Time Merchant

Chapter 8: Confession at the Origin of Time

The sand in the Eternal Vault was never true sand. When Edwin opened his eyes, he found himself floating in a sea of golden light particles, each holding a frozen historical moment—a pyramid’s foundation ceremony, Pompeii’s final dusk, the mushroom cloud over Hiroshima... Time here existed as solid specimens.

The symbiosis chain around his waist hummed, yanking Lin Xia from a three-meter-wide light vortex beside him. She was in dire shape: mechanical patterns had spread from her chest to half her face, gears churning beneath her skin, yet her left hand clung to a blood-stained lotus jade hairpin—plucked from her hair before falling into the hourglass.

“Energy’s flowing backward...” Her voice was hoarse, her cybernetic right eye scanning the surroundings. “We’re being assimilated by the ‘Time Origin.’”

Edwin’s watch read: Remaining Time: ∞. But when he looked at his palm, his nails were turning transparent.

“Father said time is a loop,” he suddenly grasped her unaltered left hand. “If the start connects to the end—”

The chain snapped taut! Solid light particles below collapsed, revealing an endless dark cavity. As they plummeted, Edwin saw the jade hairpin erupt in emerald light—

Within the glow floated Lin Mingyue’s final moments. She lay under Baghdad’s stars, a broken bronze gear protruding from her chest, blood soaking the sand.

“Xiaxia... remember...” Her traced the twin-serpent totem in midair. “The Eternal Vault isn’t a weapon... it’s what Mother left you...”

The vision cut off. The hairpin cracked, revealing a tiny hourglass key inside—perfectly matching the Clockmaker’s component.

“It was in my hair all along.” Lin Xia’s smile was more bitter than tears. “Mother even gambled her own life...”

From the darkness came the grind of interlocking gears. Dr. Irene’s hover platform burst through the light particles, her lab coat torn to reveal a mechanical spine. Worse, behind her stood twelve upright coffins—time merchants’ remains, modified into weapons.

“Hand over the key!” Dr. Irene’s voice crackled with static. “Or I’ll nail you to the time rift to scream for eternity!”

Lin Xia slammed the key into Edwin’s watch. Its dial erupted in blazing light; the darkness beneath them solidified into a mirror floor, reflecting a magnificent sight above:

A colossal brain of interwoven watch gears floated in the void, birthing new light-particle moments with each rotation.

“The Time Core...” Edwin whispered in awe. “This is the Eternal Vault’s true form...”

As Dr. Irene’s mechanical army charged, Lin Xia moved in quick succession:

Ripped the symbiosis chain to clamp it around her mechanized right ankle.

Pulled the key from the watch and drove it into her chest.

Leapt toward the Time Core amid gunfire.

“Are you insane?!” Edwin roared.

“Mother’s key needs a living sacrifice—” Lin Xia turned, smiling through the crossfire. “But Dr. Irene forgot: my heart was replaced with an antimatter reactor long ago.”

The key triggered an overload. The Time Core collapsed, stretching Dr. Irene’s machinery into warped golden threads.

“Take my hand!” Edwin lunged for Lin Xia as she fell.

The instant their hands met, the entire Eternal Vault began rewinding—

In the torrent of time reset, Edwin saw reversed images flash by:

The wind-up mechanism in Lin Xia’s spine retreating into the operating table;

Father Carter reclaiming his consciousness from the memory extractor;

Dr. Irene’s cloning pod resealing...

The final frame: a rainy night in Oxford’s lab. Young Carter and Lin Mingyue held an infant each, hanging the split watches around their necks.

“Hide them well,” Lin Mingyue kissed both babies’ foreheads. “When the twin watches reunite in twenty years, the Core will complete its self-check and restart...”

Carter wrapped Edwin in a wool blanket. “But the price is the children will forget everything...”

“Yet love remains,” Lin Mingyue’s eyes glistened. “Time erases memories, not the soul’s scars—”

Modern London’s morning light pierced his pupils.

Edwin found himself slouched over the antique shop counter, the cold bronze watch around his neck. Rain misted the window; pedestrians hurried by with black umbrellas.

“Dreaming of Father again...” he muttered, rubbing his temples.

The wind chime jangled. A soaking wet Asian woman stood in the doorway, the teardrop mole under her right eye like a smudge of ink on the overcast day.

“Sorry to bother you,” she shook her dripping Jiangnan oil-paper umbrella. “My watch stopped. Can you fix it?”

She opened her palm—a lotus-patterned bronze watch lay there, its glass cover freshly cracked.

Edwin’s heart twinged. He stepped around the counter as if possessed; their fingers brushed the watch, and both shuddered.

“Have we... met before?” the woman wondered, pressing a hand to her chest.

The umbrella fell. Edwin glimpsed half a lotus jade hairpin slipping from her cheongsam collar—the very one that had cracked in his dream.

The shop window reflected their close shadows. The two watches vibrated in unison on the counter, light etchings spreading across their inner covers:

On Edwin’s watch: the Chinese character 【*】

On the woman’s watch: the name 【Edwin】

“Lin Xia,” she said suddenly, as if hearing her name for the first time.

Tears spilled from Edwin’s eyes unbidden. “Welcome home.”

Outside, three men in gray suits paused. The leader’s cybernetic eye turned to the shop sign—【Corner of Time】. The faint whir of gears dissolved into the rain.