Chapter 56: Patricide Code

Lin Xue suddenly coughs violently, ice crystals explode from her fingertips. Zhang Jun's sword hilt is so hot his palm bubbles, blue light sweeps over the lab bench, revealing a yellowed pregnancy test report in a hidden compartment — the mother's signature field is in Lin Yuehua's handwriting.

The holographic screen suddenly switches to an encrypted video. Lin Zhen removes his hood, his mechanical prosthetic is dissecting a purple crystal: "Back then I fooled Old Zhang into thinking this was an alien meteor…" He lifts half of a jade pendant, "Actually it's your father's bone‑marrow extract."

Zhang Jun suddenly swings a chair at the screen, the metal leg sparking against the ice. In the video Lin Zhen continues rambling: "The activation device requires Ice Soul and Primordial Bloodline fusion…" Before he finishes, the lab suddenly shakes violently.

Lin Yuehua bursts through the blast door, rolling in, her combat suit corroded by purple slime into a hundred holes. Her lunge toward the console reminds Zhang Jun of the trouble‑making kid who ran away from the convenience store last week: "Don't touch that button!"

An ice spike scrapes Zhang Jun's crotch and nails into the floor; Lin Xue, from an unknown source of strength, flings the last three hidden weapons. Lin Yuehua suddenly tears open her collar, a glowing liquid seeping from beneath her clavicle: "He injected a locator into my spine…"

A distant rumble of a load‑bearing wall collapsing echoes. Zhang Jun's sword tip presses against Lin Yuehua's throat, and he suddenly catches a mark on the inner side of her wristwatch — a crooked little cat he had carved on Lin Xue's tenth birthday.

"The energy core is a trap!" Lin Yuehua coughs up blood mixed with ice shards, "Your father's plan is to use Earth as a token of allegiance…" She suddenly freezes, purple veins crawling up her neck onto her cheek.

Lin Xue's fingers twitch, ice crystals on the floor solidify into an arrow pointing northwest. Zhang Jun kicks the smoking lab bench over; in the hidden compartment an injector glows blue, its label reading 【Serum‑003】.

"Do you gamble or not?" He thrusts a syringe toward Lin Xue's neck, but an ice wall blocks it. Lin Yuehua's sclera turns fully purple, and her mechanical prosthetic shoots out a twenty‑centimetre steel claw.

The moment the blade slices the steel claw, Zhang Jun hears Lin Xue's whisper‑thin sneer: "Last week… my mom's perfume bottle… the code is…" Her fingertip draws a crooked heart on the ice, identical to the birthmark of the infant in the cultivation chamber.

The holographic projection suddenly erupts with snow‑flake specks; Lin Zhen's maniacal laugh shakes dust off the wall: "Three‑minute countdown! Let dad see whether you choose a lover or all humanity…"

Zhang Jun abruptly injects the serum into his own arm, grabs the smoking power box and hurls it at the main console. Ice crystals crawl up the sword hilt onto the control interface, twenty‑six firewalls simultaneously flash red.

"Old tech never taught you?" He rips open his collar to reveal a barcode; blue light and Ice Soul power intertwine on his chest into a Taiji symbol, "The real key—" The moment the Celestial Sword pierces the energy core, the entire laboratory begins to collapse.

As the blast wave lifts the two of them, Zhang Jun's tactical boots snag the ventilation duct bracket. Lin Xue's back slams into a rusted pipe, the cracking of her ice‑crystal armor mingling with the screech of deforming metal.

"What the hell, you octopus‑type?" Zhang Jun grits his teeth, pulls a belt jammed in the iron frame, the left sleeve of his tactical suit torn into a mop‑like strip. Lin Xue spits out the ice shards in her mouth, her fingertip's blue light sweeps over the blood‑stained temple: "The southeast corner has a ventilation system frequency discrepancy."

Purple slime drips from a crack in the overhead pipe, corroded rebar hissing and smoking. Zhang Jun lifts a half‑length steel pipe to pry open a maintenance hatch; the cover of the Lin Corporation's experimental regulations from twenty years ago sticks to his face, the smell of ink mingling with rot seeping into his nostrils.

"Lao Shan Cola vending machine…" Lin Xue suddenly yanks his belt, "My mom always etched the code on the inner side of a soda can's ring." The tactical flashlight sweeps over the deformed machine in the corner, the discharge port jammed with a half‑can of drink that has rusted into an iron disc.

Zhang Jun kicks open the panel, acid spray splatters, the sole of his combat boot instantly corrodes three holes. He pulls out the deformed pull‑tab from the can bottom; laser etchings under the rust glint faintly: "C3, F2, A7? What the hell, a parking space number?"

The ventilation duct suddenly trembles violently. Lin Xue flings ice shards to nail the gate above both heads: "Split up! I'll reboot the backup power!" She staggers into the power room; her silhouette makes Zhang Jun's temples throb, cold wind pouring into the tear on his suit's back.

Red light suddenly flickers among the pile of mechanical wreckage. Zhang Jun's sword tip lifts the moss‑covered console, the Lin Corporation's Flying Dragon emblem showing half a dragon tail beneath the mold. Twenty‑seven cultivation‑chamber fragments are embedded in the wall, purple solution flowing along the cracks like a stream.

"Damn!" Lin Xue's voice, mixed with electrical static, blasts from the intercom, "Acid pipe ruptured!" As Zhang Jun spins and sprints, shattered glass from his combat boot sparks in the slime. He sees Lin Xue kneeling on one knee before the console, ice crystals crawling up her pant leg onto the interface, the gate behind her being dented by a surge of purple flow.

The keypad suddenly ejects a holographic projection; Lin Yuehua's final image flickers among snowflakes: "Washing machine… third knob…" Zhang Jun's sword hilt smashes the shield, his blood‑stained thumb presses the fingerprint lock. As the gate descends, acid splashes onto bullet‑proof glass, the rising white mist revealing a fluorescent arrow pointing to the escape route.

Lin Xue suddenly grabs his collar and lunges to the right, toppling him. The ground they stood on collapses, exposing a rotating metal crusher below. Zhang Jun feels a half‑can of Lao Shan Cola at his lower back; the inner side of its pull‑tab bears a mark that matches the rust inside the ventilation pipe perfectly.

"Your dad really should design a haunted house at the amusement park." He tears open the cola can and hurls it at the crusher; the spurting soda freezes into ice crystals between the gears. Lin Xue lets out a muffled groan; blood seeping from her left shoulder of the combat suit solidifies under the frost into an eerie violet.

A pale blue glow drips from the vent. Zhang Jun's sword tip presses against a loose wall tile, twenty‑eight laser beams suddenly interweave into a net. Lin Zhen's holographic image sits in a wheelchair, his knees spread over a yellowed lab journal: "Good girl, look at page 213."

The moment Lin Xue kicks the wheelchair over, a hidden door opens with the sound of gears turning. Zhang Jun's pupils suddenly constrict — Lin Yuehua's corpse floats in a cylindrical cultivation chamber, the purple vessels in her neck matching the scar on Lin Xue's shoulder.

The culture fluid suddenly boils, the corpse's eyelashes twitch.

Zhang Jun's tactical boot crushes ice shards, his rear molar gnashes with a creak. The washing machine's knob has long since rusted into an iron lump; turning it clockwise to the third turn it suddenly jams. Lin Xue curls beside the ice coffin, huffing; the white mist fails to form and solidifies into ice pellets that fall to the ground.

"You swapped the code lock on your twelfth birthday." Zhang Jun suddenly exerts force to snap off the knob, "The time you replaced Uncle Lin's whiskey with Lao Shan White‑flower Snake‑grass water—"

A muffled grinding of gears emanates from within the wall. The hidden door bursts open, cold air smearing his face, Lin Xue's ice‑crystal armor shatters into spider‑web cracks.

In the cultivation chamber, Lin Yuehua suddenly opens her eyes, purple vessels writhing like worms beneath the ice. Zhang Jun's sword tip rests on the glass, seeing the corpse's lips utter familiar syllables — the same mouth shape Lin Xue made last week on the convenience‑store surveillance when she said "Add spice to the oden."