Chapter 128

The blue light kept climbing, Zhao Jianguo's arm felt as if clamped by fire tongs, the whole arm from wrist to shoulder burning numb. He didn't let go, gripping Chen Jianguo's collar tightly, his knee pressed on broken bricks, his whole body pushing forward.

"Listen to me!" he shouted, veins bulging on his neck, "You said you're an observer, so do you remember how much salt Sha Zhu put in the steamed buns? On the Shuang Baotai's full‑moon day, who got drunk enough to hug the drying rack and shout 'Mom'?"

Chen Jianguo's gaze drifted, his lips trembled as he muttered, "SH-0973... mission terminated... return sequence..."

"Return what a fart!" Zhao Jianguo slapped his face, his voice cracking, "Last month you fought me for the pickled vegetable jar, bragging that your fermented cabbage recipe was ancestral! Look at the date written on the back of your wife's photo!"

Chen Jianguo twitched violently, his pupils flickered as if something had pierced them. He gurgled in his throat and murmured, "1978... March 15... she hadn't been married yet... I wasn't married either..."

Before he could finish, he suddenly clutched his head and screamed, veins on his forehead throbbing as if something was tearing inside his brain. Zhao Jianguo quickly fished the flat metal box—Space‑Time Coordinate Analyzer—from his pocket and slapped it onto the intersecting red marks where their wrists met.

The Screen flickered a few times, displaying a line of text: "Bidirectional data backflow detected, recommend locking onto a single source."

Zhao Jianguo felt a jolt in his chest. The meaning was crystal clear: one must be cut off, otherwise both will be ruined.

He looked up at Chen Jianguo, who was already kneeling on the ground, both hands braced on the earth, head bowed, breathing erratic—sometimes shouting "Report, commander", other times whispering "Wife, wait for me to Go Home".

Zhao Jianguo gritted his teeth, yanked him up and slammed him against the wall: "Who gave you permission to walk away clean? If you really want to return to your broken system, take me with you! Stop playing martyr here!"

Chen Jianguo gasped for breath, suddenly raised his hand to grab his shoulder, eyes wide open, a moment of clarity: "Zhao Jianguo... listen to me... my signal has been flagged as an anomaly. As long as I'm still linked to you, the corrective force will keep stacking. Kill me and you can survive; drag me down and we'll both be ripped out of time."

Zhao Jianguo sneered: "So you plan to reset yourself, leaving me to carry the debt for life? Who do you think I am? The dog of Sha Zhu's family, who you can shoo away at will?"

"This isn't escape!" Chen Jianguo's voice trembled, "It's stop‑loss! I'm no longer the person I was; over there... I hadn't lived more than a few days... But you're different, you have a home, children, hot meals... I don't want to drag you into a grave!"

Zhao Jianguo stared at him, then laughed: "Do you know how Xiao Bao called me the other two days? He said, 'Dad, Uncle Chen looks more like a father than you.'" He paused, his voice deepening, "If you die, what will I tell him? That you went back to your hometown? Or that you're actually an alien, and after the mission is complete you have to fly away?"

Chen Jianguo moved his lips, but said nothing.

Zhao Jianguo flipped the Analyzer to forced‑sync mode, the button clicking, the device humming as it vibrated. He slammed Chen Jianguo's hand back onto his own wrist and roared: "If you want to Go Home, we'll find a way together! Not by dying, but by fighting our way out! If you dare let go, I'll bind you to the kang and feed you sour rice!"

A burst of white light exploded, the blue flame was forcibly suppressed, the red scar between them shifted from blazing red to dark gold, and the numbers on the Terminal dropped from a one‑percent‑per‑second decline to a slow fall of 0.3 per second.

Zhao Jianguo exhaled, his leg went weak and he almost knelt, steadied himself by bracing against the wall.

Just then, from beneath the half‑collapsed western courtyard wall, a metallic scraping sound came, like a sheet of iron being slowly dragged out.

Dust rose as a silhouette stood up from the rubble pile.

His suit was tattered, half his face charred, yet the intact hand steadily held a pitch‑black sphere. Numbers flowed across its surface, rings of eerie blue Light Pattern spreading over the shell, and a small screen at its center glowed: 00:04:59.

He was the former chief engineer of the Steel Rolling Factory.

He smirked, showing his burnt‑yellow teeth: "Why are you fighting over life and death? Everyone will reset to zero."

Zhao Jianguo's heart tightened; instinctively he pulled Chen Jianguo behind him, positioning his body sideways to block. The Analyzer still buzzed, and he quickly scanned the bomb's frequency, his brow flickering— the Signal Source matched exactly the fragment of Chen Jianguo's watch.

"Old Chen!" he shouted back, "How much strength do you have left? For one final linkage, can you channel the Data Stream over?"

Chen Jianguo slumped on the ground, his complexion ashen, and upon hearing this he nodded laboriously. He raised his hand, fingertips trembling as he traced a strange symbol in the air, muttering something incomprehensible.

The next second, the Metal Sheet on his wrist exploded with a "bang", a reverse Data Stream surged straight into the bomb.

The countdown froze instantly—00:03:17.

The air was silent for a moment.

Immediately, blue arcs seeped from the bomb's casing, crackling, as if its internal program were rebooting.

Zhao Jianguo stared at the string of numbers, his heart pounding like a drum. He knew this was only a temporary stall; the real countdown would resume shortly.

He looked down at Chen Jianguo, who was already slumped on the ground, eyes unfocused, still murmuring: "1978 March 15... she said wait for me to go back and arrange the wine... I kept my word... I didn't..."

His fingers, however, still clutched Zhao Jianguo's hem tightly, not letting go at all.

Zhao Jianguo gritted his teeth, shoved the Analyzer into his belt, knelt on one knee and helped him up: "Hold on, understand? If you really want to Go Home, I'll accompany you to the system's old nest! But if you dare cut off now, I'll roast a basket of sour pickles for you every Qingming thereafter!"

Chen Jianguo's mouth twitched, as if trying to laugh, but he coughed up a mouthful of blood.

In the distance, low thunder rolled across the sky, the dark clouds pressed lower, the blue light reflected on the ruins, turning faces a pallid blue.

Zhao Jianguo looked up at the bomb hovering mid‑air, his finger slowly reaching toward the Analyzer's highest power setting.

He hadn't pressed it yet.

The numbers on the bomb's surface flickered lightly.

00:03:16.