Time Merchant

Chapter 10: The Rusted Umbilical Cord

London’s rain had never felt so viscous.

Droplets dripped from the carved eaves of Corner of Time, splattering the bluestones into oily halos. Lin Xia leaned against the oak counter, amber lubricant seeping from the mechanical knee joint exposed by her cheongsam’s high slit. She twirled a silver pocket watch key between fingertips wrapped in nerve bundles; as golden energy threads coiled in the lockhole, the shopwindow glass suddenly flickered with a grotesque overlay—1940s black smoke billowed from Tower Bridge, carrying screaming air-raid shelter crowds that lunged at the modern streetscape.

“Time-space abscess.” Edwin pressed his palm to the glass. Vine-like nerve bundles bulged under his skin, forcing the illusion back into reality. “Something’s tearing open London’s war scars.”

A rusted hinge shrieked as the door creaked open. An old woman in an air-raid warden’s uniform huddled in the doorway’s shadow, a propeller fragment in her arms gnawing at her chest like a living thing. Where metal fused with ribs, nerve bundles burst through her skin like poison ivy, their tips still strung with congealed blood fat. An air-raid whistle dangled around her neck, its holes oozing tar-scented black mist.

“Fix it…” Deep in her eye sockets, pocket watch gears turned in place of pupils. “Or tonight’s bombs… will fall on St. Mary’s Orphanage chapel…”

Sparks exploded from Lin Xia’s spine. She recognized the foundry number etched on the fragment’s edge—LXM-1940-07—differing from her lumbar bearing’s serial code by only the last digit! The moment her nerve bundles touched the fragment, the old woman let out a metal-scraping wail, her body melting into asphalt-like muck that enveloped them.

The stale, rusted stench of air-raid shelters filled their nostrils.

A corroded metal graveyard spread beneath their feet.

Seven U-boats formed a hill, their hulls squeezed by bronze pipes coiled like pythons. Fluorescent blue liquid hissed and steamed in the pipes, siphoning the Thames’ shimmer into wispy threads. Corpses in SS uniforms stumbled among them, welding pocket watches into the submarine reactors. With each insertion, the pipes throbbed harder, and screaming children’s faces materialized on the cyan surface—exact matches for photos in St. Mary’s Orphanage archives!

“They’re draining time marrow to feed the weapon.” Edwin’s metal-manipulating power ripped open a submarine hull. Jammed in the gear movement lay half a child’s torso, charred little hands clutching sticky artificial honey—cheap syrup rationed by the government during the Blitz.

Three mechanical corpses in general’s wool coats leapt onto the command tower. The leader tore open his uniform, revealing a glass jar in his chest containing Dr. Irene’s brain tissue: “Welcome to become fuel lines for the ‘Perpetual Heart’…” Nerves in the jar suddenly sprayed out, coiling around Lin Xia’s ankles.

Data streams pierced their optic nerves like ice picks:

September 7, 1940. Deep subway tunnel

Lin Mingyue tucked a swaddled infant into a ventilation pipe, then pressed an identical pocket watch into the reactor;

1943. Berlin underground factory

The same watch was polished into a lumbar bearing on the assembly line, implanted into a baby girl’s spine;

Time flashback

Her own mechanical leg crushing stained-glass windows underfoot in the ruins of St. Mary’s Orphanage…

“My body… is a bomb Mother built?” Lin Xia staggered back, rust flecks bursting from her knee gears.

The steel hill beneath them split with a roar. From the abyss rose a giant organ-shaped cannon, its pipes inlaid with pocket watches, keys made of solidified nerve bundles. When the mechanical corpse pressed middle C, sound waves materialized into incendiary bomb phantoms, hurtling toward the stained glass of memory!

Act 1: Nerve Backflow

Edwin’s liquid nerve bundles stabbed into the control panel. A spinal blueprint flashed onscreen, blood-lettered in the margin: 【Lin Mingyue Protocol V12: When daughter contacts Shi Gu core, spine converts to antimatter bomb】.

“Disconnect!” he roared, yanking the nerve bundles.

Dr. Irene’s brain tissue suddenly overclocked, sending data flooding back through Edwin’s nerves—

Uterine incubation chamber

Two embryos floated back-to-back, nerve bundles coiling into knots in the amniotic fluid;

Operating table

Lin Mingyue’s trembling hand implanting a tiny pocket watch into the baby girl’s spine;

Final frame

Bomb countdown hitting zero, the girl’s spine erupting in blue light that devoured the lab…

Act 2: Umbilical Blood Ignition

Lin Xia ripped off her spinal fuel line. Aviation fuel sprayed out, mixed with nerve bundles; she rammed it into the reactor’s pressure relief valve!

Fluorescent blue time fluid exploded backward, the shockwave blowing away the mechanical corpses. Her left leg armor melted off, revealing a bronze femur—its surface covered in energy circuits identical to the nerve bundles.

“Mother gave me more than a weapon…” She stepped into the fuel torrent, the bronze bone absorbing blue light and surging. “It’s a second umbilical cord!”

Act 3: Time-Space Birth

Amid the organ’s overloaded sonic boom, half a pocket watch emerged from the reactor. The moment Edwin grabbed it, Lin Mingyue’s blood fingerprint flared—

In an air-raid shelter phantom

She dismantled an incendiary bomb fuse from the orphanage;

The pocket watch in the baby girl’s spine suddenly detached, transforming into a blue light barrier blocking the flames;

Intercut slow-motion of Lin Mingyue falling into the reactor—her lip movement: “Cut the cord!”

Lin Xia drove her bronze femur into the control panel. Nerve bundles erupted along the keys, coiling around her mother’s hand in the phantom: “This time, I choose you to live!”

The pocket watch clicked whole in her palm. The submarine graveyard collapsed into a bronze vortex, pushing Lin Mingyue’s phantom toward the light…

Morning light licked the solidified propeller fragment on the counter.

The old woman’s air-raid whistle lay caked in grime, its body extending bronze nerve bundles that mended Lin Xia’s exposed leg bone. Edwin opened his palm—the coordinates on the watch cover, etched in blood fingerprints, evaporated: 【51°30'26"N 0°7'39"W】.

“Deepest Blitz-era subway bunker…” Lin Xia’s nerve bundles suddenly coiled tight around Edwin’s wrist.

Outside the shopwindow, Tower Bridge was being swallowed by bronze pipes. A countdown formed from bridge gears pierced the morning mist:

【05:59:59】

As the second hand skipped backward, the bronze circuits on Lin Xia’s femur flared, revealing fluorescent blue marrow flowing beneath her skin—identical to the time fluid in the graveyard pipes.