way in.
Mu Chen kept his face totally blank.
But inside, his chest felt like it was being squeezed.
It wasn't because he thought a real child was there.
It was because some sounds stick with you, long after your childhood is over.
Ye Fan started walking towards the factory again.
Mu Chen stuck right behind him.
Zhou Xiao whispered, "If this is another mind game—"
"It is," Lin Lan cut in.
Her voice was firm, but her knuckles were white gripping the tablet.
They walked into the factory.
The inside felt wrong, but in a way that felt all too familiar. Cracked concrete, rusty railings, collapsed metal beams. But over in the far corner, under a busted light, was a line of narrow beds.
Mu Chen's breath hitched.
These weren't factory beds.
They were dorm beds.
Just simple metal frames with thin blankets.
The crying was coming from there.
Lin Lan's voice dropped. "It's pulling up memories and building itself around them."
Zhou Xiao swallowed hard. "Whose memories?"
Nobody answered.
Because the answer was painfully obvious.
The gate was hitting them where it hurt the most.
Mu Chen looked at the beds.
One blanket was neatly folded.
One was half on the floor.
One bed was empty, but the pillow had an indentation like someone had just gotten up.
The air around the beds started to shimmer.
Then a child appeared.
Not quite real.
Just a shape made of the gate's light and shadow.
Small.
Thin.
Barefoot.
Its head was down, crying softly into its hands.
Mu Chen's fingers tightened inside his gloves.
Next to him, Ye Fan went completely still.
Mu Chen didn't need to look to know why.
The child lifted its head.
Its face was blurry at first.
Then it sharpened.
It wasn't just one child.
Two faces flickered back and forth.
For a second, it looked like a younger Mu Chen.
Then, it looked like someone else.
Someone with hard eyes, short hair, and a stare that was way too old for a child.
A younger Ye Fan.
*Bleed-through,* Mu Chen thought.
The gate was grabbing memories from both of them and mixing them up.
Zhou Xiao let out a quiet curse. "What is that?"
Lin Lan's voice was strained. "Don't talk to it. Don't go near it."
The child looked up at Ye Fan.
Then at Mu Chen.
Its mouth moved.
"Why didn't you come back?"
The voice was off.
It sounded like a child, but also like a dozen voices layered on top of each other.
Mu Chen felt a sharp pang in his chest.
Not guilt.
Something close to it.
He'd left so much behind to survive. Places. People. Parts of himself.
Next to him, Ye Fan's breathing changed.
That scared Mu Chen more than the child.
Ye Fan was losing control.
Mu Chen took a small step closer. "Don't listen."
The child whipped its head around towards Mu Chen.
Its crying stopped instantly.
The silence that followed was worse.
Then the child smiled.
Too wide.
Too vacant.
The beds behind it warped. Metal bent like soft wire. Blankets darkened and spread out like spilled oil.
That whole corner of the room twisted.
The factory wasn't just imitating a memory anymore.
It was feeding on it.
The child lunged forward.
Fast.
Not at Mu Chen.
At Ye Fan.
Ye Fan moved, but he was half a second too slow.
Too much memory. Too much noise.
Mu Chen reacted purely on instinct.
He grabbed Ye Fan's sleeve with one hand and sent a powerful pulse of calm straight into him.
No subtle defense this time.
No gentle buffer.
A direct strike of silence.
Ye Fan's eyes cleared instantly.
He moved without hesitation.
Knife out.
One slash across the child's throat.
The body exploded into black smoke.
The smoke screamed.
The sound ripped through the room, and for a moment, the walls around them shifted again.
Mu Chen saw yellow hallway lights.
A pile of shoes by a door.
Cold rice in metal bowls.
A small hand gripping a blanket way too tight.
Then it was gone.
The scream stopped.
Zhou Xiao was gasping. "Tell me that wasn't real."
Lin Lan stared at Mu Chen.
Not at Ye Fan.
At Mu Chen.
Because this time, he couldn't hide it.
Mu Chen had touched Ye Fan's sleeve.
Mu Chen had sent power straight into him.
Mu Chen had stopped Ye Fan from breaking.
Ye Fan turned slowly and looked at Mu Chen.
His eyes were blazing with anger and something even more dangerous.
Recognition.
He knew exactly what Mu Chen had done.
And he had felt every bit of it.
Lin Lan found her voice first. "That wasn't C-class."
Silence.
The gate whispered around them.
The factory creaked.
Mu Chen let go of Ye Fan's sleeve and stepped back.
His voice was calm. "We need the core."
Ye Fan held his gaze for another second.
Then he snapped his head around and scanned the factory. "Core first."
Zhou Xiao looked like he had ten questions, but knew he couldn't ask them.
Lin Lan swallowed and checked her readings. "Below us. Lower level."
They headed towards a stairwell half-hidden behind broken machinery.
Mu Chen walked behind Ye Fan again, but the distance between them felt different now.
Something had shifted.
Too much had happened.
Down on the lower level, the air grew colder. The whispering sound returned, but fainter. The gate had used up energy on the trap upstairs.
They found the core in an old control room.
It sat in the middle of a cracked console, glowing with a dark red light, surrounded by wires that looked like they had grown there rather than being built.
Ye Fan raised his weapon.
The core pulsed hard.
And for one instant, the entire room flashed with memory again.
Not images this time.
Feelings.
Cold hunger.
Endless waiting.
Nobody coming.
Nobody choosing you.
Mu Chen almost couldn't breathe.
He heard Ye Fan inhale sharply.
Then Ye Fan fired.
The core shattered.
The room shook.
Lin Lan yelled, "Move!"
They ran for the stairwell as the factory began to collapse around them. Metal shrieked overhead. Concrete split apart. Black dust filled the air.
Zhou Xiao coughed. Lin Lan almost fell. Ye Fan grabbed her arm and kept them moving.
Mu Chen followed, his lungs burning.
Behind them, the gate world crumpled in on itself like wet paper catching fire.
They burst out into the open yard just as the exit tear opened up in the air ahead.
Ye Fan reached it first.
He turned back.
His eyes found Mu Chen instantly.
Not the team.
Mu Chen.
Mu Chen reached him a second later, and for one strange, drawn-out moment, they stood too close in the shaking darkness.
Ye Fan's hand moved as if he was going to grab him.
He stopped himself.
Mu Chen saw it anyway.
Then the world snapped, and they were back outside the gate, under the gray morning sky.
Base staff rushed towards them.
Scanners.
Questions.
Hands reaching for readings.
Mu Chen instinctively stepped away from them.
Lin Lan was pale.
Zhou Xiao looked shaken.
Ye Fan looked terrifyingly calm.
One staff member looked at a monitor and froze.
Then looked at Mu Chen.
Not with surprise.
With confirmation.
Mu Chen knew what that meant.
The mission feed had recorded enough.
More than enough.
The base now had proof of what he could do.
And contained within that proof was something worse.
Proof that Ye Fan responded to him.
Not officially.
Not on any record.
But undeniably.
The bleed-through worked both ways.
The gate had pulled memories from both of them.
And the system would notice that too.