- Three Zhang Down the Shaft
When Qian Yiyan descended the mine shaft, Cao An lit three incense sticks at the mouth.
The smoke rose straight—grey-white, yet tinged with a thread of red. This was not an offering to the gods. It was a timer.
"Half a day." Qian Yiyan took the storm-proof lantern. "If I am not up by high noon, seal the shaft."
Cao An bowed deeply, not daring to look at her left shoulder—the greyish rust-mark had already crept past her collarbone, writhing slowly, greedily beneath her skin like a living thing.
The bamboo cage descended.
Creak—creak—
The darkness was viscous as paste, carrying from the deep earth the metallic, bloody tang of rust and iron. Three hundred feet down, the first resonance detonated from her marrow: the rust-mark on her left shoulder burned, the jade pendant in her bosom shuddered wildly, and from below came a low moan of tearing metal.
Like a great beast turning in its sleep.
Six hundred feet, the lamplight touched rust.
Red, thick as flesh, crawling up the shaft walls. It was breathing—with each Squirming, it sucked a thread of golden mist from the air. That was existential presence; the rust was devouring definition itself.
Six hundred and eighty feet. The bamboo cage halted.
The shaft below was choked solid with rust. The dark-red layer was warm and elastic, like living tissue. From deep within came a sound like a heartbeat.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
It pulsed in perfect synchrony with the burning pain in her left shoulder.
Qian Yiyan took out the fragment of her father's jade pendant, bit her fingertip, and let a drop of blood fall upon it.
The fragment came alive—it rose, spinning, its milky-white radiance opening a passage. The rust layer retreated, but its edges still writhed, trying to close.
Like a nail pinning the wound of time.
She stepped into the passage. Beneath her feet, the Greasy squelch was like stepping on viscera; rust dust seeped in everywhere, penetrating the skin on contact. The grey at her neck expanded another ring; her skin sent back a numb sensation of peeling away.
At the end of the passage, in the center of a cavern—
A fissure.
A tear in space itself. Three feet wide, ten yards long, its edges jagged as if ripped open by brute force. Within the fissure flowed a golden chaos, like congealed time.
From this wound, the rust-tide poured forth—like a waterfall, like blood. Where it passed, stone lost its edges, light grew hollow, even memories were erased.
On the cavern wall, her father's astral-force inscriptions were already rusted and blurred:
"The fissure is not a gate, but a wound. To mend it, both keys must be activated together. Yet the keys are also bait. Beware."
Keys are bait.
Qian Yiyan stared at that line. Suddenly, from the jade pendant in her bosom, exploded a stream of icy information—
"Qian Eyes! Run! Three hundred meters beneath you, something's about to blow—"
Lu Baoyi's voice was cut off by a vaster presence, freighted with greedy appetite.
She looked down.
The rust layer beneath her feet had begun to boil.
- Data Freeze
Lu Baoyi stared at the blood-red shutdown order pop-up on the screen, his right hand tapping the desk—the greyish skin had already spread to his elbow, and each tap rang with a metallic clink.
"Twenty-four hours for rectification. Seal after deadline." Lin Wan's face was ashen. "The photos were taken last night. There's a mole inside."
"Zhou Keran, or one of her contacts." Lu Baoyi's voice was calm. "Irrelevant now. The question is, how long did they give us? Even a death sentence has an appeals period."
"Inspection by today's You hour. Seal enforced after deadline."
"Twenty-four hours." Lu Baoyi smiled. "Enough time for them to mobilize an entire reinforced company, enough for us to die ten times over, and still have time to hold a memorial service—we could polish three drafts of the eulogy."
The satellite phone rang. Director Li's dedicated line.
"They want the Anchor Protocol's raw data and your bio-contamination logs." Director Li's voice was hoarse. "In exchange, they'll rescind the shutdown order and assist with Subsequent exploration."
"More like oversee the mining."
"Same difference. Faction A is exploiting this. Higher-ups demand a safe resolution. My advice is—"
"No deal." Lu Baoyi cut him off. "If Eternal Cosmos gets my contamination data to study rule adaptability, next time they'll show up with private armed forces loaded with contamination antibodies. That's like handing over the source code with a free user manual attached."
Silence.
So long Lu Baoyi thought the signal had dropped.
"How confident are you that you can break the deadlock within twenty-four hours?"
"Zero." Lu Baoyi was blunt. "But on Qian Eyes' end, she doesn't even have twenty-four minutes."
He pulled up the jade pendant's spectrum—Qian Yiyan's vital pulse was fluctuating wildly: heart rate soaring, blood pressure abnormal, body temperature three degrees low. Below that, rule-contamination radiation of the same origin as the rust was steadily intensifying.
She was in the shaft. The rust-tide was about to blow.
"I need time." Lu Baoyi said. "At least twelve hours, to pull her out. After that, they can have whatever they want. Consider it a clearance sale—buy one, get one free."
On the other end of the line, the sound of fingers tapping a desk.
One tap. Two taps. Three taps.
"Noon." Director Li said. "After that, you're on your own."
The line went dead.
Lu Baoyi looked at Lin Wan: "Pack the core equipment. Prepare to evacuate. Destroy all paper documents."
"But the inspection team—"
"Let them inspect an empty camp. Leave them some souvenirs—hard drives filled with a looped video of the Hulu Brothers Rescuing Grandpa. Consider it hospice care."
Lin Wan turned. Outside the tent, Zhou Keran's voice, warm and even: "Engineer Lu, the inspection team will arrive in two hours. Need to prepare a briefing?"
Lu Baoyi didn't turn, staring at Qian Yiyan's fading pulse on the screen.
"Engineer Zhou, how long do you think a person can survive down a mine shaft?"
"Standard shaft, seven hundred feet, with adequate ventilation, four to six hours. System failure… no more than two hours."
"Two hours." Lu Baoyi repeated. "So should I prepare the briefing first, or try to save her first? This multiple-choice question needs a case-by-case discussion."
Zhou Keran was silent for a longer moment.
Then she said: "Engineer Lu, some things… aren't multiple choice. They're required questions. According to my risk assessment model, your current decision path is reducing the project's success probability from 42% to 7%."
Her footsteps faded.
Lu Baoyi stared at the swaying tent flap. Then, with his right thumb, he fiercely pressed the physical encryption key on his headset, Disable all external monitoring possibilities.
He hammered the link request.
"Qian Eyes, pick up. Don't you fucking die down there."
- Rust-Devouring
The instant Lu Baoyi's voice slammed into her consciousness, the rust layer beneath her feet exploded.
Dark-red rust-tide erupted like lava, instantly filling half the cavern. Where it passed, rock walls dissolved, the air thinned to emptiness. Qian Yiyan leaped onto a stalactite on the cavern roof and looked down—
The rust-tide was sucking out existential presence.
Literal "erasure": a rock submerged by the tide, within three breaths grew Vague, faint, and then vanished utterly from her memory. Not that she couldn't see it; she couldn't recall what it had originally looked like.
"Qian Yiyan!" Lu Baoyi's voice was urgent. "Contamination readings off the scale! Something directly beneath you is rising fast!"
Qian Yiyan looked down.
Deep within the rust-tide, a massive bulge arched upward, its surface veined with patterns that pulsed like a heartbeat.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
"What is it?"
"I don't know." Qian Yiyan gripped her iron spike. "But it recognizes me."
The bulge burst.
Dark-red rust sprayed in all directions, revealing beneath it a human form—or what had once been human.
Its entire body was covered in flowing rust. Its features were blurred, save for its eye sockets, which flickered with Flashing on and off golden threads. In its right hand, it gripped a rusted longsword, fused with its palm; its left hand was extended forward, fingers splayed, as if grasping at something in the void.
And on its chest hung a jade pendant.
Identical to the one in Qian Yiyan's bosom.
Except that it was completely rusted over; the door outline on its surface was covered in dark red, leaving only a twisted imprint.
"Father…" Qian Yiyan's voice trembled. Her heart felt as if that rusted hand had clenched it tight.
The human form lifted its head and "looked" at her. The golden threads in its eye sockets leaped wildly, as if recognizing, recalling. Then it opened its mouth—
No sound.
But a fragmented, distorted, noise-riddled "information stream" slammed directly into her consciousness:
"Yan……er…………key…………bait…………flee…………"
Every word carried the searing pain of rust.
Qian Yiyan's entire body convulsed. The rust-mark on her left shoulder burned madly; beneath her skin came a sensation of peeling—at the edge of the greyish area, a patch of skin the size of a fingernail suddenly powdered, flaked off, revealing beneath it a dark-red, metallic-textured dermis.
Its "speaking" was synchronously corroding her!
"It's not your father!" Lu Baoyi roared. "Scan shows complete biological Characteristic variation, contamination fusion over 90%! That's a husk swallowed by the rules, now trying to pull you in to fill the gap!"
"I know." Qian Yiyan gritted her teeth, suppressing the rust-mark's agitation with astral force. "But it knows the truth."
"You're going to have a heart-to-heart with a monster?!"
"I'm going to make it speak."
Qian Yiyan dove downward, iron spike leading, astral force trailing, her form a golden streak aimed straight at the rusted jade pendant.
The human form swept its rusted sword horizontally, trailing dark-red rust-mist—where the mist passed, space itself "rusted": light Distortion, sound attenuated, even her speed slowed by half.
But she did not stop.
The iron spike touched the sword's blade; astral force exploded—not a collision, but dismantling. Astral force flowed逆流 up the rust's grain, like a scalpel cutting into the weakest node of the contamination. The rusted sword shrieked; countless cracks burst across its surface; rust dust spewed.
The human form stumbled backward.
Qian Yiyan landed and charged again, her target its left hand—that hand that had been extended all along, as if grasping for something.
The human form abandoned its sword; its left hand shot straight for her throat. The rust on its fingers Squirming, elongated, transforming into five dark-red tendrils, coiling toward her like venomous snakes.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Clang clang clang clang clang!
Tendrils clashed with the iron spike; rust dust exploded, filling the air. Qian Yiyan held her breath, but the dust seeped through her skin, resonating with the contamination within her.
The rust-mark on her left shoulder expanded another ring, now reaching her chin. She could feel her face growing numb, stiff, as if donning a slowly rusting metal mask.
"Qian Eyes! Contamination readings are skyrocketing! If you keep fighting, you'll become just like it!"
"Then… I'll be quick. "
Qian Yiyan gritted her teeth. Astral force detonated a second time. At the tip of her iron spike, astral force was compressed to the Limit, transforming into a golden thread as fine as a hair, as Intense as the sun, aimed straight at the center of the jade pendant.
The instant the golden thread pierced the rust layer—
Time froze.
The rust-tide Solidification, the rust dust hung motionless, the golden threads in the human form's eye sockets froze.
Then, the jade pendant lit up.
A pure, milky-white radiance blossomed from its center. Where it passed, the dark-red rust layer retreated, revealing the true jade beneath, and on its surface, the clear, Complete door.
The human form froze. It looked down at the glowing jade on its chest; the golden threads in its eye sockets flickered wildly, as if struggling to remember. Then, slowly, it raised its rusted left hand and gently touched the jade's surface.
The gesture was tender, as if caressing a loved one's face.
"Yan……er……"
This time, the voice was clear.
It was Qian Weiyan's tone.
Qian Yiyan's entire body trembled. A surge of Sour and astringent rose in her nose; she crushed it down with all her might.
"The key……" the human form—the remnant of Qian Weiyan's consciousness—lifted its head to look at her. "is bait……The Other Side……is fishing……do not……use……"
The words were cut off.
The jade's radiance flickered wildly; the door outline on its surface twisted and deformed, as if something were trying to force its way out from within. The dark-red rust layer re-encroached, rapidly covering the jade.
Qian Weiyan's consciousness was fading.
The golden threads in his eye sockets dimmed.
But in his last moment, he forced out one final phrase:
"The mineral veins……are blood vessels…………The fissure……is the heart…………They are……transfusing blood…………"
The light died.
The human form stiffened completely, becoming a dark-red rust-colored statue, frozen in that gesture of touching the jade, Solidification at the center of the cavern.
The jade pendant in her bosom shuddered wildly.
Lu Baoyi's voice detonated in her mind, more urgent than ever:
"Qian Yiyan! Run! The entire mine's energy readings are climbing like crazy! This isn't a contamination Outbreak—it's directed infusion! Someone is pumping energy into the fissure through the veins!"
Qian Yiyan looked down.
The rust-tide beneath her feet was changing color at a visible rate—dark red turning to gold.
From deep within the fissure came a clear heartbeat.
Thump—
Thump—
Thump—
With each beat, the cavern trembled.
With each beat, the rust-mark on her left shoulder crept one inch closer to her heart.
- Remote Bomb Disposal
Lu Baoyi stared at the exploding data streams on his screen, his right hand flying across the keyboard, leaving afterimages.
Left screen: the energy readings from the Old Gentleman's Furnace riverbed were transitioning from dark red to gold, peaking off the scale. Right screen: Qian Yiyan's vital data—heart rate 180, blood pressure plummeting, contamination fusion 47% and climbing.
Center screen: a just-decrypted encrypted communication from Eternal Cosmos:
【'Transfusion Protocol' initiated. Target coordinates: Xingzhou Mine. Energy source: Old Gentleman's Furnace riverbed resonance node. Estimated completion: 11:30. Note: If experimental subject survives, collect biological samples. *
"Transfusion…" Lu Baoyi murmured. "They want to build a stable contamination channel. Use Qian Eyes as a rule-interaction experimental subject… This counts as illegal human experimentation, right? Gotta charge extra."
"How do we stop it?" Lin Wan's face was deathly pale.
"Blow it up." Lu Baoyi grinned, a death-defying smirk. "Before their resonance peaks, disrupt the frequency with rule turbulence—what gets infused won't be blood, it'll be poison."
He typed code. A progress bar popped up: [Constructing Reverse Contamination Protocol... Estimated completion: 8 minutes 37 seconds.]
Too long.
Qian Yiyan couldn't survive eight minutes. Contamination fusion had already jumped to 51%; the rust-mark spread model showed—within three minutes, it would reach her heart.
"Lin Wan," Lu Baoyi stared at the progress bar. "Feed my bio-monitoring data into the construction process."
"What?!"
"My contamination fusion is 39%. Same origin. Using my body as a rule reference frame will accelerate the protocol." Lu Baoyi's voice was calm. "Side effect: my contamination will worsen, but… it'll buy us five minutes. Consider it hardware overclocking. Still under warranty; if it breaks, it's the manufacturer's fault."
"But your body is already—"
"Execute."
Lin Wan clenched her teeth, called up the port, and Connect the system.
The progress bar leaped: [Estimated completion: 3 minutes 12 seconds.]
Still not enough.
Lu Baoyi closed his eyes. When he opened them, a flash of决绝 passed through them.
"Protocol construction process, authorize Call my short-term memory cache as temporary fuel." He typed the command. "Priority: emotional memory, procedural memory, basic semantic memory."
"Boss! That will—"
"Memory loss. Three to five minutes." The corner of Lu Baoyi's mouth twitched. "In exchange for three seconds of absolute synchronization. This deal is a steal. Better ROI than stocks."
System warnings flashed wildly: [Forcibly accessing cognitive resources will cause irreversible damage—]
Confirm.
The progress bar leaped again: [Estimated completion: 1 minute 4 seconds.]
The price arrived.
Lu Baoyi's vision went black.
He forgot.
Forgot the syntax of a for-loop. Forgot what face corresponded to the name "Lin Wan." Forgot why he was sitting in front of a computer. The world dissolved into a heap of scattered symbols; the chains of logic shattered inch by inch.
Only three things remained blazingly bright in the absolute Ruins of cognition: the progress bar on the screen, Qian Yiyan's vital data, and the heartbeat transmitted through the jade pendant.
By pure instinct, his left hand typed on the keyboard.
It wasn't typing code. It was pure rule-resonance, bought with burning memory.
【Reverse Contamination Protocol construction complete. *
【Initiate. *
Deep within the Old Gentleman's Furnace riverbed, the anchor trembled violently. All the dark-red patterns on its surface reversed direction, shifting from sucking to spewing—spewing chaotic, disordered, high-interference rule noise.
The noise coursed in the opposite direction up the mineral vein "blood vessels."
Racing toward the fissure's "heart."
- Critical Point
Qian Yiyan stood at the edge of the rust-tide. The golden ocean at her feet boiled with each heartbeat.
The rust-mark on her left shoulder was now only three inches from her heart. The skin was completely numb, like a metal casing. She could clench her fist, her fingers could move, but the sense of "belonging to self" was fading at terrifying speed.
From the jade pendant in her bosom came Lu Baoyi's last voice, broken and intermittent:
"Protocol……ready……now……all your astral force……into the formation……"
She did not hesitate.
She drained the last dregs of astral force from her meridians and blasted it into the Star-Induction Formation beneath her feet.
The star chart blazed, blinding.
At the same moment, the rule noise arrived, Counter-flow impact.
The golden rust-tide froze.
The boiling Solidification; the bubbles halted; the heartbeat stuck mid-beat.
Then—
A reversal detonated.
Gold drained from the rust-tide, reverting to dark red. But the dark red ripples were no longer stable; they began to split—like the surface of a pond struck by a stone, ripples collided, canceled, annihilated, triggering even more violent chaos.
From deep within the fissure came a piercing scream, unlike anything生物 could produce—the sound of a vast existence being poisoned.
The rust-tide contracted, flowing back toward the fissure like an ebbing tide. The cavern began to recover, but what was recovered was in a dilapidated state., twisted, haphazardly erased state.
Where rocks had vanished, smooth切面 remained. Light bent into eerie halos. Spatial concepts blurred; standing there, one simultaneously felt "forward" and "backward."
The rules had been thrown into chaos.
Qian Yiyan stumbled backward, her back against the cavern wall.
The rust-mark on her left shoulder had stopped spreading, but it had not receded. It was branded there forever, a mere inch from her heart.
The jade pendant in her bosom cooled sharply; the door outline on its surface dimmed.
The link was severed.
Had Lu Baoyi succeeded?
She didn't know. She only knew she was still alive.
The fissure remained, but it no longer spewed rust. Within, the golden chaos flowed slowly; the jagged edges of the tear… had healed a tiny bit.
Almost imperceptible.
But it was indeed healing.
Qian Yiyan turned and walked toward the passage.
Her steps were steady. Her back was straight.
Like a blade freshly tempered in blood and fire, its surface covered in cracks, but its edge still cold.
- At the Shaft Mouth: Gambit
Qian Yiyan rose to the shaft mouth. The noon sun was blazing.
Cao An waited with eight armed miners at the edge. When he saw her emerge, a smile plastered itself on his face, but his eyes couldn't hide his tension.
"Astronomer Qian has worked hard. Below, was there—"
Qian Yiyan looked at him.
Her gaze was calm. But beneath that calm was something cold, inhuman—as if, after staring into the rules themselves, she could no longer see the world with human eyes.
Cao An trembled, stepping back half a pace.
"The rust-tide has receded. The fissure is still there." Qian Yiyan's voice was hoarse. "Someone is pumping energy into the fissure through the mineral veins."
"Who? How?"
"I don't know. But my father said the veins are blood vessels, and the fissure is the heart." She paused. "Someone is transfusing blood. "
The miners stirred uneasily.
Horses' hooves approached.
Cao Yan galloped up, wearing light armor but no helmet, his hair disheveled, his eyes sharp as blades. He dismounted and walked straight to Qian Yiyan. His gaze lingered on the rust-mark on her left shoulder for an instant.
"Still alive." His tone was unreadable. "The Empress Dowager sent me to check. If you were dead, the wedding would be moved to tomorrow."
He turned to Cao An and demanded an account. After hearing it, he was silent for five breaths.
"Seal the shaft."
"Third Young Master?! Astronomer Qian said the rust-tide has receded—"
"It will rise again." Cao Yan cut him off, his voice cold and hard. "Blood vessels connect not only to the heart, but to the entire body."
He looked at Qian Yiyan: "Down there, besides the rust-tide, did you sense any other flow?"
Qian Yiyan frowned, recalling.
Yes. When the rules were in chaos, from deep within the cavern there had indeed been a certain pulsation—slow, viscous, carrying the tang of rust.
"Yes."
"Then that's it." The corner of Cao Yan's mouth twitched. He reached into his bosom and produced an object, handing it to her.
A fragment of ore, palm-sized, its surface covered in dark-red rust. But beneath the rust, faintly visible, were twisted, non-Chinese incised symbols.
"A Shaman's protection charm from the Liao Kingdom." Cao Yan said. "Dug up in the northern mines. The smell is identical to what's down your shaft."
Qian Yiyan's pupils contracted.
"You mean—"
"There's more than one vein. Thirty li north of Xingzhou is Liao territory." Cao Yan lowered his voice. "They're digging too. They may be digging… deeper."
He paused, his expression Complex: "Someone wants to use the veins as pipes to connect the wounds of the two worlds. But what they're connecting may not be just our side."
The implication was too horrifying.
If the Liao were also transfusing blood, then this rule-catastrophe was no longer solely the Song Empire's affair.
It was two civilizations, unknowingly,共同 feeding the same… monster.
"Seal the shaft." Cao Yan repeated. "From today, the third vertical shaft is sealed forever. All Insider sign non-disclosure pledges. Leakers' families wiped out."
None of the miners dared object. Cao An accepted the order and went to execute it.
Only the two remained at the shaft head.
The sun was fierce, the ground scorching hot. The outlines of distant mountains shimmered in the heat haze, like slumbering beasts.
"Astronomer Qian," Cao Yan suddenly spoke. "Before your father stepped into the fissure, he left a letter for my father."
Qian Yiyan's head snapped up.
"The letter said that if one day his daughter also stood at the edge of the fissure, the Cao family must do everything to stop her. Because the key is bait, and the fisherman… doesn't care whether the bait lives or dies."
"Then why did you let me go down?"
"Because stopping you is impossible." Cao Yan smiled, a smile tinged with exhaustion. "You and your father are alike—once you set your mind on a direction, you'll walk it to your death. Stopping you would only make you walk faster."
He paused, his voice dropping: "So I took a different approach—not to stop you, but to hand you a blade. So that before you reach the dead end, at least you'll have the ability… to drag the fisherman down with you."
Qian Yiyan stared at him for a long time.
"Cao Yan, whose side are you on?"
"The Cao family's side." Cao Yan was unapologetic. "But the Cao family's interests don't necessarily align with the Empress Dowager's, or with the Song Empire's. The veins connect to the Liao; the fissure connects both realms. In such a situation, siding with only one faction is waiting for death."
He mounted his horse. Before leaving, he looked back at her.
"The wedding is postponed three months. For these three months, you are free. Three months later… if you're still alive, come to the Cao family and be my blade. If you're dead—"
He paused.
"Then I invested poorly."
He spurred his horse and galloped away, dust flying.
Qian Yiyan stood rooted, watching his back disappear.
From the jade pendant in her bosom came a faint, faint pulse.
Very light. Very brief.
Like a distant response.
Like a farewell.
- Cognitive Fault
Lu Baoyi woke on a cot in the medical tent.
His right arm had completely lost its "sense of existence"—from shoulder to fingertips, it was now matte metallic grey; beneath the skin, the circuit patterns had Solidification like carvings.
His mind was worse.
He stared at the waterproof canvas of the tent ceiling and suddenly couldn't remember what this thing was called. Not amnesia—a concept Fault. The concept of "waterproof cloth" was there, but the word "tent" had temporarily evaporated.
Three seconds later, memory returned.
But the hollow emptiness of having a chunk of cognition gouged out lingered, like ice water seeping into his bones.
"Boss…" Lin Wan's voice was a bit tearful. "You've been unconscious for six hours."
Lu Baoyi turned to look at her. His gaze rested on her face for two seconds—reconnecting this face with the name 'Lin Wan'.
Memories were slowly drifting back, but the cracks had already formed.
"Eternal Cosmos' inspection team came and went." Lin Wan wiped her tears, forcing herself to be steady. "Director Li held the line; the camp is temporarily safe. But we have forty-eight hours to submit a Complete incident report, or the project will be permanently shut down."
Lu Baoyi used his left hand to push himself up. His right arm hung like a dead, heavy metal rod.
"What about Qian Eyes?"
Lin Wan called up the data pad: "Vital signs stable. Contamination fusion locked at 53%, not worsening. But… the real-time link is severed. The jade pendant's resonance frequency dropped 90%. We can only monitor basic Life signals, no information transmission."
Lu Baoyi closed his eyes.
Success, and failure.
He had blocked the transfusion experiment, disrupted the resonance, forced the rust-tide to temporarily retreat. But the price was—the link was nearly broken, Qian Yiyan's contamination had passed the Critical point, and his right arm… was useless.
"What about Zhou Keran?"
"While you were unconscious, she assisted the inspection team and copied some encrypted data." Lin Wan clenched her teeth. "But we isolated it in advance; all she got was forgery. However… she probably knows that I know she knows."
"She knows that we know that she knows." The corner of Lu Baoyi's mouth twitched. "Next comes the showdown. This script is convoluted enough. Could be adapted into a TV series; ratings would probably be decent."
He got out of bed, his right leg stumbling, and walked to the main console. With his left hand, he called up the logs.
[Reverse Contamination Protocol Execution Log]——Success.
But at the end of the log, the system had flagged an anomaly:
【During protocol execution, third-party rule intervention detected. Intervention characteristics: elegant, stable, An obvious "harmonizing" tendency. Signal source localization: Europe, suspected 'Amber.' Intervention outcome: Protocol destructiveness reduced by 37%; mine rule-chaos duration reduced to 42% of projected value. *
Amber had intervened.
Not to stop—to "harmonize." To balance.
Lu Baoyi stared at the log. Suddenly, his heart felt as if an icy hand had clenched it.
He pulled up the Low-level encoding waveform of the signal source, and from the encrypted archives, he retrieved an old file marked [Lu Yuan · Unpublished Experiment · Failed Data A-7] .
He placed the two charts side by side.
The waveforms were completely homologous.
Lu Baoyi's pupils contracted sharply. Almost simultaneously, a violent spasm erupted from deep within his metalized right arm, as if resonating at the same frequency as the pulse in the chart. An icy shudder exploded up his spine.
This was not deduction. This was the contamination mark from his father, within his own body, paying homage to its origin.
Amber's intervention signal… its Low-level encoding was identical to his father's failed experimental data from twenty years ago.
What did this mean?
Was his father Lu Yuan's disappearance connected to Amber?
Or was Amber itself built upon the ruins of some… earlier, concealed rule experiment?
Footsteps outside the tent.
Zhou Keran's voice rang out, still warm, but this time carrying an undeniable chill:
"Engineer Lu, your bio-monitoring data shows cognitive decline exceeding safety thresholds. According to Article 7.3 of the Xihe Technologies-Chiyou collaboration safety agreement, I am obligated to recommend that you immediately cease work and submit to mandatory isolation assessment."
She paused, then added:
"The inspection team's authorization to forcibly remove personnel… is still in effect."
The countdown had never stopped.
It had merely changed form, continuing to approach.
Lu Baoyi leaned back in his chair, staring at the two completely homologous waveform charts on the screen, then at his own metalized right arm.
The jade pendant in his bosom no longer resonated.
Qian Yiyan, a thousand years away, faced a rust-eaten world alone.
The shadows of both fathers still overlapped in the depths.
And the fisherman…
might have been sitting at the same table from the very beginning.
He opened a new document. Title: Preliminary Observations and Countermeasure Recommendations Regarding Cognitive Erosion Phenomena Induced by Rule-Contamination.
His left hand typed on the keyboard, clattering.
Like persistence.
Like a countdown.
What lay at the end of the countdown?
He didn't know.
He only knew that the bait was in the water, the line was taut.
And he and she were being dragged deeper, darker, into—
the same net.