The dense rainforest of South America stretched like an endless green labyrinth, its humid air thick with the scent of decaying vegetation and the drone of insects. Cloaked in advanced stealth equipment, Lin Xiaoxia and Xiaoya moved like specters through the undergrowth, carefully closing in on Time Corporation’s hidden stronghold.
The entrance to the facility was concealed behind an unremarkable rock face, accessible only through rigorous identity verification. Using forged credentials and intrusion programs prepared in advance, Lin Xiaoxia bypassed the security system, forcing open a passage into the depths below.
The tunnel twisted like a serpent, its walls lined with cold metal and blinking indicator lights. The air hummed with the sterile, electric scent of technology. Deeper and deeper they descended, until at last, they emerged into a vast underground chamber.
The space sprawled like a colossal hive, teeming with laboratories and data centers. Workers in white lab coats moved briskly between rows of precision instruments. At the heart of it all stood a massive circular device, pulsing with an eerie blue glow, its tendrils of data cables snaking outward to feed the surrounding servers.
Lin Xiaoxia and Xiaoya exchanged a glance—this had to be the core of Time Corporation’s memory reconstruction system.
Dodging patrols, they slipped into a secluded lab. Screens lined the walls, displaying intricate brainwave patterns and memory encoding sequences. At the center of the room, suspended in a transparent tank of nutrient fluid, floated a human brain, electrodes spiderwebbing across its surface.
The sight struck them like a physical blow. Time Corporation wasn’t just altering memories—they were experimenting on living neural tissue.
As they studied the lab, a voice, chillingly familiar, spoke from the shadows:
"You’ve finally arrived."
Lin Xiaoxia whirled around. A figure stepped into the light—his face identical to the Xu Yuan she remembered, but his eyes were cold, his smile foreign.
"Who... are you?" Her voice trembled. The suspicion she had dreaded now stood before her, real and undeniable.
"You may call me... the Prototype." His voice carried none of Xu Yuan’s warmth, only a detached precision. **"A perfected replacement, crafted from his memories. Time Corporation’s finest iteration."
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