The night is like ink, swallowing up the outline of Xuan Tower.
Different from the grand ceremony on the ground that announced the end of the old era, the real subversion is taking place under the Naka River Shrine ruins, on the ninth floor, which is classified as the empire's top secret.
Here, it is "Soul Encoding Workshop".
The air is filled with the slightly sweet smell of nutrient solution and the pungent smell of ozone. The cold silver-white metal walls are engraved with the Sealing Jutsu pattern designed by Uchiha Xuan himself to isolate perception and stabilize the soul.
In the center of the workshop, twelve crystal clear crystal pillars rise from the ground, each with light blue chakra fluid flowing inside, like the blood vessels of a giant.
In the center surrounded by crystal pillars is a huge glass cultivation cabin.
A baby girl who had just been named "Xuan Chu" by Uchiha Xuan was naked and suspended in a pale golden life-sustaining fluid.
Her still delicate body is connected to hundreds of nerve conduits that are thinner than hair. These conduits converge on the top of her head, and are connected to the end of a miniature Mangekyō Sharingan pattern carved from high-purity chakra red crystal.
The pattern was emitting an ominous red light, illuminating the baby girl's face in flickering light.
Chiyo Saori stood in front of the main console, staring solemnly at the complex data flow on the light screen in front of him.
The black uniform she wore was meticulous, but her pursed lips betrayed her inner uneasiness.
"Your Majesty Xuanhuang." She did not look back because she knew that Uchiha Xuan was already standing behind her, like a ghost and god integrated with the shadow.
"The data shows that Xuan Chu's genetic template has been synchronized with your instructions, and the body's various functions are being optimized in the preset direction. But..." Chiyo Saori's voice lowered, "Her subconscious still has an anchoring effect on her biological mother. Just now, the system detected abnormally active brain wave peaks in taboo emotional word clusters such as 'mother love', 'hug', and 'go home'."
Uchiha Xuan's eyes penetrated the glass and landed on the fragile life form. His eyes did not waver at all, as if he was examining a defective tool.
"Has her 'mother' been dealt with?" he asked calmly.
"In accordance with your will, they were exiled to the uninhabited wilderness on the border of Land of Wind three days ago, and all social ties were cut off." Chiyo Saori reported, "Theoretically, it is impossible for them to have any physical or spiritual intersection."
"Theory?" Uchiha Xuan's lips curled up with a hint of sarcasm.
At this moment, a low and melodious bell sounded in the workshop.
This is the standard timing of the New Empire, which will ring throughout the city every hour. Its sound waves are mixed with a special chakra frequency that can subtly affect the people's spirit and enhance obedience - <Xuan's First Tone>.
The moment the bell rang, Xuan Chu in the training cabin suddenly curled up, his little brows furrowed, as if he was avoiding something terrible, or seeking a non-existent embrace.
"Your Majesty, look..." Chiyo Saori pointed at the soaring brain wave map.
Uchiha Xuan and Rinne Sharingan rotated slightly, and the huge pupil power instantly enveloped the entire workshop.
He ignored Xuan Chu's reaction and directly traced back the bell's voiceprint data.
In his divine eyes, time seemed to flow backwards, and countless notes were disassembled, reorganized, and analyzed.
After a few seconds, he discovered the crux.
The resonance structure of a certain low-frequency band of <Xuan's First Tone> is surprisingly similar to the calming tune used by all hospitals in Fire Country in the old era to soothe crying newborns.
That is passive comfort. It is forced acceptance of gentleness.
"Ha," Uchi Hagen let out a cold chuckle, "It's really ironic. Even the most primitive tenderness has been penetrated by the rancid smell of the old world. They use this voice to tell the baby, 'Don't cry,' but the baby's instinct remembers the connection between this voice and 'mother'."
His bond rooted in biological instinct is more stubborn than any ninjutsu.
Since it cannot be stripped away, then completely pollute, distort, and rewrite it!
"Saori," he ordered, "Pause the global synchronous playback of <Xuan's First Tone> and change it to regional, wrong-frequency, and irregular playback. I want this sound to become synonymous with chaos and disorder."
"Yes!"
"In addition, turn on the 'deep encoding' mode and connect my will interface directly to the soul center of Xuan Chu."
Chiyo Saori's body trembled slightly, and a trace of hesitation flashed across his face, but in the end it turned into absolute obedience.
Her hands quickly operated on the console, and after inputting a series of complex commands, the red crystal Mangekyō Sharingan suspended above Xuan Chu suddenly lit up.
Uchiha Xuan closed his eyes, and his spiritual power, as vast as the sea of stars, was transformed by Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan into a pure "spiritual meme package".
The content of this meme package is extremely simple, with only one sentence and one concept:
"My only belonging is Xuan, my only calling is dad."
But he did not choose to instill it crudely and directly. That was too low-level and would only cause the collapse of the soul.
He accurately disassembled this meme package into the seven most primitive emotional frequencies, simulating respectively: fear of abandonment, heartbreaking hunger, biting cold, sharp pain, endless loneliness, dependence for survival, and... the only sense of security that finally came.
What he has to do is to use these seven emotions as a pen on the white paper of the baby's soul to draw the totem he wants.
The encoding program starts.
In the first hour, the frequency representing "fear" is injected.
Xuan Chu's body began to tremble uncontrollably, as if he had fallen into an endless nightmare.
The third hour represents the superposition of frequencies of "hunger" and "cold".
Her vital signs dropped sharply, and her body instinctively issued an extreme thirst for energy and warmth.
On the fifth hour, the third round of testing began.
When the frequency representing "loneliness" reaches its peak, sudden changes occur!
Xuan Chu in the culture cabin suddenly twitched violently. She opened her eyes suddenly, and abnormal bloodshot eyes appeared in her pupils that were supposed to be pure.
Her little mouth opened, and a hoarse scream came out of her throat:
"Mom... Mom... don't go..."
That childish call, with the most primitive attachment and despair, echoed in the cold workshop.
Chiyo Saori turned pale and subconsciously pressed the emergency interrupt program, "Your Majesty, her soul is producing a self-rejection reaction. If it continues..."
"Don't stop."
Uchiha Xuan's voice is as cold as ten thousand years of black ice.
Instead of stopping him, he raised a hand and clasped his fingers.
"Reverse activation of 'Silent Filtering Array', locking the 'initial' syllable and all associated emotional signals, defined as 'pain', polarity reversal, intensity three hundred!"
The command was issued, and the console emitted a rapid beep.
An invisible spiritual force field instantly enveloped the training cabin.
When that warm embrace and that fuzzy face reappeared in Xuan Chu's subconscious, and when she called out to "Mom" again, an unimaginable sharp pain originating from the depths of her soul was like a red-hot iron, scalding her nerve center!
"Ah--!"
The shrill screams no longer sounded like human voices.
Under the stimulation of severe pain, Xuan Chu's little hand suddenly scratched his face. The delicate skin was instantly scratched by the nails, and three bright red blood stains oozed out.
The brain area that originally represented "attachment" and "security" was now equated with the feedback of "severe pain" under the forced twisting of huge mental power.
Every instinctive longing is replaced by a lingering soul.
Chiyo Saori bit her lower lip so hard that it almost bled. She did not dare to look at that tragic scene again and could only force herself to focus on the data stream.
This torture lasted for a full seven hours.
Seven hours later, the heartbreaking crying finally stopped.
The baby girl in the training cabin became quiet, as if all her strength had been exhausted.
The data on the console has also leveled off.
Monitoring shows that all neural pathways related to "mother" have been physically blocked, or in other words, covered and sealed by a thick layer of "painful" pheromones.
Instead, there was an almost instinctive response to the audio of the word "Xuan" representing Uchiha Xuan.
Chiyo Saori trembled his fingers and followed the program to play a synthesized, low and clear male voice.
"Dad."
The moment the voice sounded, Xuan Chu, who had been in a deep coma, raised the corners of his mouth slightly, and his heartbeat rate instantly returned to the most stable and healthy level.
Her little bloody hand even reached out unconsciously in the nutrient solution, as if she wanted to grasp the source of the sound.
Uchiha Xuan nodded, his face as indifferent as the Creator.
"Now, she is not pretending to recognize me as her father." He whispered to Chiyo Saori beside him, as if he was saying to himself, "But she was born like this from the soul level."
Late at night, after Chiyo Saori and others retreated, only Uchiha Xuan was left in the empty workshop.
He read the final soul structure report of Xuan Chu alone.
The data shows that a perfect "one-way emotional reflex arc" has been formed.
She is no longer able to generate any autonomous emotional needs and can only make passive and programmed dependent responses to external stimuli, especially those related to "mystery".
This is a perfect piece of work.
Just then, a sharp and piercing siren broke the dead silence!
[Warning! There is structural damage to the outer wall of the No. 3 culture cabin! Non-physical damage!]
Uchiha Xuan suddenly raised his head and saw that the surface of the indestructible glass culture cabin had fine cracks like spider webs appearing without any warning.
These cracks are not caused by external impacts, but are caused by a violent backflow of chakra from within!
What's even weirder is that the arrangement of those cracks is not chaotic, they are winding and intertwined, and finally a line of twisted and ancient cuneiform writing is outlined on the bulkhead!
That handwriting was exactly the same as the curse about the fate of the Uchiha Clan that he saw on the oldest stone wall of the Uchiha Clan!
--A person named Xuan will eventually kill his father.
Uchiha Xuan's Rinne Sharingan stared at the line of cracked words, and the air around him seemed to freeze.
After a long time, he slowly closed his eyes, but an extremely cold arc escaped from the corner of his mouth.
"It turns out... doesn't even a baby's tampered dream want to avenge me for those who died?"
Before he finished speaking, he opened his eyes suddenly, and a wave of chakra that was a hundred times more violent than before erupted from the training cabin.
Xuan Chu's little body began to emit a hot, abnormal red light.