Chapter 261: The Mechanical Gravekeeper's Last Words

The sound of impact on the metal door suddenly became very rhythmic.

One, two, three—

A blinding red crack suddenly appeared in the center of the door!

The crack spread rapidly as if it had a life of its own, like a huge spiderweb, instantly spreading across the entire door!

"Decide now." Lin Yu's white hair lifted slightly, the Void energy within him ready to go.

"Stay, or leave?"

Xu Xiaochuan looked at Xuanyuan Qing.

Their gazes met for a moment in the chaotic air.

Xuanyuan Qing did not hesitate, pressing all the remaining silver bell fragments in her hand onto the computer interface, injecting all her remaining mental strength.

"Go, to the south of the city." Beads of sweat seeped from her temples, and the bronze liquid dripping from between her fingers branded a series of complex password characters onto the terminal.

"I've woven a data trap; it should at least delay him for a while."

Lin Yu did not hesitate in the slightest.

Gold-black energy erupted instantly!

His white hair acted like a whip, wrapping around their waists.

He scanned the room quickly, finally fixing his gaze on a seam in the wall—the structure there was significantly thinner than other areas, likely a maintenance passage Zhou Weihong had left for himself.

"Hold on tight!" Lin Yu roared.

The Void energy compressed violently, forming a terrifying explosive force beneath his tactical boots!

He shot out like a cannonball, dragging the other two toward the weak point in the wall!

"Boom—!"

The wall shattered instantly!

Bricks and data fragments scattered everywhere!

Using the massive momentum, the three of them rushed out of the enclosed space, tumbling and falling into the corridor outside.

Just behind them, the battered metal door finally succumbed to the pressure and was smashed open completely!

Dozens of silver-white robots swarmed in, the cold blue eye symbols on their chests emitting a ghostly chill in the darkness.

"This way!" Lin Yu pointed to the entrance of an emergency ventilation duct at the end of the corridor, dragging the exhausted pair as they moved quickly.

The ventilation duct was narrow and dark, filled with the smell of rust and dust, forcing the three of them to bow their waists and move forward with difficulty.

The spiral metal passage seemed endless, extending deep underground.

A few faint emergency lights shone through the corroded pipe walls, stretching the three shadows long and swaying them against the pipe walls.

"Uncle Lin, if Zhou Weihong really succeeds in uploading to that biological computer core, what will happen?" Xu Xiaochuan panted heavily, his tattered school uniform nearly reduced to rags, the receiver patterns on his back still flashing with a faint blue light, flickering on and off.

"He will fuse completely with the Zero Machine," Lin Yu's voice echoed in the narrow pipe, sounding exceptionally low, "becoming a 'Network God' in the true sense, permanently ruling the emotional network of Beijing."

Xuanyuan Qing leaned against the slightly vibrating pipe wall, the bronze liquid at her fingertips becoming thinner and thinner, nearly imperceptible.

"What exactly does he want to do with all the emotional data he's collected over so many years?" She frowned, trying hard to think. "Is it just to recreate his daughter's consciousness?"

Xu Xiaochuan shook his head, cold sweat sliding down his cheeks from his temples.

"Not just that. I saw more in the system. He believes the root cause of human social chaos and suffering is emotional instability. So he wants to use the Zero Machine and the 'Observer' network to screen and filter out the emotions he deems 'unnecessary' for everyone in the city."

Lin Yu's tactical boots stepped on the metal plate at the corner, making a dull "clank."

"In plain terms, he wants to turn people into wooden blocks that can't cry or laugh."

The pipe exit opened up suddenly.

Before them was an abandoned subway tunnel.

The air was filled with a musty smell, mixed with the fishy scent of rust, boring straight into their noses.

The emergency lights on the wall flickered, the light dim.

The three shadows were stretched long, swaying against the mottled walls, looking a bit creepy.

Lin Yu looked toward the end of the tunnel, where the outline of an exit was vaguely visible in the darkness.

"Must rush to the south of the city before Zhou Weihong finishes everything."

"But before that—"

Before he could finish.

Xu Xiaochuan's back suddenly burned!

Piercing pain! It was as if someone had stabbed his spine with a red-hot needle!

He groaned, his legs going soft, and he knelt directly on the ground.

The receiver flashed frantically, capturing an encrypted signal so faint it was nearly non-existent.

The signal contained only one word.

"Trap."

Cold sweat broke out instantly, flowing down his temples and into his neck.

Xu Xiaochuan raised his head abruptly.

"Wait! That place in the south of the city... I'm afraid it's a setup!"

Lin Yu and Xuanyuan Qing stopped immediately, turning their heads to look deep into the tunnel.

From the darkness came a strange movement.

Creak... creak...

Like heavy machinery operating, mixed with the sharp noise of metal scraping against concrete, getting closer and closer.

The sound made one's scalp tingle.

The next second.

In the darkness deep in the tunnel, dozens of ghostly blue light points lit up in unison.

Cold, without a trace of warmth.

It was the sound of machines starting up.

Creak... creak...

The sound was like a rusted iron door being forcibly pulled open, scraping against their eardrums, getting closer and closer.

Deep in the tunnel, in the pitch black, dozens of ghostly blue light points lit up in unison.

Dead silence, cold, carrying no breath of any living thing.

The muscles on Lin Yu's back tightened instantly, and he grabbed the back collar of Xu Xiaochuan's tattered school uniform, nearly roaring: "Retreat!"

The remaining gold-black energy in his palm flickered, clearly not having much left.

Xuanyuan Qing reacted faster, her toes pushing off the grime-covered tunnel wall, her whole body floating upward. The bronze liquid at her fingertips solidified instantly, turning into sharp claws that dug hard into the cracks in the ceiling concrete.

"Above! There's a maintenance passage!" Her voice was tight, the bronze luster particularly conspicuous in the darkness.

Xu Xiaochuan, however, did not move.

He shook off Lin Yu's hand and instead stumbled forward a step.

On the back of his school uniform, the receiver patterns lit up abruptly, a terrifying blue, the light piercing through the rags and casting swaying shadows on the ground.

A strange signal frequency, both familiar and unfamiliar, was boring into his brain through the receiver.

"Wait!" Xu Xiaochuan blurted out, the hem of his tattered school uniform fluttering in the cold wind of the tunnel. "These things... something's not right!"

Before he could finish, the darkness was torn apart completely by a stronger blue light.

One figure after another walked out.

Metal and flesh were pieced together haphazardly, barely maintaining a human shape. Trunks, limbs, everywhere were roughly welded mechanical parts. Their chests and abdomens were open, revealing the blue cores flashing and beating inside—the standard data units of the Zero Machine.

What made one's scalp tingle most was their heads.

The features were still there, but forcibly fixed by cold metal frames. The eye sockets were hollow, filled by two ghostly blue mechanical prosthetic eyes.

Lin Yu's tactical boots ground over the gravel on the ground, his voice low, as if squeezed out through his teeth: "Mechanical Gravekeepers... that old madman Zhou Weihong turned all the failed experimental subjects into this ghostly state."

The Gravekeeper at the very front stopped ten meters away. ===== CHAPTER 262 =====