The trembling of the girl's body slowly subsided for the first time.
On the altar, Ling opened her eyes.
Those eyes that were once filled with fear and curse are now as clear as water, like newly born glass.
The "obey" command forced into me by Voiceprint Prison is like a formatting of the spiritual world, erasing all traces of struggle.
She has become more stable than ever.
Every day, she would enter meditation on time, like a sophisticated antenna, receiving the invisible force field that pervaded the empire's territory.
Then, at the time of application, she will "broadcast" the prediction on time.
"Worker No. 734 in the Southeast Mining Area has an emotional threshold that exceeds the standard by 12%, and there is a risk of defection."
"Three supervisors at the Xijing Textile Factory have committed malfeasance and are collaborating to falsify production data."
"Land of Wind border, a wandering ninja team is approaching, with unknown intentions."
Each "prophecy" is as accurate as a scalpel, pointing directly at the smallest lesions on the body of Uchiha Xuan's huge empire.
Suppressive troops can always arrive at the moment of turmoil and nip all unstable factors in the cradle.
Ling, this former S-class experimental subject, has now become the empire's most perfect early warning system.
However, in this perfect "tooling" process, an extremely small anomaly caught the attention of Myriad Phenomena Devouring System.
Every time she wakes up from meditation, the corners of Ling's lips will always rise slightly uncontrollably.
It was an extremely short arc, too fast to be captured by the naked eye, but it was accurately recorded by ubiquitous surveillance probes.
That's a smile.
A pure smile that had nothing to do with any of her known emotions - pain, fear, numbness.
In the central control room, Uchiha Xuan's fingertips lightly touched the data flow waterfall, calling up this abnormal muscle movement model.
[Facial micro-expression analysis...]
[Model matching... Database: Chiyo Saori, Childhood Psychological Archives.]
[Matching result: When the target Chiyo Saori was seven years old, he received his mother's relic "Puppet Core Bear". The facial emotional reaction data is consistent with 89.4%.]
Uchiha Xuan's eyes did not waver at all.
He just closed the window as if it was just an insignificant bug.
That night, Chiyo Saori was performing a routine inspection.
Her Gray Eye stared at the bell on the altar through the one-way black crystal glass in the observation room on the ninth floor underground.
The girl was very quiet, using her immature fingertips to slowly draw on the cold stone wall.
It is no longer the ancient runes that symbolized resistance and opening the door in the past, nor is it Uchiha Clan's fire Gunbai.
That is a painting.
The picture is blurry and warm: a tall woman with an unclear face is tenderly holding a little girl in her arms, and the girl is sitting peacefully on her lap.
The background of this picture of mother and daughter is a burning shrine.
Chiyo Saori's breathing stopped at that moment.
His heart seemed to be clenched tightly by an invisible hand, and an icy current flowed from his spine to Tianling Gai.
That scene...
In countless lonely childhood nights, she hid under the quilt and fantasized about the scene countless times, but never mentioned it to anyone - her mother did not die in the mission, but escaped from the unexpected fire in Sunagakure with her in her arms.
How did she know?!
A chill coming from the depths of the soul made Chiyo Saori's body tremble slightly.
She subconsciously raised her hand, wanting to push open the Xuanjing door that separated reality and weirdness, and stepped forward to question the girl.
"Beep--beep--beep--!"
The piercing highest level alarm sounded throughout Xuan Tower at this time.
[Emergency Alert: Large-scale collective fainting events occurred simultaneously in the third, fifth, and eighth villages of the Eastern Reclamation Area thirteen minutes ago!]
[Number of victims: 1,247.]
[Vital signs are stable, but I fell into a deep dream and cannot be awakened!]
Chiyo Saori's movements froze.
She forcibly suppressed the turmoil in her heart, Gray Eye regained absolute calm, and immediately turned to the communication channel. "Report the specific situation!"
"All the victims reported before they fell into coma... that they dreamed of... their mother." The voice on the other end of the communication said with a hint of confusion and uneasiness, "They said that their mother was back."
Mother?
Chiyo Saori's pupils suddenly shrank and he turned back to look at the altar.
The bell on the altar had stopped painting at some point, and was looking quietly in the direction of her, with that fleeting smile on its face that was the same as in memory.
On the throne at the top of the tower, in front of Uchiha Xuan, countless data streams converge and merge.
The curve representing the brain wave activity of 1,247 people who fainted showed a strange synchronous resonance.
The peak of each curve appeared exactly thirteen minutes after Ling completed the "predictive broadcast" of the day!
He quickly called up the dream resonance link and forcibly intercepted a fragment of the dream.
In the picture, there is a misty white light, and a vague female outline is slowly walking from the depth of the light.
Although the face cannot be seen clearly, the figure, the outline... are constantly approaching and reshaping toward Ling's current mental projection form at a speed visible to the naked eye!
Uchiha Xuan's mouth finally curved into a cold arc.
So that's it.
This girl, this seemingly completely formatted "tool", did not give up resistance at all.
She took advantage of the "legitimate right of foreknowledge" granted to her by the system, and every time she broadcast cold data to the entire empire, she quietly implanted a trace of her own reconstructed spiritual signal with a "maternal" brand into the subconscious of every recipient.
She recreates a "Mother Goddess" in everyone's heart.
And she herself is becoming that god step by step.
"Interesting." Uchiha Xuan was not angry at all, but showed a hint of appreciation in his eyes.
He did not give an order to stop it, nor did he have the "broadcasting" authority to cut off the bell.
"Myriad Phenomena Devouring System, activate the 'forward guidance' module." He issued a new instruction, "Incorporate this spiritual pollution trend into the empire's faith reconstruction plan."
That night, he personally adjusted the underlying narrative structure of "Soul-Calming Variation".
Before the illusion of the ancient clan mother's consciousness that represented "destruction and resentment", he forcibly implanted a brand new front-end image--
In the picture, young Suzu is wearing a white robe that symbolizes purity and sacrifice, kneeling alone under a scorching black sun that engulfs the world.
She stretched out her hands, held up her still beating heart reverently, and offered it as a sacrifice.
In her mouth, she murmured in a low voice with a tone that was mixed with compassion and determination:
"I forgot your names for you so that you can live."
This carefully choreographed "myth" was disguised as a security patch at the bottom of the system, and was quietly implanted into the daily meditation guidance program of all middle- and high-level ninjas in the empire.
The effect is immediate.
Within seven days, the number of new "Mother Goddess Sleepwalkers" dropped sharply by 76%.
Instead, there is an increasingly intense fanatical worship in the waking state.
Countless soldiers, technicians and even managers will unconsciously kneel down in the direction of Xuan Tower for a short period of time during their work breaks.
In their mouths, they murmured the same words.
"She ate our memories..."
"She carried all our pain..."
"... to protect us."
Chiyo Saori was ordered to interrogate a prisoner of war camp commander with the most fanatical behavior.
The man who was once known as a cold-blooded man was now in tears. He grabbed the bars of the cage and looked at Chiyo Saori with an almost crazy look.
"Don't you think? Don't you think... she looks a lot like... that woman that we all have lost?"
That woman...
mother.
Chiyo Saori's hand holding the puppet controller suddenly tightened, his knuckles turned white due to excessive force, and he made an overwhelmed "clucking" sound.
She was silent for a long time, and finally turned and left without saying a word.
At the top of the tower, Uchiha Xuan overlooked the curve on the terminal that represented "faith stability", climbing crazily at an almost vertical angle, with no waves on his face.
The character design of "Sacrificing the Mother Goddess" has initially taken root.
He stood up slowly and walked deeper into the ground step by step.
After passing through numerous guards, he finally stopped in front of the one-way black crystal glass.
On the altar, Ling was "teaching" a group of newly arrived children who were about to be coded.
Her voice was extremely gentle, and her movements were as gentle as if she were protecting the most precious treasure, like a true guardian.
Uchiha Xuan Looking at this scene, a cold voice penetrated the thick glass and rang directly in Ling's mind.
"Mom won't come back, but I can show it to her. Do you think you are deceiving them?"
"No..."
"You are helping me to act out a play that will never end."
After the words fell, Ling, who was comforting the child, paused slightly.
She suddenly turned her head and accurately locked the position of Uchiha Xuan through the invisible glass.
She blinked lightly at him.
The corner of his mouth raised a sly and clear smile that did not belong to any record in the system database.
And behind her, in the shadow of the wall where she had painted the picture of mother and daughter, a dark vine pattern made of countless small names intertwined slowly disappeared like closed eyelids.
At this moment, Chiyo Saori's personal communicator vibrated slightly.
It is the highest order from the top of the tower.
There is no extra text, only an encrypted file package is pushed.
[File Subject: Teacher Overwrite Project-First Target]
She took a deep breath and opened it with trembling fingertips.
In the file, there is only an old and yellowed electronic photo.
In the photo, there is a middle-aged man wearing glasses and a gentle smile. Behind him is the iconic building of the Sunagakure Puppet Master Training Ground.
The moment he saw that face, Chiyo Saori's pupils shrank to pinpoints.
That was... her mentor.
Under the photo, there was only a line of cold and bone-chilling instructions.
[Task: Prepare to execute the "personality overwriting" program.]
[Executors: Chiyo Saori, unique designation.]