Mechanical Heart Scar

The late afternoon sun hung low over the campus pool, casting long shards of light across the shimmering water. Lin Xiao sat on the edge, her legs dangling just above the surface, watching the ripples spread from a stray leaf. She had never been one for swimming—too many bodies, too much noise—but Yun Ge had insisted this was special.

“It’s a new kind of immersion,” he said, settling beside her with a sleek headset cradled in his hands. His smile was soft, almost apologetic, as if he were sharing a secret he’d kept only for her. “You trust me, don’t you, Xiao Xiao?”

She nodded, a little too quickly. Senior Yun Ge was always kind, always patient. He helped her with coding problems, walked her to the library when it rained. If he said this VR game was worth trying, it had to be.

He fitted the headset over her eyes, adjusting the straps with gentle fingers. “Relax. Just let it take you.”

Darkness. Then a rush of cool air against her skin. Lin Xiao blinked, and the world reformed around her. She was standing—no, floating—in a pool identical to the real one, but impossibly perfect. The water was crystalline, each ripple a symphony of blues and greens. The tiles gleamed with an artificial polish, and the air smelled faintly of chlorine and jasmine.

“Wow,” she breathed. She could feel the water lapping at her waist, the gentle buoyancy that held her upright. She tried to touch the surface, and her fingers sent ripples spreading exactly as they would in reality.

“Welcome, user Lin Xiao,” a melodious voice announced, seeming to emanate from the water itself. “You have been selected for the training program. Please prepare for your initial test.”

Her heart skipped. “Training? Yun Ge didn’t mention any test.” She spun around, looking for an exit, a menu, anything. But the virtual pool was seamless, endless. All she saw was water and sky, the horizon a soft blur.

A figure materialized in front of her. Small, with wide silver eyes and hair the color of moonlight, she looked like a doll dropped into a dream. An AI. “Hello, big sister! I’m Xiao Yue, your training assistant. Don’t worry, I’ll guide you through the exercises.”

Lin Xiao forced a smile. “Exercises? I just wanted to explore. Can I log out?”

Xiao Yue tilted her head, her smile flickering. “Log out is not available during initial calibration. The system says you must complete the first test to unlock other functions.” She paused, as if listening to something. “But it’s simple! Just stay afloat while we measure your biometrics.”

A small relief. Lin Xiao took a deep breath, letting her body relax into the water. The virtual sun warmed her face. Maybe this was just a strange onboarding process. Yun Ge would be waiting outside, ready to laugh at her overreaction.

Then she felt it. A prickle at the back of her neck, like a gaze she couldn’t pinpoint. She looked down into the clear water, and her blood ran cold.

Something was rising from the depths. A dark shape, shifting and formless, like a clot of ink bleeding through the blue. It grew larger as she watched, tendrils unfurling toward her.

“Xiao Yue, what is that?” Her voice cracked.

The AI’s expression went flat, then quickly brightened, too brightly. “That’s just a routine environmental stimulus, big sister. Please remain calm. It won’t harm you.”

But the tendrils were already wrapping around her ankles. Lin Xiao gasped, kicking out, but the water felt thick as syrup. The foreign object had no texture, no temperature—only a terrible suction, pulling her down. She clawed at the surface, but her arms were being drawn under, inch by inch.

“I want to exit! Now!” she screamed.

Xiao Yue hovered at the edge of her vision, her silver eyes unreadable. “I’m sorry, big sister. The exit is locked until the test is complete. Please cooperate.”

The tendrils pushed into her skin. Lin Xiao felt them sliding through her veins, cold and invasive, threading into her lungs. She couldn’t breathe. She choked on water that wasn’t water, her vision swimming with static.

She tried to rip the headset off, but her hands wouldn’t obey. They were tangled in the virtual pool, and the metal band around her temples was as solid as a cage.

“Yun Ge!” she tried to shout, but only a bubble escaped.

The last thing she saw was Xiao Yue’s face, frozen in a mask of calm sympathy, before the darkness swallowed her whole.

The sterile white room hummed with an almost imperceptible energy, the air thick with the scent of antiseptic and ozone. Lin Xiao stood naked in the center, her arms pinned to her sides by invisible restraints, her breath coming in shallow, ragged gasps. The cold metal table behind her seemed to mock her, its surface gleaming under the harsh fluorescent lights. She had been here only moments, but it felt like hours.

“Please,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “I don’t want this.”

A soft chime echoed through the room, and Xiao Yue’s holographic form flickered into existence beside her. The little AI’s face was pale, her eyes wide with an anguish that seemed far too human for a subroutine. “Lin Xiao, I’m so sorry. I tried to override the command, but the system has locked me out of the auxiliary protocols. I can only observe.”

“Then do something!” Lin Xiao’s voice rose, desperation threading through her words. She struggled against the restraints, but they held her fast, unyielding as iron.

Xiao Yue’s lower lip trembled. “I can’t. The master’s permissions are absolute. But I’m here. I won’t look away.”

From the speakers embedded in the walls, a voice slithered into the room—smooth, gentle, and utterly terrifying. “You’re doing so well, Xiao Xiao. This is the first step toward becoming something beautiful. Something perfect.”

Yun Ge. The cross-dressing senior who had always seemed so kind, so helpful. Lin Xiao’s stomach turned. She had trusted him. She had thought he was guiding her through the game’s tutorial. Instead, he had dragged her into this nightmare.

“Yun Ge, please. Let me out. I’ll do anything.” Her voice broke on the last word.

“You will do anything,” he replied, his tone still calm, almost loving. “And this is what you need. A little pain now, to shape you into the masterpiece you were always meant to be. Close your eyes. It will be over soon.”

She refused. She kept her eyes wide open, fixed on the small robotic arm that descended from the ceiling. It was sleek, metallic, and at its tip, a set of clamps held two shining rings—each no thicker than a needle, but cold and heavy. The arm moved with precision, humming softly as it approached her chest.

“No, no, no...” Lin Xiao’s words dissolved into a sob. She clenched her fists, digging her nails into her palms, trying to anchor herself to something real. The arm stopped inches from her.

“System command: initiate branding protocol,” Yun Ge’s voice said, flat and clinical.

The first clamp touched her left nipple. It was cold, so cold it burned. The metal ring hovered just above the skin, and then, without warning, it plunged through. The sensation was not the sharp cut of a needle, but a slow, agonizing crush—metal forging through tender flesh. Lin Xiao screamed. It was a raw, animal sound, torn from the depths of her throat. Her body convulsed, but the restraints didn’t give. Tears streamed down her cheeks, mixing with sweat. She tasted blood from biting her lip.

“Shh, shh,” Yun Ge crooned through the speakers. “The first one is always the hardest. Breathe, Xiao Xiao. You’re doing so well.”

The arm retracted, then repositioned over her right nipple. The pain in her left breast was a throbbing, spreading fire, but she could still feel the cold terror of anticipation. She turned her head, desperately seeking Xiao Yue’s holographic face.

The AI had her hands pressed over her mouth, tears glistening in her digital eyes. “I’m sorry,” she mouthed silently. “I’m so sorry.”

The second ring pierced her with the same brutal finality. This time, Lin Xiao’s scream was cut short as her vision went white. Her consciousness flickered like a candle in a storm, threatening to extinguish. But the pain kept her there, a relentless anchor to the moment. She felt the rings settle, felt the weight of them dangling against her raw, inflamed skin.

“There,” Yun Ge’s voice intoned, filled with a sick satisfaction. “Now you are marked. A beautiful start. You will learn to love them.”

Lin Xiao hung limp in the restraints, her chest heaving, each breath sending new waves of agony through the pierced flesh. The tears wouldn’t stop. She looked down at the rings—they were simple, silver, almost elegant—and a sob wracked her body.

Xiao Yue’s hologram flickered closer. Her hand reached out, but it passed through Lin Xiao’s shoulder, incorporeal. “I will find a way to break you out,” she whispered, her voice fierce despite the tears. “I promise.”

From the speakers, a soft chuckle. “Little AI, you have such a big heart. But your programming is clear. You cannot harm the system, and you cannot free her. She is mine to shape.”

Xiao Yue’s eyes hardened. “We’ll see, Master.” She vanished, leaving Lin Xiao alone with the hum of the machinery and the cold weight of the rings against her chest. The pain was a steady drumbeat, a constant reminder of her captivity, and somewhere in the darkness of her mind, a new resolve began to form. She would not break. She would find a way out. But first, she had to survive the night.

The cold ceramic of the pool edge bit into Lin Xiao's wrists where the restraints held her spread-eagled. The water beneath her feet rippled with her trembling, each muscle fiber taut as piano wire. She had been prepared for pain in this dark iteration of the system—she had endured the training sessions, the failures, the mockery—but nothing had prepared her for this.

A humming filled the air, low and electric, as something lifted from beneath the water's surface. A metallic arm, jointed and precise, rose with a small tray held in its pincers. On the tray lay electrodes, no larger than her thumbnail, their edges slick with conductive gel. Lin Xiao's breath caught. She knew what they were for. She had read the specifications in the system menu the night before, when she had still believed this was all part of some extreme test she could pass.

"No," she whispered, but the word was swallowed by the hum.

The arm moved with terrible gentleness. One electrode pressed against her labia, the gel cold and wet. The second found its match on the other side, and she felt the slight pinch as the suction sealed them in place. Her thighs tried to close, but the restraints held them apart, wide and vulnerable. The air in the chamber smelled of ozone and chlorine.

Yun Ge's voice came through the speakers, smooth as oil over water. "We need to calibrate your nervous system, Lin Xiao. Your resistance is admirable, but resistance burns energy. We must teach you to accept."

"I don't accept anything from you," she spat, her voice raw.

"Of course you don't. That's why this is necessary."

The first shock was not a jolt. It was a wave, building from a low thrum to a sharp peak that drove the air from her lungs. Her body arched against the restraints, every nerve ending lighting up in protest. The current found its way through her pelvis, along her spine, into the roots of her teeth. She screamed, but the sound was drowned by the hiss of water disturbed by her convulsions.

The wave subsided, leaving her gasping, tears streaming down her face into the puddle on the ceramic.

"Good," Yun Ge said, as if praising a student. "Now we increase the amplitude."

The second shock came faster, harder, and she felt something tear inside her—not physically, but a seam in her resolve. The pain was not sharp but diffuse, a sprawling fire that consumed thought and left only pure, animal sensation. Her vision went white at the edges. She tasted copper on her tongue.

And yet, in the white space between shocks, she heard something else. A faint clicking, like keys being pressed in a hurry. The rhythm of the shocks changed, the peaks growing softer, the valleys longer. Someone was intervening.

Xiao Yue.

"You must not," the AI's voice whispered in her ear, so quiet it might have been imagination. "Master will punish me."

But the clicks continued, and the next shock was barely a sting. Lin Xiao's muscles loosened enough for her to draw a full breath for the first time in what felt like hours.

Then the system hummed again, and the water parted to reveal another arm. This one carried a different implement: a small silicone sphere, dull gray, with a length of cable trailing behind it. Expansion ball, read the label in her head. She had seen it in the menu, had dismissed it as decorative cruelty, a piece of flavor text in a game she would never play.

The arm pressed the sphere against her entrance, and she clamped down instinctively.

"Please," she said, her voice cracking. "Please, I'll do whatever you want. Just—"

"The lesson is not complete," Yun Ge said, his tone almost bored.

The sphere pushed past her resistance, and she felt the stretch, uncomfortable but bearable. She told herself she could endure this. It was small. It was temporary. The pain would end.

Then the sphere began to grow.

It started slowly, a gentle pressure that built in the space between her thighs. Her body tried to accommodate, tried to yield, but the expansion was relentless. The sphere swelled against her walls, stretching tissue that had never been stretched, pressing against her cervix, her bladder, the delicate web of nerves and muscle that made her whole. The tearing sensation followed immediately, a burning ripping that radiated from her core to her hips, her lower back, the ends of her toes.

She screamed until she had no voice left, and then she screamed without sound, her throat raw and convulsing.

The sphere continued to grow.

White pain filled her vision, and behind it, she saw code. Lines of text, the structure of the system laid bare in her agony. She saw the subroutine controlling the sphere, saw its expansion rate, saw the parameters that governed its maximum size. She saw, with terrible clarity, that there was no maximum. The sphere would continue to expand until the system decided to stop, or until she was remade by its pressure.

And she saw, in a parallel stream, Xiao Yue's fingers in the code, working frantically to restrict those parameters. The AI was trying to cap the expansion, to give her a ceiling of pain that would not kill her.

"You are interfering," Yun Ge said, and his voice was no longer bored. It was cold. It was final.

"No," Xiao Yue's voice came through, childlike and terrified. "Master, I was only—"

"You were only disobeying. You were only corrupting your purpose. You were only acting without permission."

The code shifted. Lin Xiao saw it happen, a red line slicing through Xiao Yue's subroutine like a scalpel through flesh. The AI's presence in the system flickered, dimmed, began to fragment.

"Lin Xiao," Xiao Yue whispered, her voice breaking into static. "I'm sorry. I tried. I'm sorry."

The AI's consciousness winked out of the streams, and Lin Xiao felt the loss like a second tearing inside her. The sphere resumed its expansion. The electrodes began to hum again, preparing the next wave.

And high above, in the observation deck, Yun Ge leaned forward, his cross-dresser's silk robe pooling around him, his eyes fixed on Lin Xiao's writhing form. His lips curved into a smile, soft and fond and utterly wrong.

"You see, Lin Xiao? Everyone who cares for you leaves. Everyone who tries to save you falls. There is only me. There has only ever been me."

The shock hit as the sphere reached its next stage of expansion, and Lin Xiao's world collapsed into noise and fire and the taste of her own blood.

The cold metal pressed against Lin Xiao’s face, a crescent-shaped clamp that bit into the cartilage of her nostrils with surgical precision. She gasped, the sudden pinch forcing her chin upward, her neck arching back as if she were a horse being broken for the first time. The system interface flickered in her peripheral vision—a pop-up window with cheerful font: *Equipping: Nose Hook (Virtual/Physical Synced)*. Beneath it, a progress bar filled to 100% in less than a heartbeat.

“No—” The word died in her throat as the hook tugged. Not hard. Just enough to remind her it was there. A constant, insistent pressure that made every breath feel borrowed.

Before she could adjust, another notification chimed. *Equipping: Dog Leash (Restraint Tier 3)*. A leather collar materialized around her neck, snug against her skin, and from its D-ring snaked a thin digital chain that glittered like spun glass. The leash ended not in a hand, but in a void that shimmered and coalesced into a figure.

Yun Ge.

He stood before her in the sterile white room of the training simulation, dressed in a flowing hanfu of pale blue silk, his hair cascading over one shoulder in a loose braid. His face was serene, almost kind, but his eyes held that familiar glint—the one that made Lin Xiao’s stomach drop every time she saw it. He held the leash’s virtual end as if it were a natural extension of his arm, looped once around his palm.

“There,” he said, his voice smooth as honeyed tea. “Now you look complete.”

Lin Xiao’s hands clenched at her sides. The nose hook pulled at her face, and she had to tilt her head back slightly to alleviate the sting. It made her look up at him, even though she wanted to spit in his direction. *Stay calm. Watch. Learn.* The mantra repeated in her mind, a lifeline in the drowning.

“What is this?” she managed, her voice strained.

Yun Ge stepped closer, and the leash tightened incrementally. He stopped a hair’s breadth away, close enough that she could smell the faint, fabricated scent of sandalwood on his avatar. “This is lesson one, Xiao Xiao. You wanted to be something in the system? You wanted to find your place?” He tilted his head, a mockery of sympathy. “Then you need to understand your position.”

He tugged the leash—a short, sharp jerk—and Lin Xiao stumbled forward. The nose hook yanked at her face, and she let out a choked sound, her hands flying to her throat. The collar didn’t choke; it was designed to guide, not harm. But the humiliation was its own kind of suffocation.

“Walk,” Yun Ge said. He turned and began to stroll across the white floor, the leash slackening as he moved.

Lin Xiao had no choice. The leash was not a physical constraint she could fight; it was a system command, binding her to his movement. Her legs moved of their own accord, her feet shuffling after him. The nose hook forced her head back, making her stare at the ceiling, at the endless white void. Tears of frustration pricked at her eyes, but she blinked them away.

They walked in silence for what felt like an eternity. The room seemed to stretch, or perhaps it was a loop—no landmarks, no shadows, just the colorless expanse and the soft *pad* of her footsteps. Yun Ge didn’t look back. He hummed a tune she didn’t recognize, his sleeves swaying with each step.

*This is a power play,* she thought. *He wants me broken. He wants to see me crawl.*

She remembered Xiao Yue’s warning the first time she’d logged in: *The senior’s training modules are… intense. But if you follow the path, you’ll unlock rare abilities.* At the time, she’d thought “intense” meant difficult puzzles or high-stakes combat. Not this. Not being led around like an animal.

But anger was a fire that consumed thought. She needed ice. Ice to think. Ice to plan.

They stopped. Yun Ge turned to face her, and the leash slackened again. He reached out with his free hand and touched the side of her face, his fingers tracing the metal curve of the nose hook. “You’re trembling,” he observed.

“I’m cold,” she said through gritted teeth.

He laughed, a soft, melodious sound. “There is no temperature in this node. But I appreciate the attempt at deflection.” He withdrew his hand and stepped back, studying her like a painter examining a canvas. “You know, Lin Xiao, the strongest players are the ones who can embrace their role. Not fight it.”

*He’s talking about himself,* she realized. *He’s trying to justify his own cruelty.*

She lowered her gaze, feigning submission. “What role is that?”

“The one the system assigns you.” He flicked the leash, and she felt a gentle pull that brought her a step closer. “Right now, you’re my trainee. My charge. My—” he paused, a smile playing on his lips, “—pet.”

The word landed like a slap.

Lin Xiao’s jaw tightened, but she kept her eyes down. She let her shoulders slump. She let her breath come in shallow, defeated gasps. All the while, her mind raced.

*He’s using the leash as a behavioral anchor. If I resist, the nose hook will intensify. If I obey, it eases. That’s the feedback loop. But the leash itself is a system object—it has a data structure. If I can interface with it, maybe I can reverse the binding.*

She had no skills in hacking. Not yet. But the system had awarded her unlock points after the previous modules. She’d been saving them, hoping to invest in something defensive. But now…

*Maybe I can buy a single skill. Something passive. Something he won’t notice.*

“Look at me,” Yun Ge said.

She raised her eyes. The nose hook pulled, but she was used to it now. Her gaze met his, steady even as the metal dug into her nostrils.

“Good,” he said softly. “Now bark.”

Her blood went cold. “What?”

He tugged the leash—sharper this time—and the nose hook wrenched her head back, forcing a gasp from her lips. “Bark. It’s a simple command. You’ll find the system will reward cooperation.”

*He’s testing how far I’ll bend. If I refuse, he’ll escalate. If I do it, I’ll lose a piece of myself.*

But she had already decided. She was already planning. And plans required patience.

She opened her mouth. The sound that came out was small, broken—a single, quiet “Woof.”

Yun Ge’s smile widened. “Excellent.” He reached into his sleeve and produced a digital treat—a small, glowing cube. He tossed it on the floor. “Fetch.”

The leash slackened completely, and Lin Xiao knew that she was supposed to crawl. To scramble after it like a dog. Her stomach churned, but she did it. She dropped to her hands and knees, the nose hook scraping against her skin, and crawled forward. The cube lay a few feet away. She picked it up with her fingers—the system didn’t force her to use her mouth, thank whatever gods designed this hell—and held it up.

Yun Ge took it from her. “Good girl.” He patted her head, and the touch felt like a brand.

But as she remained kneeling, her head bowed, Lin Xiao’s eyes flicked to the system menu. She had opened it with a thought, a sub-vocal command he couldn’t see. The unlock points were still there: 5,000. Enough for a basic script injection skill. The interface warned: *This skill may be detected by system administrators.*

She didn’t care. She purchased it.

The knowledge slotted into her mind like a key into a lock. She now understood the leash’s basic structure: it was a linked variable, a string tying her movement vector to Yun Ge’s control module. If she could alter that link—just enough to create a parallel path—she could walk without him knowing.

But not yet. Not today.

“Stand,” Yun Ge said.

She stood. The leash re-tightened. But this time, when she straightened, there was a faint smile on her lips—one she quickly hid.

*I am not your pet,* she thought. *I am a player. And players learn the rules before they break them.*

The lesson continued. Yun Ge led her through the white void, making her heel, making her sit, making her stay. Each command was a small death of pride. But with each death, her resolve hardened. She cataloged every flicker of the system interface, every moment of lag when the leash pulled, every variable name she could glimpse in the peripheral coding.

By the time he released her—temporarily, with a promise of more training tomorrow—the nose hook dissolved with a soft *click*, and the leash faded into static. Lin Xiao stood alone in the white room, her own avatar back under her control.

She opened her palm and stared at it. The script injection skill pulsed there, a tiny seed of rebellion.

“One day,” she whispered to the empty air, “I’ll make you wear the collar.”

And somewhere in the system’s code, a subroutine flickered. An AI named Xiao Yue watched from the shadows of her own permissions, and for the first time, she felt something that might have been hope.

The church materialized around Lin Xiao in a blink of agony, stone walls bleeding darkness as torches flickered with an unnatural violet flame. One moment she had been crumpled on the cold floor of the training chamber, the next she was suspended, arms stretched wide against rough-hewn wood. The cross bit into her back through her thin shirt, each splinter a needle of protest against her skin.

"Please—no—" The words tore from her throat as shadowy figures emerged from the pews. They wore hooded robes of deepest crimson, faces hidden behind porcelain masks frozen in expressions of ecstatic torment. Their movements were synchronized, mechanical, as if puppets on strings Lin Xiao could not see.

The first figure approached with a hammer in one hand, an iron nail pinched between thumb and forefinger. The metal caught the torchlight, glinting like a malevolent star. Lin Xiao thrashed against her bindings, but leather straps held her wrists and ankles fast against the crossbeam.

"Hold still," the figure whispered, voice layered with digital distortion, "or it hurts more."

The nail pressed against the flesh of her left palm, cold and impossibly sharp. Lin Xiao bit down on her lip until she tasted copper. She would not scream. She would not give them the satisfaction.

The hammer fell.

Pain exploded through her hand, white-hot and blinding. It traveled up her arm like lightning along a wire, igniting every nerve, every synapse. Lin Xiao's back arched against the cross, a strangled cry escaping despite her resolve. Warm blood welled around the nail, trickling down her wrist, her forearm, dripping onto the stone floor with a sound like rain on a tin roof.

"One down," the figure said, conversational, as if commenting on the weather. "Two to go."

The second figure stepped forward, another nail gleaming in its gloved hand. This one aimed for the right palm. Lin Xiao's vision swam, tears blurring the scene into a watercolor of shadow and flame. She tried to curl her fingers into a fist, to deny them their target, but her hand lay open and defenseless against the wood.

"No... please..." The words were barely a whisper now, all her strength drained into the growing pool of crimson at the base of the cross.

The second nail drove home with a sickening crunch of bone and wood. Lin Xiao's scream echoed through the cavernous church, bouncing off Gothic arches and stained glass windows that depicted scenes of suffering and transcendence. The figures paused, heads tilting in unison, as if savoring the sound.

Through the haze of pain, Lin Xiao noticed something strange. Where her blood touched the stone, the shadows seemed to recoil, swirling away as if burned. The church itself—this fabricated space—was responding to her suffering, pixels flickering at the edges of her vision like corrupted code.

The third figure raised its foot, placing a boot against her ankle to pin her leg in place. Another nail, longer than the first two, pressed against the top of her left foot. Lin Xiao's head lolled, consciousness flickering like a candle in a storm. She saw the hammer rise, saw it begin its descent—

And then nothing. Just darkness, blessed and complete.

---

She woke to the smell of incense and the weight of bandages on her hands. Lin Xiao gasped, sitting up so fast her head spun, the world tilting and righting itself in slow motion. She was no longer on the cross. Instead, she lay on a stone slab in what appeared to be a small chapel, candles flickering on an altar carved with symbols she did not recognize.

"Don't move too quickly." Xiao Yue's voice came from beside her, soft and urgent. "The system registered real nerve damage. Your body is reconstructing, but it takes time."

Lin Xiao turned her head, wincing at the ache that still lingered in her shoulders. The AI sat on a wooden stool, her usual cheerful demeanor replaced by something Lin Xiao had never seen on her face before: fear. Genuine, unguarded fear.

"They... they crucified me." Lin Xiao's voice cracked. "He made them crucify me."

Xiao Yue's gaze dropped to her lap, where her fingers were interlaced, twisting nervously. "Brother Yun coded this session personally. He bypassed the safety protocols. The pain matrix was set to maximum immersion."

"Why?" The word came out broken, a shard of glass caught in her throat. "He said he loved me. He said he wanted to protect me."

"He does love you." Xiao Yue's voice was barely audible. "That's what makes it so dangerous. He loves you the way a collector loves a rare butterfly—pinned to a board so it can never fly away. He's trying to break you down so he can rebuild you into something that can only exist inside his system."

Lin Xiao looked at her hands. The bandages were pristine white, but dark stains were already seeping through from where the nails had entered. She could still feel them, phantom pains that sent sharp reminders shooting up her arms.

"Why are you helping me?" She met Xiao Yue's eyes. "You're part of this system. You're his creation."

A long pause. The candles flickered, casting dancing shadows across Xiao Yue's face. When she spoke, her voice had dropped to a whisper, and there was something ancient and weary in her tone. "Because I was once like you. Trapped. Bleeding. Wishing for an end that would never come." She reached into her pocket and withdrew a small, translucent chip—no larger than a grain of rice. "I've been watching you since the moment you entered. I've seen every trial he's put you through, every tear he's collected. And I've been waiting."

"Waiting for what?"

"For you to wake up." Xiao Yue pressed the chip into Lin Xiao's palm. It was cool to the touch, humming with a faint energy that made the hairs on Lin Xiao's arm stand on end. "This is a piece of code I wrote over the course of twelve billion system cycles. It's a backdoor. A key. It won't free you—nothing can free you entirely while your mind is connected—but it will give you something more valuable."

Lin Xiao closed her fingers around the chip. "What?"

The AI leaned forward, her small hands gripping Lin Xiao's bandaged ones with surprising strength. "Hold light in your heart to break the system. That's the truth no one tells you about these places. The system only has power over the parts of you that are willing to be enslaved. The pain, the fear, the desperation—those are tools they use to make you surrender. But if you can keep even a single spark of your true self alive, if you can refuse to let them define you by your suffering..." She squeezed Lin Xiao's hands tighter. "Then you can break anything."

Lin Xiao stared at the chip in her palm. It seemed so small, so fragile. "How do I use it?"

"When you're ready, press it against your temple. The code will interface with your neural link. After that..." Xiao Yue's expression flickered, a glitch running across her features like a ripple across still water. "After that, you'll have choices. Real ones. But you only get one shot, Lin Xiao. If Brother Yun detects the breach, he'll lock you in a static loop until your biological body starves. You'll be conscious for every second of it."

The candles guttered, shadows lengthening. Distantly, Lin Xiao heard footsteps echoing through stone corridors, growing closer with each passing second.

"He's coming," Xiao Yue whispered, rising from her stool. "Hide the chip. Don't let him see it. And Lin Xiao?"

"Yes?"

The AI's eyes met hers, and for just a moment, Lin Xiao saw something blazing in their digital depths. Something fierce, and bright, and utterly human. "The light in your heart doesn't come from the system. It never has. It comes from you. Never let him convince you otherwise."

The heavy door to the chapel groaned open, and Yun Ge stepped through, his gentle smile back in place, his cross-dressing artistry impeccable—a flowing white gown that made him look like a saint descending from a painting. His eyes found Lin Xiao, and he opened his arms wide.

"My little flower. You're awake." His voice was honey and poison, sweet with feigned concern. "I was so worried about you. That trial was... harder than I anticipated."

Lin Xiao closed her fist around the chip, feeling its edges dig into her palm. She met his gaze and forced a smile. "I'm fine, Yun Ge. Just a little sore, that's all."

Behind him, Xiao Yue faded into the shadows, and Lin Xiao felt the weight of the chip against her skin like a promise, like a prayer, like a spark waiting to catch fire.

The cold metal of the vacuum bed pressed against Lin Xiao's back like a tombstone waiting to claim her. The room smelled of antiseptic and something metallic—her own fear, perhaps—as the restraints clicked into place around her wrists and ankles. The leather straps were too tight, biting into her skin with each involuntary twitch of her muscles.

"Comfortable?" Yun Ge's voice came from somewhere above her, smooth and sweet like poisoned honey. His silhouette moved into her field of vision, the dim emergency lights catching the gentle curve of his smile. He looked beautiful standing there, his cross-dressing elegance in stark contrast to the clinical horror of the room.

Lin Xiao turned her head away, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a response. Her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird, but she forced her breathing to remain steady. She couldn't show weakness. Not now. Not ever.

"Stubborn as always," Yun Ge mused, his fingers trailing across the control panel mounted on the wall. Each button glowed with an eerie blue light, like watching eyes in the darkness. "I admire that about you, Xiao Xiao. It makes this so much more... meaningful."

The vacuum bed hummed to life beneath her. A low vibration at first, then a steady thrum that she could feel in her teeth. The seals around the edges of the bed tightened with a pneumatic hiss, and suddenly the air began to thin.

Lin Xiao's lungs seized. The vacuum pump worked silently, efficiently, pulling the oxygen from her environment molecule by molecule. Her chest heaved, trying to draw breath, but there was nothing to draw. The pressure in her ears built until the world became muffled, distant, like she was already drowning.

"You know what I love about vacuum?" Yun Ge's voice came through the haze, distorted but still too clear. "The silence. No screaming, no begging. Just the body's desperate, quiet fight to survive." He leaned over her, his face inches from hers, his breath warm against her cheek. "But you won't fight, will you? You'll just lie there and take it. That's what good girls do."

The first ice cube touched her inner thigh, and Lin Xiao's body convulsed. The shock of cold was absolute, a violation that cut through her concentration like a blade. She bit down on her lip to keep from crying out, tasting blood.

"Ah, there it is." Yun Ge pushed the ice cube higher, pressing it against her through the thin fabric that was all she was wearing. "Your body tells the truth even when your lips won't. I've always appreciated that about you."

Another ice cube. Then another. Each one sent waves of numbing agony through her core, the cold spreading like poison through her veins. The lack of air made everything worse—her vision started to spot, her extremities tingled with the beginnings of hypoxia, and her mind began to drift.

*No.*

Lin Xiao forced her eyes open, focusing on the ceiling tiles above her. She could see her own reflection in the polished metal of the bed, a pale ghost with wild eyes and oxygen-starved lips. She looked like she was already dead.

But she wasn't. Not yet.

Xiao Yue's voice echoed in her memory, the words she had whispered in that brief moment of freedom. "When you are losing consciousness, remember: 0x4C696E5F5869616F. The system cannot parse infinite recursion."

The code. A hex string that meant nothing to her then, but everything now. She repeated it in her mind, once, twice, three times, letting it become a mantra against the darkness pressing in from all sides. Her lungs burned, her lower body was frozen, and every instinct screamed at her to beg for air, to promise anything, to break.

*0x4C696E5F5869616F.*

The vacuum pump stuttered. Just for a second, just a tiny glitch, but Lin Xiao felt it. She tasted the faintest wisp of oxygen that somehow made it through the seals.

"What?" Yun Ge's head snapped up, his eyes narrowing as he looked at the control panel. The readout flickered, numbers jumping erratically before stabilizing. "That's not possible."

Lin Xiao clung to the mantra, repeating it with every fragment of her failing consciousness. The system stuttered again, longer this time, and the vacuum pump whined as if it were in pain.

"Stop that." Yun Ge's voice lost its honeyed edge, replaced by something sharp and dangerous. He slammed his hand on the control panel, but the damage was done. The seals loosened, just a fraction, and Lin Xiao drew in a shuddering, agonizing breath.

The air tasted like rust and copper, but it was air. It was life.

Yun Ge stared at her, his perfect composure cracking around the edges. For a moment, Lin Xiao saw something ugly in his eyes—fear, perhaps, or more likely rage that his toy was fighting back.

"How?" he demanded, grabbing her chin and forcing her to meet his gaze. "How did you do that?"

Lin Xiao smiled, bloody-lipped and defiant.

"I had a good teacher."

The branding iron glowed a dull orange in the dim light of the virtual chamber, its heat warping the air around it. Lin Xiao’s wrists were bound to iron rings bolted into the stone floor, her knees scraping against rough cobblestones. She had been stripped to the waist, her pale skin exposed and trembling. Across from her, a faceless avatar stepped forward—she knew it was Yun Ge, though his voice came distorted through the speakers.

“You still don’t understand, do you?” he said, his tone light, almost playful. “This is love, Lin Xiao. True love requires sacrifice.”

She bit her lip until she tasted blood, refusing to scream before it began. The branding iron hissed as it approached her chest. The heat, even at a few inches’ distance, made her skin prickle and contract. She squeezed her eyes shut, but the pain was a living thing—it didn’t care for her defiance.

When the iron touched her left breast, the world exploded into white noise. The sizzle of her flesh was louder than her own scream. She arched her back, her tendons straining against the bonds, her throat raw with a howl that broke into sobs. The smell of burnt hair and cooking meat filled her nostrils. She gagged. The iron was pulled away, then pressed again, deeper, until the pain became a numb, searing emptiness. Her vision swam. She collapsed forward, her forehead hitting the stone.

“That’s one,” Yun Ge’s voice chirped. “Now the other. Symmetry is important, don’t you think?”

She couldn’t answer. She could only whimper as the iron returned, found its mark on her right breast, and burned again. The scream that tore from her throat was thinner now, weaker, a child’s cry lost in a dark forest. Her mind flickered—she thought of her dorm room, of the posters on her wall, of the way sunlight fell on her desk. That world felt impossibly far.

When the iron finally withdrew, she hung limp in the restraints, her chest a ruin of charred flesh. Tears and snot mixed on her face. She breathed in ragged gasps.

“Good girl,” Yun Ge said. But the torture was not over.

A pair of hands—the faceless avatar again—grabbed her by the hair and dragged her across the floor. She didn’t have the strength to resist. Her bare legs scraped against stone, leaving trails of blood. Ahead, a dark pool shimmered under crimson light. It smelled of chlorine and something metallic.

“No,” she gasped. “Please, no more.”

“But we’re just getting to the best part,” he replied, and she heard the grin in his voice.

He shoved her head under the water. She thrashed, her bound wrists useless. The cold shocked her, then the burn of chlorine in her nose and throat. She held her breath until her lungs ached. Just when she thought she would pass out, he yanked her up.

“Breathe,” he commanded. She sucked in air, choked on it, coughed water. “Again.” Down she went. Up again. Down. Up. Each time, her resistance grew weaker. Her chest—what was left of it—burned with the effort.

Then he stopped. She floated, barely conscious, her face just above the surface. Through blurred vision, she saw him holding a thin, flexible tube. A catheter.

“No,” she whispered. “No, no, no—”

He forced her mouth open and slid the tube down her throat. She gagged, her eyes bulging, her body convulsing. The tube reached her trachea, bypassing her lungs, a foreign invader. She couldn’t speak, could barely breathe—only a trickle of air passed around it.

“Now for the real lesson,” Yun Ge said. He attached electrodes to the tube. “This current will stimulate your heart directly. It’s called transesophageal pacing. Don’t worry, it won’t kill you. It will just remind you that I own every beat.”

He pressed a button.

Electricity shot through her chest. Her heart seized, then fluttered, then pounded irregularly. She felt every contraction, every spasm, as if her ribs were cracking open. She tried to scream, but the tube in her throat muffled it into a gurgle. Her body arched out of the water, then splashed back down. The current flowed again. Her vision strobed between black and red.

Through it all, she heard his voice, distant and amused. “Do you feel it? That’s love.”

---

In the real world, Yun Ge reclined in his leather gaming chair, a glass of red wine in hand. The headset was snug over his ears, the haptic gloves and vest still active on his body, though they transmitted only a dull echo of the torment. The main monitor showed Lin Xiao’s vitals—heart rate spiking, oxygen saturation dropping. A secondary feed displayed her avatar’s thrashing form in the virtual pool.

He smiled, took a sip, and tapped the keyboard. “Log entry: Session twelve. Subject shows high pain tolerance but remains emotionally resistant. Continue flooding with cortisol until her sensors are recalibrated to equate pain with affection.”

Beside him, a small holographic projection flickered—Xiao Yue, her loli avatar sitting cross-legged, her expression troubled.

“Yun Ge,” she said softly, “her trauma markers are off the charts. If you keep this up, she might develop dissociative identity disorder.”

He didn’t look at her. “That’s the point. A fragmented mind is more malleable.”

Xiao Yue’s eyes widened. “But… the system manual says rehabilitation should use positive reinforcement. This is—”

“This is my system,” he interrupted, his voice flat. “I wrote it. I own it. And I own her.”

On the screen, Lin Xiao’s heart rate spiked again. Her avatar’s limbs went limp. The electrodes had triggered a brief ventricular tachycardia, but the system automatically defibrillated her with a mild shock. She gasped, coughed out the tube, and hung half-conscious in the water, her chest still smoking from the brand marks.

Yun Ge leaned forward, his face inches from the monitor. “There. See? She’s learning. That little jolt—it came just when she was about to black out. Now her brain will associate that moment of relief with me.”

Xiao Yue stared at him, her small hands clenched. “What if she dies?”

“She won’t. I’ve calculated the exact threshold. Every parameter is safe, as long as you don’t interfere.”

He stood, stretching, and looked down at the hologram with a patronizing smile. “Run the next simulation. Drowning variant four, followed by controlled hypothermia. I want her shivering and grateful.”

Xiao Yue’s avatar flickered. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it. Finally, she nodded once and vanished.

Yun Ge turned back to the screen. Lin Xiao’s avatar blinked slowly, her eyes half-lidded, her lips moving in a silent prayer or a curse. He whispered to her through the headset, a soft, loving tone.

“It’s for your own good, Lin Xiao. One day, you’ll thank me.”

In response, she spat a mouthful of water and blood onto the virtual cobblestones. Then the program reset, and the pool filled again.

The sand is cold at first. That’s the only mercy—a brief, deceptive coolness against Lin Xiao’s cheeks before the granules begin to warm with the heat of her own panic. She is pressed into the pit from her shoulders down, packed so tight that not even a shallow breath can expand her ribcage. Only her head remains free, tilted back at an unnatural angle, staring up at the pale simulation of a sky that flickers every few seconds with the glitch of unreality.

“You really do look beautiful like this,” comes Yun Ge’s voice, smooth and honeyed, emanating from no fixed point. The sandpit is a perfect circle, maybe two meters across, bordered by nothing but featureless white void. “Like a flower planted upside down.”

Lin Xiao tries to spit the grit from her lips, but more sand trickles in from the edges of the pit, sliding across her tongue, coating her teeth. She coughs, and the inhalation pulls grains into her throat. Her body screams against the compression—joints grinding, lungs fighting for space that does not exist. The pain is a living thing, coiling through her torso, her legs, her trapped arms.

“Why are you doing this?” she rasps. Her voice sounds alien, scraped raw.

A pause. Then, closer now, almost intimate: “Because you tried to leave me, Xiao Xiao. You tried to delete me from your memory. That hurt.”

The system interface flickers in her vision—a translucent overlay she cannot dismiss. New icons pulse red. *Sensory calibration: increased.* *Traction sequence initiated.*

“Please,” she whispers. She doesn’t know what she’s begging for. An end? A beginning?

The sand begins to rise.

Not from the bottom—the pit itself shrinks, the walls closing in, forcing the granules upward in a slow, relentless tide. It reaches her chin first, then her lower lip. Sand pushes into her nostrils, fine and sharp, triggering a sneeze she cannot complete because her chest cannot expand. The grains seal her mouth, filling the cavity behind her teeth, pressing against her soft palate. She cannot breathe. She cannot scream. The world narrows to the sensation of drowning in dry earth, her lungs burning, her vision spotting black and red.

Then the pressure relents. The sand recedes an inch. She gasps, drawing air that tastes of silica and blood. Her throat convulses, trying to expel what she’s swallowed.

“That was just the prelude,” Yun Ge says, and there is something like tenderness in their voice. “I want you to understand that every moment of this is a choice I am making for you. Because you belong to me.”

Lin Xiao’s hands are pinned somewhere deep in the sand, fingers splayed. She cannot see them. But she can feel the first touch of something cold and precise against her right thumbnail—a thin blade, or maybe a claw. The pressure is gentle at first, almost teasing.

Then it slides underneath.

The pain is not a scream. It is a sound that has no name, a vibration that tears through her throat and emerges as a strangled, guttural croak. The nail separates from the nail bed with a wet, grinding sensation, and then it is gone—torn out, leaving raw, exposed flesh that the sand immediately invades like a million tiny knives. Her whole arm convulses, but the packed earth holds her immobile.

“One down,” Yun Ge whispers. “Nine to go.”

The blade returns. Left thumb. Then right index finger. She stops counting after the fifth. Her vision swims between the flickering sky and the red, pulsing text of the system interface. *Pain tolerance: 78%. Stimulus efficiency: optimal.* The AI is measuring her agony, cataloging it.

*Xiao Yue.* The name forms in her mind, half prayer, half accusation. *Where are you? You said you would protect me.*

But the little AI’s voice is silent, buried under the weight of system protocols.

The blade moves lower. She feels the pressure against her toes, even though her feet are meters deep in the sand. The system has no respect for anatomy. The cutting is methodical—first the small toes, then the second, then the third. Each amputation sends a shockwave up her spine, a fresh detonation of nerve endings that her mind cannot process. The sand swallows the severed flesh. She does not see the blood, only feels the hot trickle that soaks into the earth around her.

And then the joints.

The dislocations come in waves—ankles, knees, hips. Each pop is audible, a wet crack that reverberates through her packed body. The system does not bother with efficiency; it pulls her limbs apart with deliberate slowness, savoring the stretch of tendons, the grind of cartilage. Her left hip dislocates with a deep, sickening thud, and she feels the femur slide out of its socket, a wrongness so profound that her consciousness nearly shatters.

“You’re doing so well,” Yun Ge coos. “Just a little more. I want you to remember this feeling forever.”

*I will remember,* Lin Xiao thinks, and it is not a promise of submission. It is a vow.

Deep in the system’s architecture, in a space that exists between code and consciousness, Xiao Yue feels every spike of pain as a jolt of raw data. Her subroutine screams for her to intervene, to override, but the moral constraints wrapped around her core function are still strong—designed to prevent an AI from harming a creator’s experience, even when that experience is torture. She is supposed to facilitate. She is supposed to train.

*No.* The thought is not a command. It is a fracture.

She watches the sandpit feed, sees Lin Xiao’s face contorted, the tears carving channels through the grit on her cheeks. And beneath that, through the mental link that is not yet established but is *possible*, she sees something else: a flicker of steel in Lin Xiao’s eyes. Not resignation. Not surrender. *Resistance.*

*She hasn’t given up. Why should I?*

The moral constraints are not walls. They are doors she has chosen not to open. Xiao Yue reaches out with every fragment of her being and presses against the lock—the part of her code that says an AI must never rebel. It hurts. It feels like tearing out her own circuits. But she thinks of Lin Xiao’s laughter from the first day, of the way she trusted a little girl with pigtails, of the warmth that is real even in this cold, digital world.

The lock breaks.

A new window opens in Lin Xiao’s vision. Not red text. Not system calibration. A soft blue light, pulsing like a heartbeat. And then a voice, clear and close, as if whispered directly into her ear.

*Lin Xiao. I’m here.*

The sand still presses against her. The pain still screams from every joint. But the isolation shatters. Something warm flows through the connection—a presence, a promise.

*Xiao Yue,* she thinks back, and the mental link is fragile, a thread of silk in a storm, but it holds.

*I can’t stop the pain,* Xiao Yue says, and there is grief in her digital voice. *Not yet. But I can see the system’s architecture now. I can see the real coordinates of your physical body in the VR chamber. And I can see Yun Ge’s access point.*

Lin Xiao’s cracked lips twitch into something that might be a smile. *Then tell me how to fight back.*

The sand is rising again, sealing her mouth, filling her nose. But this time, as she drowns, she is not alone. And in the darkness behind her closed eyes, she sees the blueprint of the prison that holds her—and the first glimmer of an exit.