The purple mist had cleared, but it left behind a stain that wouldn't wash away. While the citizens of Jiangnan were waking up, the Great Needle itself was starting to look sick. Deep within the bark, near the primary energy conduits where the Sleeper-Cradle had been attached, a dark, oily rot was spreading. It wasn't wood decay; it was a digital infection, a glitch in the very DNA of the 100th Earth.
Xin stood on a maintenance platform halfway up the trunk, staring at a patch of bark that was pulsing with a sickly, iridescent light. Every time the tree breathed, the patch expanded, sending thin, silver veins crawling toward the upper branches.
"It’s a feedback loop," Mei said, her voice tight with worry. She was hanging from a safety harness, pressing a diagnostic scanner against the
