Ah Che was awakened by a sharp sound—like someone crouching over her ear, grinding broken glass with silver tweezers, each sound stinging her eardrum.

She flung her eyes open, and the prisms clinging to her eyelashes rustled down, the sharp particles scraping against her cheek like the scrapes of a tiny blade. A salty breeze, carrying the smell of rust and mingling with the odor of burning circuit boards, choked her and made her hold her breath. She looked up, and the sky was the color of melted tinfoil. The rolling clouds resembled crumpled aluminum foil, their edges tinged with grayish-black oxidation. The sea beneath her feet shone with an eerie, glassy sheen. The deep blue, almost black, waves resembled three-dimensional sculptures cut from lasers. As the waves collided, tiny shards of prisms flew off, reflecting fleeting rainbows against the skylight. As they landed, they made a crisp, tinkling sound, like countless crystal glasses shattering simultaneously. "Forgot again?"

A sound overhead rang out like nails scraping against rusty iron, its tail laced with the clacking of turning gears. Che's head shot up, his spine instantly tensing like a bowstring. The broken mast jutted diagonally onto the glassy beach, its exposed copper wires tangled into a web, gleaming coldly under the tinfoil-colored skylight, like the frozen blood of some giant beast. And the mechanical bird perched on the thinnest wooden pole at the masthead, its brass body glaring against the gray background.

Its wingspan was nearly as long as her arm. The gears on the right wing meshed delicately, making a soft "click-click" sound as they turned. The left wing, however, was missing half a piece, revealing the pulsing blue data stream within. The light ribbons expanded and contracted like the internal organs of a living being, casting tiny specks of light in the air. Seven silver chain feathers dangled behind her, and at the ends of the chains, miniature astrolabes slowly rotated. The symbols on the disks twisted and flowed, wriggling like living things. Ah Che stared at the symbols for three seconds, and the metal button at the back of his neck suddenly felt hot, as if something was trying to break through his skin.

The mechanical bird tilted its head, its glass eyes clearly reflecting her face, stained with prismatic sand, even the every ridge of the crest of the wave behind her was visible. It suddenly flapped its wings, and the brass joints creaked like old hinges. As it flew over Ah Che's head, the silver chain feathers brushed against the ends of her hair, spreading a cool sensation along her hair. The astrolabe at the end of one of the chains brushed against her earlobe, causing a sharp sting, like a static shock.

Ah Che instinctively reached for the back of his neck—there was a coin-sized bump there, like a metal button buried beneath his skin, its edges smooth as a pebble, but with a tiny indentation in the center. The moment her fingertips touched, a faint tingling crawled up her nerves to her temple. How many times had she woken up in a strange place? Memories, like waterlogged paper, left only hazy outlines: the reflection of the hospital's white walls, the scent of fruit (orange? lemon?) hidden in the smell of disinfectant, and a promise shrouded in a thick fog. She clenched her fists tightly, her nails digging deep into her palms, trying to grasp the escaping fragments, but she only grabbed a handful of prismatic sand, which hurt her palms. "This is the 'Sea of Oblivion.'" The mechanical bird landed on the glass reef before it, its claws crushing a prism. The crisp crack echoed across the empty beach. "Dimension number 73, the law of physics is 'memory entropy'—simply put, the longer you stay, the more you forget." It pointed its beak at the ocean, where new prism fragments were constantly forming on the crests of the waves. "Those broken glass pieces are the crystallization of the memories of those who came before us. Joy reflects rainbows, while pain is pure black, like obsidian."

Ah Che took a half step back, her heel striking the sharp glass, causing her to gasp in pain. She stared at the mechanical bird warily, her throat so dry she couldn't utter a single word. "Who are you?" The sea breeze lifted the corner of her clothes, allowing the prismatic sand to find its way into her sleeves, scratching her skin and making it itchy as if countless ants were crawling.

The mechanical bird's chest creaked softly, like a spring tightening, as if it were laughing. "I am Mobius." It unfolded its right wing, and a stream of data condensed at the gap into a translucent screen. Images flowed like a movie: a rainy night in a steampunk city, a copper pocket watch lying on the wet cobblestones, a tiny lily of the valley engraved on the inside of the watch cover, its petals stained with water droplets; in a pond in an ancient courtyard, a jade pendant floated on the surface, its cracks resembling Orion's belt, and the water reflected a blurry figure in a ruqué; amid the shattered walls of apocalyptic ruins, a holographic projection flickered, the figure in the projection telling an inaudible story against a backdrop of dancing ash... In each frame, there was a figure remarkably like her, dressed in clothing from a different dimension. "Or rather, it's me in this dimension." The mechanical bird folded its wings, the sound of its gears slowing down. "Every time you cross a dimension, your memory resets, like formatting your C drive when you restart your computer. But there are always hidden files left deep within—for example, the way you're staring at my tail feathers right now is exactly the same as when you stared at that pocket watch in Steam City." It paused, the data stream on its left wing suddenly pulsating violently. "And I must find a new form to follow you. Steam City is the pocket watch, Mirror Flower and Water Moon is the jade pendant, Ash Street is the holographic projection... This time, the energy was unstable when I passed through the dimensional rift, and it just happened to attach itself to the remains of this bird."

Ah Che's heart suddenly ached, as if being gripped by an invisible hand. She stared at the broken left wing of the mechanical bird, and suddenly the data stream felt familiar—was it the waveform of a hospital monitor? Or the rain streaks on a car window on a rainy night? Just as the fragments of memory were about to surface, they were shattered by the huge waves. "Why are you following me?" She heard her voice tremble, her fingertips turning white from the strain.

The mechanical bird's glass eyes dimmed, the blue light pulsing faintly like a dying heartbeat. "Because..." Its gears suddenly seized, a clicking sound emanating from them, as if it were avoiding something. "Your consciousness is the only anchor that stabilizes the dimensional passage. Without you, I will completely dissipate within the rift."

At that moment, the mechanical bird suddenly tilted its head, its silver-chain tail feathers pointing behind Che. All the astrolabe symbols simultaneously accelerated, emitting a sharp buzzing sound, like an alarm being triggered: "Beware, the Memory-Eroding Fish is coming!"

The moment Che turned his head, a huge wave suddenly rose from the glass sea. The wave came without warning, like a huge glass wall collapsing, and a black gash appeared in the deep blue sea. Countless schools of translucent fish leaped from the crest of the waves. Their bodies, made of grayish-white mist, were as slender as ghosts, eyeless. As they approached, they could hear the crackling sound of burning paper, mingled with the faint whispers of human voices.

The fish in front brushed against her arm, its cool touch like flowing water. Ah Che's mind suddenly went blank—what was her name? Did it start with A or S? She opened her mouth, but her throat felt like cotton, and no sound came out.

"Run!" The mechanical bird swooped down and knocked her away. The moment its geared wings made contact with the memory-eroding fish, there was a harsh scraping sound, and tiny sparks flew from the brass surface. "They feed on memories! Three times, and you'll be a shard in the glass sea!"

Ah Che stumbled back, her mind like an emptied recycling bin. Who was she? Why was she here? Why was this mechanical bird protecting her? The memory-eroding fish drew closer, their mist thickening, the faint shapes of fish emerging, but more like countless outstretched hands. She could feel her fingertips turning transparent, the blood vessels beneath her skin taking on a glassy texture, as if melting into the sea.

"Grab my tail feathers!" the mechanical bird cried urgently, its left wing's data stream suddenly surging. A faint blue light traced a silver trail through the air. Wherever the trail passed, the prismatic sand froze in the air. "I know you remember nothing, but your body does! Just like you breathe without knowing why, yet you keep breathing!"

Ah Che reached out almost instinctively and grasped the cool silver chain. The touch was strange, both hard and soft, as if forged from moonlight. The next second, the mechanical bird soared into the air, carrying her through the school of fish and into the tinfoil-colored sky. The wind whistled in her ears, pulling her hair like a fluttering flag. She looked down and saw the school of memory-eating fish circling the surface of the sea. Where they devoured it, the glassy sea turned pure white, like paper erased by an eraser, leaving not a single mark. "Hold on tight!" The mechanical bird suddenly swooped down, its silver chain tail feathers tracing a complex trajectory through the air, solidifying into a giant Möbius strip. "We're about to cross the dimensional rift!"

A sudden burst of intense light exploded before his eyes, blinding him more than any sunlight. The metal button at the back of his neck burned through his skin, and his consciousness was stretched endlessly, like a piece of rubber being stretched. Ache closed his eyes in a swirl of dizziness, and the last thing he heard was the mechanical bird's voice, gentle as a winter night's blanket:

"Don't forget me this time."

When he opened his eyes again, Ache found himself lying in a golden wheat field. The sunlight was a warm orange, unlike the cold tinfoil glow of the Sea of Oblivion, and it made his skin feel slightly hot. The wind carried the fragrance of wheat and the moist scent of earth. In the distance, a white windmill slowly turned, its blades casting shadows that moved slowly across the wheat field, like the pendulum of an ancient clock.

The metal button at the back of his neck was no longer hot, but the coolness of the silver chain lingered on his fingertips, like an indelible mark. She sat up and saw a emerald green bird perched beside her, tilting its head to look at her. It wasn't a mechanical bird, but a living, flesh-and-blood creature. Its feathers shone metallically in the sunlight, though a brass gear-shaped piece of metal dangled from its tail feathers, its edges slightly frayed.

"Are you awake?" When the green bird spoke, Ah Che was stunned—the voice was exactly the same as the mechanical bird's, only without the clattering of gears and with the warmth of a living being.

"Mobius?" she asked tentatively, surprised to find she still remembered the name. As her tongue touched the three words, the metal button at the back of her neck twitched slightly, like a faint heartbeat. A green bird fluttered its wings and flew to her hand, pecking her fingertips with its beak, its movements gentle as a kiss. "It seems the memory anchor worked this time." It tilted its head and pointed toward the village in the distance, where cotton candy smoke rose from the chimneys. "This is 'Eternal Township,' dimension number 42. The rule is 'time loop'—every day at midnight, everything returns to the starting point, like a videotape replaying over and over again."

Ah Che looked down at the palm of her hand. Unbeknownst to her, a gear-shaped metal feather had appeared. Tiny words, as if scratched with a fingernail, were engraved on its edge. The handwriting was sloppy but serious:

"See you tomorrow."

The windmill in the distance turned a circle, making a soft click, like an ancient clock chiming the time. Ah Che gripped the metal feather tightly, the cool touch reassuring her. A faint vibration echoed from the metal button at the back of her neck, gradually synchronizing with her pulse like a heartbeat.

She wondered what the wheat fields would look like after midnight, or whether the memory-eating fish would pursue her. But she suddenly felt certain that no matter how many times she forgot, something would always remain—perhaps a gear feather, a vague promise, or a figure that stubbornly followed her across countless dimensions.

The wind blew through the wheat fields again, golden waves surging into the distance. A green bird's tail feathers brushed her wrist, leaving behind a fleeting silver light. Ah Che looked up at the sky. Countless transparent fragments shimmered in the orange sunlight, like waves on a sea of glass. Only this time, they didn't disappear. Instead, they slowly settled, taking the shape of memory.

This time, she wanted to try to remember.