Chapter 232: Between Void and Reality

The energy fluctuations became increasingly violent, Lin Yu's back arched like a cat with its fur standing on end. The black mist swirled and drilled into his skin, rampaging through his meridians, grinding even his bones until they creaked. His left hand suddenly bulged with veins, his nails digging into his palm, and beads of bright red blood dripped onto Yan Nanshan's lapel.

Xuanyuan Qing threw the silver bell and lunged over, only to be thrown into a pile of rubble by the air current. She propped herself up on her knees just in time to see "another Lin Yu" pick up a particle gun and press it against Yan Nanshan's temple. The faint blue indicator light on the edge of the barrel flickered, making that face, similar to Lin Yu's, look eerie and terrifying.

"Watch out behind!" Qin Tianluo suddenly roared. The moment Lin Yu turned, the muzzle sprayed a three-foot-long blue-white light flame. Time seemed to stutter; he saw Yan Nanshan's head snap back, his hair tips singed black by the high heat, and blood mist blooming into tiny red beads in the moonlight.

"Thirty years ago... North Alley entrance... three buns..." Yan Nanshan's lips moved, his eyes turning toward Lin Yu. Blood spilled from his ear canal, winding into a dark river on the bluestone slab.

The crowd of men in black suddenly stuttered collectively, flickering like an old television with a poor signal. Lin Yu let out a broken sob from his throat, the gold and black energy condensing into phantoms behind his back, eight energy tentacles shredding everything around them indiscriminately. Red brick walls peeled away with a rustle, and a man in black was whipped away by a tentacle, slamming into an archway and exploding into pixels.

"Lin, stop being reckless!" Qin Tianluo moved forward against the air current. "Think about how he died!"

Xuanyuan Qing suddenly stuffed the silver bell into her mouth and bit down hard, the crisp bell sound vibrating through the air, mixed with the smell of blood. The rampaging energy tentacles suddenly froze, and Lin Yu staggered and fell to the ground, watching as Yan Nanshan's fingers twitched twice in the pool of blood before going completely still.

A mechanical hum came from the distance, and the night sky cracked open. Squads of drones with red lights pressed over, their magazines filled not with ammunition, but with dense memory erasers.

Yan Nanshan's fingertips drew a half-arc in Lin Yu's palm before stiffening. The dog barking in the depths of the alley ceased abruptly, and the smell of iron-green moss seeping from the cracks in the broken bricks suddenly became pungent.

Lin Yu stared at the dark red half-arc in his palm, his Adam's apple rolling twice. The corpse in his arms was carbonizing, the black fabric splitting into spiderweb patterns, revealing grey-white bones underneath. His molars ached, and he suddenly heard a hum from his own chest—like the tremor of an old engine on the verge of exploding.

Xuanyuan Qing's silver bell hit the stone slab, bringing up a string of blood beads as it bounced. She staggered to pounce over, only to be held tightly by the waist by Qin Tianluo. "His meridians are reorganizing!" Qin Tianluo's roar sounded like a water-soaked tape. "Don't touch him!"

Gold and black mist condensed into spikes at Lin Yu's temples, his eyes bloodshot as he stared at "that" face. The person was biting their nails, their knuckles a sickly grey-blue. "Wouldn't it be more fun to be quick?" the person spat nail fragments onto Yan Nanshan's dissipating lapel. "Xu's left hand is buried in the Si Jiu City; guess where the right hand is?"

An electric current suddenly shot up Lin Yu's coccyx, and that snowy night thirty years ago suddenly manifested on his retina: Xu Jianhua's right hand, which handed him three meat buns, was missing its ring finger, the oil paper package glowing with warm yellow light under the street lamp.

His body moved before his consciousness. When the Void tentacles shredded the drone swarm, the exploding blue electric arcs looked like a miniature thunderstorm. The stone lion on the archway was severed at the neck, and when the lion head rolled to Xuanyuan Qing's feet, it was still grinning. Qin Tianluo dragged Xuanyuan Qing in the opposite direction, his military boots crunching over the ground covered in pixel debris.

"Hand..." Xuanyuan Qing struggled to look back, seeing Lin Yu's white hair dancing in the energy turbulence. "He was talking about Uncle Xu's hand!"

"Save your own hand first!" Qin Tianluo pushed her into the underground pipe entrance, taking a blast of energy residue on his back. He smelled the scent of burning flesh and laughed instead—this pain was reassuringly real.

The accumulated water in the depths of the pipe covered their ankles, and Xuanyuan Qing gripped the silver bell, which had begun to heat up. A fluorescent map suddenly appeared on the inner wall of the bell, with a red dot flashing wildly at the location of the Si Jiu City second-hand market.

Xuanyuan Qing sat down in the sewage, the silver bell burning her palm. Qin Tianluo was half-submerged in the accumulated water of the pipe, his carbonized skin exposed under a scorched hole in the shoulder of his tactical suit.

"Old Qin?" She reached out to check his breath, her fingertips touching warm blood.

The unconscious man suddenly grabbed her wrist like a corpse coming back to life: "Donkey meat burger... Xisi Hutong..." his voice was as hoarse as sandpaper grinding iron. "Double portion... mustard..." He didn't finish before going limp again.

The silver bell vibrated at a high frequency, and the blood-red light spot on the inner wall pointed southeast. Xuanyuan Qing wiped her face, the water mixed with the smell of rust flowing into the corner of her mouth. She tore off Qin Tianluo's tactical belt and tied it to her leg, the six concentrated energy balls pressing painfully against her thigh.

"Uncle Xu's shop..." She remembered the sugar melon Xu Jianhua handed her last Spring Festival, the old man's right hand, missing its ring finger, rubbing against his apron. "If the bell acts up, come find Uncle Xu."

A rustling sound came from the depths of the drain, like countless crustaceans crawling. Xuanyuan Qing gripped the silver bell and leaped onto the ladder, the corroded metal rungs emitting a teeth-aching groan under her shoes.

When she climbed out of the manhole cover, the moonlight made her squint, and the silver bell emitted a buzzing sound—the second-hand market three hundred meters away was twisting, and the "Xu's" characters on the neon sign were dripping like melted wax.

"Clang!"

Two steel balls rolled out of her trouser leg, bouncing on the cement floor toward a crack that suddenly opened in the void. Xuanyuan Qing suddenly remembered that Qin Tianluo had stuffed these into her pants this morning: "If you run into those wearing black leather, throw them into their crotches."

The moment the tentacles reaching out from the crack wrapped around the steel balls, a blinding light comparable to ten suns swallowed the entire street. When the shockwave threw Xuanyuan Qing's back against a utility pole, she saw the energy ball timer showing 00:07.

Xuanyuan Qing wiped the blood foam from the corner of her mouth, her knees scraping against broken glass with a teeth-aching friction. The blue light on Qin Tianluo's chest flickered, casting an eerie glow on the stubble on his chin.

"Old Qin, wake up!" She grabbed the silver bell and pressed it against his forehead, the inner wall of the bell suddenly becoming shockingly hot. "What's wrong with this broken bell again..."

The unconscious man suddenly sprang up like a corpse, the back of his head hitting the broken wall heavily: "Nine-Palace Grid... Third Quadrant Variable..." Qin Tianluo's whites were completely occupied by blue light, the terminology spilling out faster than fried beans. "The backup server is at..."

Xuanyuan Qing picked up half a brick and swung it at the back of his neck, but the man tilted his head to dodge, his fingers carving a three-inch-deep mark into the ground: "Thirty miles east of Si Jiu City, Old Xu is waiting for you." After saying this, he fell straight back to the ground, the dust kicked up making people cough. ===== CHAPTER 233 =====