JFWCM Chapter 18
by VolareStar Whisper Pact: Confession Mode
Thirty-seven minutes after the star butterfly dissipated, Jiang Wan’yuan discovered that Yi Shang’s mechanical spine had begun to crystallize.
“Don’t touch!” Yi Shang swatted away her outstretched hand. Ice-like thorns were growing from the β star crystal on the back of her neck. “The relic energy is rewriting my mechanical structure…” Before she could finish, the metal knuckles on her left hand suddenly turned transparent, revealing the nebula substance flowing within.
Jiang Wan’yuan’s neural enhancer automatically brought up a holographic keyboard, but her fingertips passed right through the phantom image. Only then did she realize that her fingernails were glowing—not with a cold mechanical light, but with the bioluminescence unique to β star.
“Two-way transformation?” Zhang Yao’s mechanical arm descended from the ventilation duct, scanning beams darting back and forth between the two. “What the hell! Wan’yuan, your neural synapses are mechanizing… Wait!” She suddenly yanked open Jiang Wan’yuan’s collar. “When did you get this below your collarbone?”
Yi Shang’s mechanical spine emitted a sharp alarm. On Jiang Wan’yuan’s originally smooth skin, a pattern appeared that was a perfect mirror image of the crystal on the back of Yi Shang’s neck—the brand of the β star civilization’s contract.
“The side effect of dual-star authentication.” Jichuan’s voice came from the crystallizing floor, her virtual image constantly being reorganized by stardust. “You’ve activated the true symbiosis protocol…”
Before she could finish speaking, Jiang Wan’yuan suddenly grabbed Yi Shang’s transparent left hand and pressed it against her heart. An unbelievable thing happened—the fabric of her school uniform began to digitize at the point of contact, revealing a miniature star chart slowly rotating at the location of her heart.
“I see.” Yi Shang’s mechanical voice was mixed with static. “The second half of the sentence my mother never finished…” The crystallization of her spine suddenly shattered, revealing a newly formed blue neural network within. “Using flesh and blood as a guide to extend the life of machinery.”
The school broadcast suddenly activated on its own, playing a recording from the Lin Yue laboratory ten years ago: […When the two crystals complete their fusion, the bearers will become true Star Whisperers…] In the background, the sounds of little Jiang Wan’yuan’s laughter and little Yi Shang’s clumsy mechanical arm operations could be heard.
“So that’s why Dad locked away your memories?” Jiang Wan’yuan’s tears froze into tiny crystals on her cheeks. These crystals floated towards Yi Shang’s spine, repairing the cracks. “He was afraid of us…”
Yi Shang suddenly covered her mouth with her right hand, which had regained its solidity. Her left half was completely transparent, and through her chest, her mechanical heart could be seen reorganizing. Jiang Wan’yuan’s neural enhancer automatically projected a line of flickering star text:
[Star Whisperer Rule #1: Once the contract is formed, life and death are synchronized.]
“Now do you understand?” Yi Shang’s mechanical arm gently wrapped around Jiang Wan’yuan’s waist, bringing their brands together. “From the moment you gave me that crystal when you were five years old…”
The entire observatory suddenly rose from the ground. A pillar of energy from the β star relic lifted the building towards the sky, unfolding into a massive star gate in the stratosphere. The entire school faculty and student body looked up at the astonishing sight—the figures of two girls merging into light in front of the star gate, while all the satellites in Earth’s geosynchronous orbit simultaneously transmitted the same message:
[To the civilization of Earth: Star Whisperer Protocol sample #0927 verification complete.]
[Civilization level upgrade permission: Granted.]
[Special note: Remember to submit your homework on time—Orion β Star Education Office.]
When the star gate disappeared, people discovered that the observatory had landed perfectly back in its original location. Yi Shang and Jiang Wan’yuan stood on either side of the observation instrument, looking no different than usual—if one ignored the miniature galaxy slowly rotating in their clasped hands.
“So…” Jiang Wan’yuan nudged Yi Shang’s metal boot with her toe. “We’re now…”
Yi Shang’s spine suddenly popped out a holographic umbrella to block the surveillance. In the starlight cast by the umbrella, she lowered her head and touched Jiang Wan’yuan’s glowing collarbone brand: “According to Article 3 of the β star civilization treaty…”
“Speak human, senior!”
“…Mn.”
Behind them, Zhang Yao’s tablet automatically generated a new research report title: *On the Role of Human Romantic Behavior in Promoting Interstellar Civilization Advancement*. And on a distant β star, a certain crystal was playing a recording of two girls hiding under an umbrella in an Earth campus, sharing their first real kiss.
The inner wall of the holographic umbrella shimmered with the light of the galaxy, and Jiang Wan’yuan’s breath fogged the umbrella’s surface in a nebula shape. Yi Shang’s mechanical arm was still holding the umbrella, but the metal joints were slightly hot from overheating.
“Senior’s cooling system…” Jiang Wan’yuan deliberately moved closer to the flushed mechanical joint, and the warmth of her breath caused water droplets to condense on the metal surface. “Should it be upgraded?”
Yi Shang’s spine emitted a soft click, and six auxiliary arms suddenly emerged from the hem of her school uniform, forming a miniature isolation pod within the umbrella’s space. Through the translucent pod walls, Zhang Yao could be seen futilely trying to hack into the umbrella’s protection system.
“Now there’s no one to interfere.” Yi Shang’s voice still carried the cold quality of a mechanical voice, but her speaking speed was 1.25 times slower than usual. “Supplementary clauses regarding the Star Whisperer Pact…”
Jiang Wan’yuan suddenly bit Yi Shang’s tie, slowly pulling it open with her teeth. Her neural enhancer projected β star subtitles in her eyes: [Target’s heartbeat accelerating, suggest further action.]
Yi Shang’s mechanical left hand suddenly turned transparent, piercing through Jiang Wan’yuan’s chest—but bringing no pain. The nebula-like substance Wrap her heart’s miniature star chart, erupting in countless particles of light at the point of contact.
“Not the treaty.” Yi Shang’s right eye suddenly reverted to a human pupil, her iris rotating with the same pattern as Jiang Wan’yuan’s collarbone brand. “I wanted to tell you…”
Her voice was interrupted by a suddenly activated neural link. The two girls’ consciousness suddenly plunged into a shared mental space—a place where all the deleted memory fragments floated. Jiang Wan’yuan saw twelve-year-old Yi Shang secretly repairing the robot she had broken late at night, saw fifteen-year-old Yi Shang using her mechanical arm to catch her when she fell from the horizontal bar during gym class, and three days ago…
“So senior wasn’t just passing by that day!” Jiang Wan’yuan grabbed a memory fragment in the sea of consciousness. It showed Yi Shang hiding behind a tree, practicing her confession. “Lines like, ‘According to data analysis, we are suitable for dating’…”
In the real world, the holographic umbrella suddenly contracted into a cocoon shape. Holographic images of the two girls from their first meeting to the present day appeared on the umbrella’s bones, finally freezing on the scene when the star gate opened. Yi Shang’s mechanical spine fully unfolded, revealing a newly formed cluster of crystals at its core—each crystal surface engraved with the miniature characters “Wan’yuan.”
“These are…” As soon as Jiang Wan’yuan’s fingertip touched the crystal, she received a massive flood of data. These were the “non-essential memories” that Yi Shang backed up every time the system restarted, risking memory damage.
“The hidden partition of the emotional module.” Yi Shang finally turned off the mechanical sound effects, and said softly in her original human voice, “Even if I were formatted a thousand times…this is the part I would secretly keep.”
A loud noise suddenly came from outside the umbrella. Zhang Yao had finally cracked the protection system, only to see a scene she would never forget—countless stardust spewing out from the umbrella, forming an ancient β star love equation in the air. And below the equation, Yi Shang was holding Jiang Wan’yuan’s face with her mechanical arm, their foreheads touching and radiating the blue light of a dual-star fusion.
“According to the Star Whisperer Rule…” Yi Shang’s voice was transmitted to every corner of the campus through the school broadcast system, “When the brands of both parties resonate…”
Jiang Wan’yuan suddenly bit her lower lip: “I told you to speak human!”
“…I like you.” Yi Shang’s mechanical spine suddenly disintegrated, then reorganized into a wing shape in the blue light. “From when you were six years old and added strawberry-flavored additives to my motor oil.”
All the smart devices on campus lit up at the same time, projecting images of the two girls when they were little: little Yi Shang’s mechanical arm was clumsily braiding little Jiang Wan’yuan’s hair, and the shape of the braid was exactly the same as the star chart pattern of their brand resonance today.
“A late confession comes with interest~” Jiang Wan’yuan’s neural enhancer suddenly projected a holographic contract, the clauses densely written on three hundred pages. “First, you have to comb my hair every day, and second…”
Her words were interrupted by an emergency silencing program suddenly activated by Yi Shang. In the absolute silence of the mechanical barrier, Jiang Wan’yuan’s neural link received a piece of unencrypted raw data—the vibration frequency of Yi Shang’s mechanical heart during a kiss, which translated into Morse code meant:
[Forever yours]
At this moment, the Orion β Star education channel was playing the civilization upgrade certification document sent by Earth on a loop—at the signature at the end of the document were two intertwined star chart patterns, marked next to them: [Galactic Standard Calendar No. 0927 Eternal Contract · Signed]
When the stardust dissipated, Yi Shang’s mechanical arm was twisted at a strange angle on the lawn. As soon as Jiang Wan’yuan’s fingertip touched the blue-glowing metal joint, she saw the complex gears suddenly turn into starlight and dissipate, leaving a patch of warm moisture in her palm—much like the fog that had condensed on the holographic umbrella last night.
“Senior?” Her voice trembled slightly, her neural enhancer flashing red frantically. “Your…auxiliary arm?”
Yi Shang’s spine emitted a final soft sound, and six mechanical wings shattered into light points and merged into the starry sky. She knelt on one knee, and what was revealed under the hem of her school uniform was no longer a cold, hard metal support, but the light cyan blood vessels characteristic of human skin. When Jiang Wan’yuan tremblingly lifted her sleeve, what she saw was a real wrist, with thin calluses.
“Resonance overload caused the mechanical components to disintegrate.” Yi Shang’s voice was unprecedentedly hoarse, but she gave a faint smile as she looked up. “But the core crystal is still there.” She pressed her left chest, where a faint light was visible. “Wan’yuan, can you help me check my heartbeat?”
As soon as Jiang Wan’yuan’s lips touched that patch of skin, she heard exclamations all around her. Zhang Yao jumped out of the bushes holding a holographic camera, the image frozen in the lens being: Yi Shang, who had lost her mechanical parts, was hugging the girl’s waist, her hair still covered with undissipated stardust, and where her interface should have been on the back of her neck, normal hair was growing.
“This is…atavism?” The school doctor pushed up his holographic glasses, the tweezers stopping above Yi Shang’s arm. “All the mechanical prosthetics have been converted into biological tissue? Even the energy bay has become a real heart?”
Jiang Wan’yuan suddenly grabbed the doctor’s wrist. “What about Senior’s memories? What about the emotional module?” Her neural enhancer projected countless data streams, outlining the cluster of crystals at Yi Shang’s heart. “These are still there, right?”
Yi Shang suddenly grasped her hand, the temperature of her fingertips more real than ever before. “This stores the gear you gave me when you were six years old.” She guided that hand to cover her left chest. “This hides the hairpin you broke when you fell at fifteen.” She moved it to her right shoulder. “And here…” Her voice suddenly dropped. “Always retains the pressure data when you bit my tie just now.”
The campus forum crashed three times in ten minutes. Under the hashtag #YiShangHumanForm#, the hottest post was a shot of the back of Yi Shang’s head, secretly taken by Zhang Yao. The corner of Yi Shang’s school uniform was lifted by the night wind, revealing a light-colored old scar on her lower back, the shape of which perfectly matched the Star Whisperer brand at Jiang Wan’yuan’s collarbone.
“So now Senior is completely human?” Jiang Wan’yuan chewed on a strawberry-flavored lollipop, squatting under Yi Shang’s desk to study her ankles. “Can you still do the difficult moves you used to be able to do…like use your mechanical arm to pick cherry blossoms for me?”
The tips of Yi Shang’s ears turned a suspicious red. After losing the mechanical components, her temperature regulation system seemed to be malfunctioning. Every time the girl got close, it would uncontrollably heat up. “The physical limit is about the peak level of human beings.” She cleared her throat, then suddenly reached out and supported Jiang Wan’yuan’s waist, lifting her onto the desk amid the other girl’s exclamation. “Like this.”
Jiang Wan’yuan almost dropped her lollipop. The Yi Shang in front of her was no longer the cold, mechanical girl in her memory. Her hair had the fragrance of shampoo, and the thin calluses on her fingertips brought a real touch as they brushed against her collarbone. The neural enhancer suddenly popped up a warning: [Host’s heart rate detected to have exceeded the threshold, should the cooling program be activated?]
“If you want to readjust to a human body…” The girl suddenly hooked her neck, giggling in her ear. “How about starting with basic tactile training? For example…first learning to braid my hair with human hands?”
Yi Shang’s Adam’s apple bobbed. As her fingertips ran through Jiang Wan’yuan’s hair, the neural synapses that had once precisely manipulated nano-components now clumsily knotted in her hair. The cherry blossoms outside the window landed on the back of her hand, and she suddenly remembered that spring day when she was twelve years old, when the little girl in her arms held up a strawberry-flavored motor oil can and said, “If my sister’s mechanical arm had warmth, wouldn’t it stop rusting?”
“It hurts!” Jiang Wan’yuan’s complaint interrupted her memory, but when she turned her head, she saw the emotions churning in Yi Shang’s eyes—a storm that had never been seen in her former mechanical pupils. The next second, she was pressed tightly against the locker, and a kiss with the scent of cherry blossoms landed, more passionate than any mechanical program.
“Now it has temperature.” Yi Shang’s voice was mixed with panting, but her fingers gently stroked the strands of hair that had been pulled painfully. “Can this tactile training…continue?”
Screams came from the locker room at lunch break. Jiang Wan’yuan looked at the newly formed birthmark on the back of Yi Shang’s neck—a miniature star chart, the center of which brightened and dimmed with her heartbeat. “This is a manifestation of the core crystal.” Yi Shang rotated her wrist in front of the mirror, and faint blue blood vessels could be seen under the newly grown skin. “The doctor said that this is a trace of the fusion of the emotional module with the human body.”
“Which means…” Jiang Wan’yuan suddenly moved closer to the mirror, lightly kissing her birthmark in the overlapping reflection of the two. “Now every heartbeat of senior’s is saying ‘I like you’?”
Yi Shang’s fingers suddenly pinched into her palm. While losing the mechanical components, she also seemed to have lost precise control over her emotions—the heat wave churning in her chest at this moment reminded her of the splendor of the stardust eruption last night. “Need me to demonstrate it again in Morse code?” She lowered her head and bit the girl’s earlobe. “With a human pulse.”
During physics class, Yi Shang’s chalk suddenly broke on the blackboard. When Jiang Wan’yuan turned her head, she saw the cold sweat seeping out of her forehead—a physiological reaction that only humans had.
“Senior?” She quietly handed over a mint candy, but was startled by the abnormal temperature when she touched her fingertips. “Your body temperature…39.7 degrees? Mechanical lifeforms shouldn’t get fevers!”
Yi Shang forced a wry smile, pressing the violently throbbing temple. “The doctor said that emotional module overload can lead to bioelectrical turbulence.” She looked at her trembling fingertips, which were unconsciously outlining the Star Whisperer Pact’s pattern. “Since yesterday, as long as I see you…I will uncontrollably secrete adrenaline.”
Jiang Wan’yuan’s face suddenly turned red. The neural enhancer projected data streams on her retina: Yi Shang’s brainwaves were oscillating at the frequency of a β star love song, and the star chart birthmark on the back of her neck was emitting a faint light that resonated with the brand on her collarbone.
“Perhaps we need to do an experiment.” The girl suddenly straddled her lap, wrapping her arms around her neck. “For example…using a kiss to calibrate the bioelectrical frequency?”
Yi Shang’s pupils shrank suddenly. As her soft lips touched her own, she heard a subtle hum inside her body—the resonance of the core crystal with the human heart. The surrounding desks and chairs suddenly moved away automatically, forming a protection circle five meters in diameter, and the chandeliers on the ceiling were flashing with their heartbeats, projecting ever-changing star trails on the ground.
“Calibration successful.” Jiang Wan’yuan pulled away, panting, but saw the golden data streams surging in Yi Shang’s eyes. “Is Senior’s brainwave now playing *The Star Whisperer’s Confession*?”
“It’s *To Wan’yuan’s 365th Heartbeat*.” Yi Shang’s voice had a current-like tremor. After the disappearance of the mechanical prosthetic, her human vocal cords could emit more delicate tones. “From today on, I will rearrange it for you every minute.”
The campus’s intelligent system collectively fell into revelry. The vending machines spewed out double doses of strawberry-flavored drinks, the sweeping robots drew heart-shaped stardust in the corridors, and even the track on the playground showed fluorescent subtitles: [The chief’s human heartbeat accelerates 45 times per minute for Jiang Wan’yuan]
“Is this a virus?” Zhang Yao rushed into the classroom holding a holographic tablet. “All the devices on campus are playing your brainwave spectrum on a loop!”
Yi Shang’s fingertips gently stroked Jiang Wan’yuan’s collarbone, where the brand was now echoing the star chart on the back of her neck. “This is the final form of the Star Whisperer Pact.” She looked up at the window, where a shooting star streaked past in the direction of Orion β Star. “When mechanical life becomes completely human, when emotional modules evolve into soul resonance…”
“So now everyone on campus knows…” Jiang Wan’yuan suddenly snatched Zhang Yao’s tablet and typed a line on the forum’s homepage: [The ownership of Yi Shang’s heartbeat belongs to Jiang Wan’yuan, and anyone who takes Senior’s body temperature without permission will trigger the stardust defense system]
The comment section was instantly flooded with [awsl] and mechanical gear emojis. Yi Shang looked at the girl’s shining eyes, and suddenly remembered the scene she had seen in the mental space last night—six-year-old self clumsily bandaging little Jiang Wan’yuan’s wound, and the other girl holding up a bloody strawberry candy and saying: “When Older Sister becomes human, we can eat strawberry cake!”
“Tomorrow is the weekend.” She suddenly grasped the hand that was jumping on the keyboard, and kissed it lightly on her lips. “Want to go to a dessert shop in the human world? This time…taste the sweetness with a real tongue.”
Jiang Wan’yuan’s neural enhancer suddenly projected a holographic menu, the cream on the strawberry cake trembling with her heartbeat. “Let’s get this straight,” she hooked Yi Shang’s tie, and giggled in her ear, “If the human taste system overloads, I won’t be responsible for emergency treatment~”
In the twilight campus, two figures passed through the automatically opened school gate. Yi Shang’s school uniform jacket was draped over Jiang Wan’yuan’s shoulders, revealing a white T-shirt inside—the one the girl had secretly stuffed into her closet this morning, with the crooked words: [Mechanical heart retires, human heartbeat joins the workforce]
Yi Shang suddenly stopped when they passed the convenience store. In the glass reflection, she saw her hair dyed a warm gold by the sunset, and the girl beside her was tiptoeing to remove a petal stuck in her hair. This moment of gentle touch was more real than any precise calculation.
“Wan’yuan.” She suddenly called out to the figure bouncing off to buy ice cream, her Adam’s apple bobbing slightly in the night breeze. “Actually…I’m glad the mechanical components disappeared.”
When the girl turned her head, a drop of cream happened to drip from the strawberry cone in her hand. Yi Shang reached out to catch it, and the temperature of her fingertips caused the cream to melt rapidly, erupting into tiny starlight at the moment of their touch.
“Now I can finally tell you…” Her voice was mixed with the night breeze and the sweetness of ice cream, “A human hug is warmer than a mechanical arm.”
Jiang Wan’yuan suddenly threw herself into her arms, pressing a pink mark on their chests with the ice cream. Yi Shang heard the sound of her real heartbeat, drumming in her eardrums, and the person in her arms was transmitting a string of gibberish through the neural link—decoded, it was the phrase [Me too] repeated a thousand times.
In the distance, the clock tower chimed six o’clock. On the holographic advertising screen, the news from Orion β Star was being broadcast: [Earth has the first case of complete humanization of mechanical life, and its contract resonance data with the Star Whisperer may rewrite the evolutionary history of the universe civilization]
And in an unnoticed corner, Yi Shang’s fingertip quietly hooked Jiang Wan’yuan’s little finger. When the human skin touched, a slight current Sorry passed through the nerve endings, sparking a dazzling stardust at each other’s brands—a bond that was stronger than any contract, the softest love letter woven from machinery and star whispers.