I Died Inventing Cultivation, Now the Heavens Call Me Genius

Chapter 10: The Mother Who Ordered My Death

“Your Majesty, we must return to the palace immediately!”

Alexander’s warning echoed through the collapsing archive, but Emperor William barely seemed to hear him. His attention remained fixed on the message hovering above the transparent floor, which identified Queen Victoria Cole as the external controller behind Ethan’s interrupted reconstruction.

After several tense seconds, William turned toward Nathaniel and raised his sword until its tip rested against the professor’s throat.

“Tell me this is another lie.”

Nathaniel stood perfectly still. “I wish I could tell you that.”

“Victoria has protected Ethan since the day he was born.”

“And perhaps she has,” Nathaniel replied cautiously. “However, protecting someone and controlling their existence are not necessarily the same thing.”

William’s expression darkened as the silver mark on his burned hand continued spreading toward his wrist. Alexander quickly stepped between them before his father could strike.

“We are wasting time,” the crown prince insisted. “If Mother is involved, we need to hear her explanation before whatever lives beneath this palace begins another reconstruction.”

At the mention of reconstruction, Ethan felt a cold pressure tighten around his mind. Shen Yu’s voice whispered from somewhere deep within his consciousness.

You still don’t understand. The person who designed your life doesn’t need to kill you. They only need to convince you that you were never real.

Ethan wanted to reject the thought, but the message identifying Victoria had awakened a memory he could not explain: a woman’s voice, a glass chamber, and a promise spoken through tears.

I’m sorry, my son.

Was that woman his mother, or had the archive manufactured another memory to manipulate him?

Before he could investigate, the black eye on his arm contracted violently, and every silver symbol in the chamber turned toward him.

“EXTERNAL CONTROLLER HAS REQUESTED RECONSTRUCTION RESUMPTION.”

William immediately covered Ethan’s arm with his palm.

“No!”

Golden spiritual energy surged from the emperor’s body and collided with the black mark. The resulting shock wave hurled Alexander against the wall, while Nathaniel grabbed a broken pillar to keep himself upright. Ethan felt the opposing forces tearing at his consciousness as though they were fighting over the right to determine who he was.

Then the archive issued another command.

“AUTHORIZATION ACCEPTED.”

The silver floor split open, releasing a column of light that swallowed Ethan and William before either could react.

---

Ethan emerged into a room filled with the scents of medicinal herbs and burning incense. He immediately recognized the royal nursery, although its familiar furnishings had changed. The curtains were drawn, the lamps had been extinguished, and unfamiliar silver inscriptions covered the walls where the protective formations had once stood.

Queen Victoria stood beside his cradle, her elegant blue robes stained with blood. One hand rested against a crystal device embedded in the nursery wall.

“You were supposed to remain asleep until your seventh year,” she whispered.

William held Ethan helplessly in his arms, but the infant’s mind seized upon her words.

What happens when I turn seven?

Victoria pressed her palm against the crystal, causing a translucent image to appear above the cradle. Five silhouettes formed a circle, with four already dark and the fifth, shaped like Ethan, flickering between silver and black.

“Reconstruction Five has become unstable,” the device announced. “The original researcher has recovered seven-point-four percent of his memories. Identity separation is failing.”

Victoria closed her eyes. “Can you preserve the child?”

“Preserving the current identity will prevent complete restoration of the original researcher.”

“Then preserve him.”

“Your authorization contradicts the primary objective.”

“I don’t care about the primary objective!” Victoria’s voice broke with desperation. “He is my son!”

The crystal pulsed, displaying the five silhouettes more brightly.

“Your previous instructions required the elimination of the reconstructed identity if contamination exceeded five percent.”

Victoria stared at the image as though she were standing before an executioner's blade. For one agonizing moment, she appeared ready to obey. Then she drove her hand into the crystal, shattering the device and extinguishing all five silhouettes.

William stood frozen in the doorway.

“Victoria?”

His quiet voice carried so much pain that Ethan felt an unfamiliar ache in his chest.

The queen spun around, and the color drained from her face when she saw her husband holding their son.

“You shouldn’t have brought him here.”

“Were you controlling the reconstruction?”

Victoria glanced at the shattered crystal. “I was preventing it from completing.”

“The archive identified you as the controller.”

“Because I built the lock that keeps it from taking him!”

William stepped farther into the room. “Then why did it say you ordered his death?”

Victoria looked directly at Ethan as tears gathered in her eyes.

“Because I did.”

Her confession struck the room with the force of a physical blow. William’s sword slipped from his fingers and clattered against the floor.

Victoria approached them slowly, her expression torn between grief and guilt.

“Before Ethan was born, the archive showed me what would happen if the fifth reconstruction succeeded. Shen Yu would recover his memories completely, and the consciousness currently living in this body would disappear.”

William shook his head in disbelief. “You told me our son was safe.”

“I believed I could make him safe.”

“You ordered his death!”

“I ordered the termination of a process that was going to erase him!” Victoria shouted. “I thought I could stop the reconstruction before his birth. I never knew the archive would create a child with his own memories, personality, and will.”

She reached toward Ethan, but William stepped away, refusing to let her touch him.

“I didn’t understand what I had created until he opened his eyes,” Victoria whispered.

Ethan studied her, struggling to separate truth from deception. His mother had tried to terminate the reconstruction, yet she had also helped create the mechanism threatening him. She had protected him while concealing the danger that haunted his existence.

Perhaps she genuinely loved him. Perhaps she loved him because she believed he was Shen Yu returned to her.

Neither possibility made him feel safe.

Then Ethan noticed that the silver inscriptions surrounding his cradle were not connected to the Heavenly Registrar. Their structure was older and more complex, resembling the equations in his original research journal.

Someone had altered his work to create the reconstruction, but someone else had designed the lock intended to prevent it from succeeding.

The lock also carried a signature he recognized.

His own.

A memory surged into his mind, showing Shen Yu standing in his laboratory, exhausted and alive, speaking to someone hidden behind a wall of glass.

“If the experiment fails,” his former self said, “you must ensure that I never return as myself.”

The unseen figure asked, “Even if you discover a way to survive?”

Shen Yu hesitated before answering.

“Especially then.”

The memory disappeared, leaving Ethan shaken.

I designed the lock myself.

He had not simply been a victim of the experiment. Before his first death, he had feared something enough to create a safeguard against his own return.

But what had terrified him so deeply?

The nursery door slammed shut, and every lamp ignited with black fire. Victoria turned toward the shattered crystal, only to discover that a dark symbol had appeared on the wall in its place. The symbol resembled an enormous eye.

“EXTERNAL CONTROLLER COMPROMISED.”

“LOCK AUTHORITY REVOKED.”

William raised his sword and positioned himself between the eye and his family.

“Show yourself!”

A familiar voice answered from the darkness.

“I’m afraid you are asking the wrong question, Your Majesty.”

The black eye widened as the protective inscriptions began peeling away from the walls.

“The question is not who controls the reconstruction,” the voice continued. “The question is why Shen Yu ordered his own death.”

Something stirred inside Ethan’s mind, and the older consciousness fell unnaturally quiet. For the first time since the reconstruction began, Shen Yu sounded genuinely terrified.

Ethan, whatever happens next, do not let it show you the seventh memory.

A new message appeared above the cradle.

“MEMORY SEVEN UNLOCKED.”

As the nursery trembled, the door began opening from the other side, although no one stood beyond it.