Chapter 241: Data Torrent

The metal floor of the circular pod suddenly melted into a Data Stream, and Lin Yu's Tactical Boots sank into the blue light. His vision was torn into spiral ribbons of light, and thirty-seven Memory Fragments pierced his temples like shards of glass.

Xu Jianhua's right hand, missing its ring finger, was injecting serum into a Culture Pod; the syringe contained oily residue from a Donkey Meat Burger: "The Zeroing Project isn't about destroying the world; it's about using your Void Energy to build a Firewall..." The image suddenly frame-skipped to a snowy night, three meat buns being handed to a young beggar, when the right hand handing over the buns was suddenly shredded by a Data Tentacle.

"Kid Lin!" Xu Jianhua in the memory pounded on the monitor screen, the clone inside the Culture Pod was melting, "What they want is the Source Code..."

Something in the darkness was gnawing at his consciousness. Lin Yu's Tactical Suit peeled away into pixels, and gold-black energy crawled under his skin, forming Chaos Code. A Void Tentacle had just poked out from his fingertip when it was scattered by the Data Torrent, the silhouette of his Energy Gun floating in the sea of data.

The circular pod suddenly tilted forty-five degrees. Xuanyuan Qing grabbed the edge of the sparking console, her lower leg scorched with red spots by splashing antifreeze. Xu Xiaochuan's school uniform was caught in a gap in the dashboard, the Energy Gun engraved with the character "Zero" hanging at his lower back.

"Interface!" He kicked open the deformed metal plate, revealing a rusted slot, "Old Qin once said..."

The pod plummeted another thirty meters. Xuanyuan Qing snatched the Energy Gun and shoved it into the interface; the barrel suddenly rotated and extended, the sound of metal grinding like fingernails on a chalkboard. A holographic projection exploded with Xu Jianhua's face: "Verification failed, please try again."

Xu Xiaochuan's glasses slid to the tip of his nose: "We need Lin Shu's blood! From the hotpot restaurant last week..."

The console suddenly spewed an electric arc, and Xuanyuan Qing's Silver Bell Fragment was flung into the slot. Dark red blood seeped along the cracks into the circuitry, and the entire screen suddenly displayed a real-time image of Lin Yu—he was being strangled by a Data Tentacle, gold-black energy exploding into Chaos Code at his fingertips.

"Seventeen seconds to countdown!" Xu Xiaochuan frantically slapped the red button, and the ice crystals at the bottom of the circular pod began to carbonize. Xuanyuan Qing suddenly bit her tongue, spraying blood foam onto the Silver Bell Fragment; the cracks in the bell exuded the same fennel scent as the bun shop at North Alley back then.

Lin Yu's pupils suddenly reflected the scene of the circular pod. Thirty-seven mechanical hands reached out from the Data Torrent, each palm tattooed with Xiao Chengzhou's QR code. He violently gripped the nearest mechanical wrist bone, and the gold-black energy invaded in reverse along the Data Link.

"The old man set me up..." Xu Xiaochuan's school uniform was scorched with holes by the heat wave, and the Energy Gun began to vibrate from overload, "This thing is going to blow!"

Xuanyuan Qing suddenly lunged at the verification port, pressing the Silver Bell Fragment—which had cut her palm—into the Biological Identification Zone: "Your dad said the Zero Machine recognizes..." A deafening sound of metal snapping came from the bottom of the circular pod, and ice shards from a burst coolant pipe plastered her face.

In the Data Stream, Lin Yu heard his own heartbeat, resonating with the pulses of thirty-seven clones. Xu Jianhua's voice sounded, mixed with electrical static: "The Firewall needs a Living Key..." Suddenly, a mechanical synthesized voice cut in: "Suggest destroying the defective product."

The moment the circular pod plunged into absolute darkness, the blue light erupted from the Energy Gun, swallowing the console. In the intense light, Xu Xiaochuan caught a glimpse of his father's handwritten journal: "The startup of the Zero Machine requires..."

There was a canine creature barking in the darkness. Lin Yu's temples throbbed, the gold-black energy condensing into a materialized Data Knife, stabbing through Xiao Chengzhou's virtual image. The circular pod suddenly jammed at the edge of a hollow in the Earth's core, and the Culture Pods covering the walls exploded simultaneously, drenching the three of them in blue nutrient solution.

Xuanyuan Qing wiped her face and discovered that the Silver Bell Fragment was absorbing Lin Yu's Void Energy. The operation screen flashed with full-screen Chaos Code, and a certain encrypted channel suddenly began playing news from thirty years ago: "Chief Researcher of the Zeroing Project, Xu Jianhua, fell to his death yesterday..."

"It wasn't a fall." Xu Xiaochuan suddenly pried open the interlayer under the console, dragging out a charred work journal, "My dad was..."

The circular pod suddenly shuddered violently. A twenty-meter-tall Data Tentacle pierced through the pod, and a mechanical body wearing gold-rimmed glasses crawled in through the crack, the Lin Yu ID photo on its chest badge grinning eerily.

The metal floor of the circular pod was so hot it smoked, and the soles of Xu Xiaochuan's canvas shoes began to melt. Xuanyuan Qing clung to the edge of the console, blood from her split web of her thumb dripping down along the antifreeze. The mechanical compound eyes of the dark shadow flickered outside the crack, and blue light mixed with the red of molten lava surged up from the Earth's core.

"The Chaos Code on Lin Shu's chest!" Xu Xiaochuan suddenly kicked open the deformed dashboard, his school uniform collar smelling of scorched fabric, "It matches the graffiti in my dad's safe!"

Xuanyuan Qing tore off the intercom lanyard, the metal casing sizzling with electricity in the Data Stream: "Old Lin! Find the memory of the day Xu Shu gave you that tattoo!"

Lin Yu's temples throbbed, and the thirty-seven Memory Fragments suddenly pieced together into the snowy night scene. The stinging pain of a Surgical Scalpel sliding across his back was absurdly real; Xu Jianhua's right hand, missing its finger joints, held a tattoo needle, the alcohol lamp casting the shadows of the two of them onto the glass of the Culture Pod.

"This string of code is the key to the Void Firewall." The needle tip pierced the skin, drawing beads of blood, "The day you get sold out by your own people, you'll still be able to..."

The circular pod suddenly tilted seventy degrees, and Xu Xiaochuan slammed into a pile of sparking cables. Xuanyuan Qing grabbed his ankle and pulled him back, the boy's school uniform trousers brushing against the red-hot conduits, scorching a charred groove.

Lin Yu grabbed that string of Chaos Code in the Data Torrent, and the gold-black energy exploded along his spine. The clones in the Culture Pods suddenly convulsed in unison, and a hexadecimal light band lit up on the walls of the two-hundred-meter-deep shaft.

A holographic projection popped up from Xuanyuan Qing's watch; the tattoo pattern from thirty years ago was decomposing and reorganizing. She grabbed the Silver Bell Fragment and jammed it into a crack in the console, blood mixed with the Data Stream pouring into the interface: "Old Lin sent it over!"

A projection of three arrows pointing to an air-raid shelter suddenly appeared on the pod wall, the smell of rust seeping through the red light of the lava. The dark shadow tore open the pod roof and jumped down, the Data Cable ejected by its Mechanical Arm wrapping around Xu Xiaochuan's neck.

"Verification complete." A hydraulic rod extended from the bottom of the circular pod, braking just three meters above the lava layer. Xu Xiaochuan's canvas shoes dangled over the churning magma, his shoelaces instantly carbonizing into ash.

Xuanyuan Qing swung the Energy Gun, smashing the main control screen, and all thirty-seven clone Culture Pods exploded at once. The moment the blue light swallowed the dark shadow, Lin Yu's data projection rose from the lava, gold-black tentacles shredding the mechanical compound eyes.

The circular pod slammed into the underground hollow with a clang, and Xu Xiaochuan coughed up a mouthful of metal dust. Xuanyuan Qing's Silver Bell Fragment was stuck in the Zero Machine's cooling vent; the fifty-meter-tall supercomputer was covered in bird droppings, and half a moldy Donkey Meat Burger was still stuck in the keyboard gaps.

"Three entrances..." Lin Yu's Tactical Boots crunched over the Blue Crystal on the ground, Xiao Chengzhou's cold laughter seeping from the cracks. A Holographic Map lit up on the surface of the Zero Machine, with three red dots labeled "Memory," "Energy," and "Lies," respectively.

Xu Xiaochuan fished out a melted rainbow candy from his pocket, the wrapper sticking to the rusted interface of the Zero Machine: "The candy wrapper my dad stuffed in the package last week..." He suddenly pressed the candy wrapper onto the projection area, and the underground space was suddenly filled with the sound of nursery rhymes mixed with electronic chanting.