Hahaha, I am spitballing here but this is how I would play CRX's lotus machine.
1) Ling Qi enters the dream. The world is different and
CRX is different - but not to the extent that it resembles a utopia. CRX is playing with her baby sister and Ling Qi realizes that the baby sister that CRX imagines looks strangely like her own which is, well, hm, weird.
Ling Qi tries to convince dream CRX to leave but she can't get a handle on this new CRX - her ideal self is too weirdly dissimilar from the real CRX for her to manipulate and she reacts badly to being told to 'wake up.'
2) Something happens and inception style she goes in deeper. We see various CRX milestones, but there's something weird about them: CRX is failing. She can't do X right, can't do Y right - like maybe she loses her first match in the tournament because she is up against Gan Guangli who somehow (?!) beats her. Maybe we see a breakthrough attempt to green and it goes awry. Her first attempt to fend off Sun Liling fails.
3) But she is good at other things. She doesn't alienate Ji Rong. She is clear from the get go that she isn't interested in Turtlebro. She is about to bare her soul to Ling Qi in order to secure her loyalty and the world ERROR MESSAGE resets.
5) And Ling Qi starts to get suspicious and goes in deeper, and the farther back she goes, the farther back Ling Qi goes until she is a gutter rat, weak and powerless, climbing up the steps of Ximeng (or wtv the holy tree is called)
6) And we finally see that point of divergence. The secret longing that exists in the heart of CRX that could not be hollowed out.
CRX's five years old and meeting her mom for the first time and instead of her mom being a complete and utter sociopath she just... gives her a hug, picks her up and begins touring the Great Tree with her.
And there is CRX, watching her baby self, smiling sadly and wistfully. Wishing she could be human. Wishing she could be allowed to fail. Wishing that she could be a big sister like Ling Qi and a person like Gan Guangli who isn't the strongest, but is the steadiest and friendliest.
There she is, her ideal self, a collage of the people closest to her. And she tells Ling Qi: please, just let me stay a little longer, if I stay a little longer, maybe I can - maybe I can
be this CRX when I get out, I will remember this feeling of being - being whole. I NEED to remember this feeling so I can be a big sister, so I can be a ruler, so I can be a mother that isn't Mother and Mother's dress will pull me out anyway, so -
And Ling Qi gently says: "You are still you, CRX."
And CRX argues, pedantically at first and then with increasing vigor and emotion. And each time Ling Qi says: "You are still you, CRX."
And Ling Qi remembers where she began. And says, and it is a Truth of sorts:
"It's not the first step on the Road that matters - but every step you have taken since."
Finally, the dream shatters.
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Well, probably not, that sort of thing feels like it should be saved for much later along the character development route, but I like my dramatics. It's a very fanficcy idea, but not so much that it is outside the bounds of reason.
