Chapter 20: Su Lan’s Choice

(She Will Pay an Even Greater Price)

When Su Lan made her choice, there was no ceremony.

Not a soul knew.

The Flame Domain, on that day, quietly lost one safety line.

The breach in the Flame Prison remained.

But it had already been forcibly “stabilized.”

Not repaired.

Sealed.

The Flame Lords no longer tried to understand that fracture.

They chose to mark it as an inaccessible zone.

Like erasing a piece of land from a map.

Su Lan was transferred from the central hub.

Nominally, it was “protection.”

In reality, it was isolation.

She was placed at the edge of the Flame Domain, in an Analysis Tower.

Outside the tower: Flame Domain order.
Inside: only her.

She knew well.

This was not punishment.

This was—
The last measure of leniency.

As long as she did nothing,
The Flame Domain would pretend she did not exist.

But she knew.

The Nameless One had already entered his third transformation.

That state—
Was not living.

It was—
Being allowed by the world to continue making mistakes.

And such permission could be revoked at any moment.

Deep within the Analysis Tower,

Su Lan sat on the floor.

Before her floated the Flame Order’s core projection.

Something she had no authority to access.

Yet it hovered there, in front of her eyes.

Because the Flame Order—
Still remembered her.

She extended her hand.

Did not touch.

Only asked:

“If I continue to intervene,
What will the cost be?”

The Flame Order did not answer immediately.

It calculated.

A rare moment when it did not rush to a conclusion.

Finally, it presented three options.

No emotion.

Only cold logic.

Option One:
Immediately cease all anomaly analysis.
You will be retained as a Flame Domain asset.
Risk: Long-term collapse probability of Flame Domain +23%

Option Two:
Submit yourself as an “irreversible sample.”
The Flame Domain will gain a stable explanation for the existence of the non-Flame entity.
Risk: You will no longer be protected by the Flame Domain.

Option Three:
Close personal existence rights.
Replace with an “empty slot.”
Risk: You will be forgotten by the Flame Order.

Su Lan read through them.

Silent for a long time.

She knew that among these three options,

None meant “to live well.”

She remembered the first time she saw the Nameless One.

That person deemed “superfluous” by the Flame Order.

That being who survived solely by refusal.

And suddenly she understood:

The problem of the Flame Domain was not Flame.

It was the inability to allow errors to persist.

She lifted her head.

Her voice was soft.

Yet piercingly clear:

“I choose the third.”

For the first time, the Flame Order hesitated.

Confirmation:
You will be removed from all Flame Domain explanatory systems.
All permissions will be cleared.
All records will be sealed or deleted.
Do you wish to continue?

Su Lan nodded.

“Continue.”

The cost arrived immediately.

She felt—
Herself being stripped away.

Not death.

But—
Her references in the world being revoked.

Her name vanished from the Flame Order.

Her identity began to blur.

The Flame patterns in the Analysis Tower no longer responded to her.

Yet in the final moment of “existence closure,”

Su Lan did something only she could do.

At the deepest layer of the Flame Order,
She left a null pointer.

Not a command.
Not a rule.

But a single—
Indelible annotation:

This line had no logical authority.
No execution power.

Yet possessed—
Inescapable significance.

When the Flame Order completed the purge,

Inside the Analysis Tower,

Only an empty slot remained.

In the Flame Domain records,

Su Lan had never existed.

Meanwhile, at a peripheral node of the Flame Domain,

The Nameless One suddenly stopped.

A sharp pang gripped his chest.

An unlocatable sense of loss surged.

He did not know what had been lost.

But he knew—
Someone had given up the right to be remembered for him.

At the same time,

In the central hub of the Flame Domain,

The Flame Order completed its update.

A new unowned annotation appeared.

The Flame Lords saw it.

No one could delete it.
No one dared to ask.

The world did not change immediately.

But something—
Could never return to what it was.