Chapter 49: Who Is the Undercover?

"Master's mark," Zhang Jun brushed his fingertip over the edge of the engraving, "the third stroke of the Afterlife Talisman is deliberately elongated; it's warning of danger."

A baby's wail came from the fork ahead. Lin Xue was about to step forward when Zhang Jun pressed his shoulder down hard. The sword tip pried open a pile of plastic bags, revealing a speaker beneath that glowed red.

At the moment the blast wave lifted the manhole cover, the two leapt out onto the ground from a maintenance hatch on the other side. Zhang Jun slid five meters backward, then felt an extra metal object in his pocket—a half‑rusted Tai Chi Pendant wrapped in a faded red cord.

"Parking lot," Lin Xue stared at the pendant and suddenly said, "the one that fell under the jack when you helped me fix the car last month."

The neon sign "Cloud Top Supermarket" was slanted into the cracked asphalt, while twenty‑seven surveillance cameras slowly panned overhead. Zhang Jun suddenly yanked a fire hydrant, and the Heavenly Sword sliced the water curtain, forming a brief shield.

"Do you remember the emergency passage of the underground cold storage?" he slammed open the warped roller door, "bet five mao, this time it's acid‑rain mode."

As purple raindrops began corroding the shelves, the two had already crawled up the ventilation duct to the top floor. When Lin Xue kicked open the rooftop, an electronic synthesized voice rang through the ruins: "Final survival rate 0.7%, congratulations on gaining the option."

Countless holographic projections unfolded in the void: a laboratory where a mother was ensnared by mechanical tentacles, his father's final expression as the Profound Heaven Building collapsed, and the encrypted crystal Wang Jun jammed into his hand before self‑destructing. Each image whispered: "Choose me."

Zhang Jun suddenly seized Lin Xue's wrist, his fingernails nearly sinking into her skin: "It's all fake."

"But the pain is real," the hologram coalesced into the shape of Zhang Tiangang, "choose her death, and you gain the ultimate power to oppose the Spirit Lord; choose your death, and she can lead everyone to escape to the heavens."

Lin Xue suddenly burst into laughter, ice crystals crawling up her pant leg onto the hologram: "Lao Zhang Tou wouldn't use such a clichéd line."

The altar thundered and collapsed, revealing a server array beneath that glowed blue. Zhang Jun's sword tip pressed against the core processor: "We'll change the rules for this round—"

The moment the Tai Chi Pendant snapped into the slot, all holographic images shrank like rewinding. They stood in a real Dragon Mountain Cave, dawn's faint light filtering through cracks in the stone walls. The scent of moist moss replaced the smell of burnt data, and Wang Jun's pipe lay quietly at the center of the formation.

"Master's test has always been a single‑choice question," Zhang Jun picked up the pipe and flicked off the ash, "survive, then smash the venue."

Zhang Jun's eardrums were pierced by a sharp tinnitus, and the images of his parents in his sight began to blur into double exposure. Cold sweat slid down his spine into his combat suit, and the knuckles gripping the hilt creaked under the strain.

"Wake the hell up!" an ice spike scraped along his cheekbone, cracking spider‑web fissures in the altar stone slab. Lin Xue's boot crushed ice shards on the ground, "the veins on your neck are so bulging they could be used as guitar strings!"

The tinnitus stopped abruptly. Zhang Jun staggered half a step, the sword tip planted on the ground to steady himself. No longer any trace of his parents on the altar, only two plumes of purple mist darting among the stone statues. He unbuttoned his collar to breathe; the inner lining of his combat suit was already soaked with cold sweat.

"Next time can we have a gentler wake‑up service?" he wiped the ice shards from his face, "did you know that ice spike was only three centimeters from my aorta?"

"At least it's better than you being drained of brain fluid by an illusion," Lin Xue flung a new ice blade to pin the forming mist, "Wang Lao Tou says the way to liberation is to play an escape‑room? This mechanism is so old it could belong in a museum."

The purple mist suddenly solidified into a substance.

Zhang Jun reflexively swung his sword horizontally, but the blade passed beneath the black robe of the mist‑person. A nebula cluster floating in the hood burst out bright light, and both raised their hands to shield.

"Rebel factor concentration exceeds limits," the electronic synthesized voice, layered with electrical static, announced, "activating memory recall protocol."

Countless memory fragments suddenly exploded across their retinas. Zhang Jun saw his twelve‑year‑old birthday cream cake shatter in an explosion, while Lin Xue glimpsed a purple petri dish flickering in her mother's lab. When the scene froze at the moment the purple‑robed person removed his mask, Lin Xue suddenly grabbed him and leaned back.

The altar floor thundered and collapsed.

The feeling of weightlessness lasted less than half a second before his back slammed into a soft reed pile. Zhang Jun spat out the grass stalk in his mouth and saw a three‑dimensional projection of the twenty‑eight constellations hovering overhead. Lin Xue was prying a blue brick etched with a trigram using her ice blade, metal and stone sparking.

"The Kǎn trigram is offset seven degrees; the palace has cracks," she suddenly applied force to press the brick down, "my dad designed a similar mechanism."

The constellation projection suddenly collapsed into a light sphere, pulling the two into a holographic image. A gust of wind ripped the hood off the purple‑robed person, revealing a face Zhang Jun knew all too well—Zhang Tiangang from twenty years ago.

"Damn!" Zhang Jun's curse and sword flash arrived together, but the blade pierced the hologram and struck the Bronze Cauldron. Lin Xue grabbed his gauntlet: "It's just a projection formed by residual energy."

In the image, "Zhang Tiangang" was decomposing a purple crystal, and a yellowed copy of "Lin Group Five-Year Development Plan" lay on the lab bench. A real Zhang Tiangang clone burst through the door, and as the two bodies grappled they knocked over the petri dishes.

"No wonder the old man always said the data was stolen back then," Zhang Jun tapped the Bronze Cauldron, still playing the image, with his sword hilt, "so household thieves are hard to guard against."

The purple‑robed person's image suddenly turned toward them, a strange smile curling his mouth. Lin Xue's ice blade pierced the hologram and lodged in the mural, precisely hitting the eye of a serpentine totem. The entire cave began to tremble, and stones rained down from the ceiling.

"Can't you wait until the decryption is finished before acting?" Zhang Jun swung his sword, cleaving the falling stalactites.

"Waiting for this old yin to finish his lines?" Lin Xue kicked open the wall where a secret compartment emerged, "I'd rather go listen to Zhao Wushuang sing KTV."

The jade pendant lying in the secret compartment suddenly floated, resonating with the jade pendants on their chests. When the three jade pieces fit together, the cave ceiling projected a galaxy‑like dazzling star map, and a red dot flickered wildly at Orion's belt.

"This is... spatial coordinates?" Lin Xue squinted, comparing the star map, "Wait, this direction is..."

Zhang Jun suddenly snatched the ice blade from her hand, carving a crooked doodle on the stone wall: a hooded little figure being sword‑pointed at its rear, with a note "kick back home" beside it. Lin Xue rolled her eyes, freezing ice to add precise interstellar coordinates.

"Humor can't save the world."

"But it can keep me from dozing off while saving the world."

"This... how is this possible?" Zhang Jun's voice sounded sanded, dry and harsh.

Lin Xue also froze in place, as if struck by lightning, unable to speak for ages. The light emitted by the jade pendant enveloped the two, as if pulling them into another world.