Chapter 139
Chapter 139
The System was left littered with casualties after the reclamation. In the end, the only one who came through completely unharmed was Shu Yan, who had been locked in solitary.
Shu Yan, code name 003. Reason for confinement: colluding with humans.
…Colluding with humans.
In his daily life, Shu Yan had to study all kinds of courses from the World-Descent Rule. He rarely even went to the in-Script judgments on the Murderer anymore. The only people he had much contact with were the two Xie Nings, and they were always off testing unreleased Scripts. What collusion was there supposed to be?
He’d been put in solitary for one reason only: he had said a couple of words on behalf of Shu Xiao, who was about to be confined.
Shu Xiao was the one actually suspected of colluding with humans.
And the reason he was confined was something very, very minor.
It was only because Shu Xiao had said, “I want to see what the human world is like. A couple days ago, Shu Yan even said he wanted to travel there,” that the Main God turned to him with a smile. “Does 003 like humans that much?”
When addressing a Judge who had been given a name, the Main God usually used that name.
If he used a code number instead, it meant he was angry.
Shu Xiao’s heart skipped a beat. He spread his hands and, with a smile, tried to laugh the whole thing off. “Just a joke. You know what Shu Yan is like. How could he possibly like hum-”
A stream of data shot into the back of his head. The moment he recognized what it was, all the blood in Shu Xiao’s body turned cold. “You…”
“So if 003 doesn’t like humans, that means 002 does,” the Main God explained, his tone carrying a disturbingly tender sort of comfort. “This isn’t anything dangerous, Shu Xiao, as long as you don’t betray me.”
But if he did betray him, this thing could take a life in an instant.
Standing high on the platform, the Main God looked down at him and casually patted the hem of his clothes, as if the one he had just been speaking to were nothing more than an ant. “But since you were able to say something like that, and now you won’t even kneel when you’ve made a mistake, a small punishment is in order. Go to solitary.”
It was right then that Shu Yan arrived, just in time to hear the words “solitary confinement.”
He looked at the Main God in surprise. “My lord, is your sensitive skin acting up again? What did my brother do to deserve pun-”
“Shut up!” Afraid the Main God might plant something in him too, Shu Xiao yanked him behind himself and lowered his head calmly. “Shu Yan hasn’t had self-awareness for long. Please forgive him.”
The Main God definitely hadn’t discovered that he’d helped Ning Shuo and the others.
Otherwise, there would have been no need for a Surveillance Anchor. He would have just been killed on the spot.
Shu Yan frowned. “Brother…”
“Shut up!”
The Main God watched their little farce with a half-smile. “Looks like I misunderstood. What 003 likes isn’t humans. It’s you.”
The way he said it made Shu Xiao’s earlier line about Shu Yan wanting to visit the human world sound like a cover story, as if the one who truly wanted to go there had been Shu Xiao all along.
Shu Xiao wanted to say something else, but the Main God impatiently waved a hand. “Enough. If he likes you that much, then he can go to solitary with you.”
Of course, being confined didn’t mean the two of them would be put in the same cell.
But Shu Xiao’s spatial traversal ability was practically a bug. The suppression mark of “X” was still on his wrist, and to him, the Surveillance Anchor was less a tool for monitoring than a rope tied to his life.
The World-Descent Rule was the only thing Shu Xiao could think of that might be able to destroy the System. He had stolen it and given it to Ning Wang and the others. Sooner or later, the System would notice it was missing.
And once it did, it would be able to guess he was the one who had taken it. When that time came, Shu Xiao wouldn’t be far from death.
But he was going to die sooner or later anyway. Shu Xiao knew that.
If the Main God could suspect him over a single sentence and even plant a Surveillance Anchor in him, then one day, over another sentence, he could just as easily wave a hand and dispose of him.
As far as the Main God was concerned, the System was never short on Judges. Sooner or later, there would be a second 002.
After giving the World-Descent Rule to Ning Wang and the others, Shu Xiao dragged himself, exhausted, to Shu Yan’s confinement cell.
Shu Yan was visibly delighted to see him. “Brother, what brings you here!”
Shu Xiao forced the corners of his lips up. “I came to see you.”
The time he still had left to see him dwindled by the second.
After 003 developed self-awareness, the first thing he ever said was, “Like.”
Back then, Shu Xiao had looked at 003 in surprise, only to meet his eyes. “You… like me?”
003’s eyes shone brightly. “I like Brother!”
After learning Shu Xiao’s name, 003 insisted on taking the surname Shu too, and even asked Shu Xiao to name him.
Shu Xiao thought for a moment. “Shu Yan.”
Yan, as in to derive and extend.
May hope go on without end, and may you remain free for a long, long time.
Inside the confinement cell, Shu Yan keenly sensed that Shu Xiao’s mood was off, and even his voice softened. “Brother… what’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Want to watch a movie?”
Shu Xiao had originally planned to take Shu Yan to visit a few Scripts that resembled the 21st Century, but then he thought of how they were all filled with programmed NPCs, and how limited the Script worlds were, so in the end he didn’t go.
He took out a disc. “I traded for it from a human Player.”
There were all kinds of movies. When they got to a BL film, Shu Yan’s eyes slowly widened.
He suddenly thought of the two Xie Nings. They sometimes called each other brothers, but Shu Yan had always felt the atmosphere between them was a little off.
The movie was like opening the door to a whole new world. The tangled mess of emotions inside him suddenly seemed to reveal its first loose thread. As he followed that thread and unraveled it bit by bit, Shu Yan finally understood what it meant to like someone.
He immediately looked down at Shu Xiao lying across his lap and found that he was still asleep.
Just looking at Shu Xiao’s face made Shu Yan unable to stop feeling happy. In that good mood, he kept watching the movie-until he glanced up and caught sight of Shu Xiao’s wrist.
…The X was gone.
Shu Yan’s expression froze. He reached out to check Shu Xiao’s breathing.
His hand wouldn’t stop shaking.
Stop shaking.
Stop shaking…
When he found no breath at all, Shu Yan’s own breathing stopped too.
The next moment, a massive tremor came from outside the confinement room, so strong that even the floor shook.
That tremor seemed to give Shu Yan a reason to breathe again. He gasped for air in great heaves, then bent over and pressed himself against Shu Xiao’s chest.
The shaking outside was earthshaking, but Shu Yan couldn’t hear the slightest vibration from the man’s chest.
Even worse, Shu Xiao’s lips were still curved upward. He had died smiling.
Shu Yan’s voice trembled. “Brother.”
“Brother, don’t ignore me.”
“Brother, you’ve never treated me coldly before.”
“Did I make the Main God angry? Brother, I won’t say anything anymore. I won’t ever say it again. I’ll go apologize to the Main God. Please don’t be cold to me…”
It was useless. Shu Xiao’s first time neglecting his little brother lasted the rest of Shu Yan’s life.
After a long while, the commotion outside stopped.
Shu Yan took a deep breath and gently pressed a kiss to the corner of Shu Xiao’s lips.
It was the only kiss of his life, and also the last.
With the utmost care, he set Shu Xiao down in the corner farthest from the outside and said, “Brother, I’ll be right back.”
When he stepped outside, Shu Yan saw the System space looking no different than usual, along with corpses strewn all over the floor.
When the System carried out retrieval, it clearly didn’t care in the slightest about the other Judges; it simply retrieved them all at once.
When he passed a pool of blood, Shu Yan only gave it a glance-then his steps stopped instantly.
In the reflection cast by the blood, he saw that there was an “X” above his collarbone.
Shu Yan lowered his eyes and crouched down to check the letters on the other Judges’ wrists.
They were all gray.
Which meant that Shu Xiao was the only one whose letter had disappeared.
That was the final safeguard Shu Xiao had left for him.
Worried that his little brother might not inherit any useful abilities, Shu Xiao had somehow silently transferred his own skill permissions to him.
Shu Yan felt like he no longer knew how to cry. His actions were calm-so calm that he found himself wondering whether he had always been this heartless and numb.
He put on a Judge’s blue-and-white combat uniform and fastened it all the way to the top, covering the mark. Then he went to check on the remaining Judges in the System.
Shu Yan discovered that 001 was gone.
On the screen, the codenames of the still-living Judges were black. 002 and the others had turned gray, while 001’s codename had vanished altogether.
A textbook disconnection, and from the look of it, 001 had cut the connection on his own initiative.
At the same time, a large amount of data had leaked, including those four Hidden Rules, and everyone across the entire zone had received a “gift from the System.”
As for those two Xie Nings, Shu Yan found that one had been sent to the modern world, while the other had been sent into a Script.
001’s cleanup had still been flawed. It looked like, because of the retrieval, he hadn’t had time to finish dealing with it.
Very good. Shu Yan had arrived in time. The System permissions were still left wide open, and the not-yet-awakened Main God hadn’t withdrawn them yet.
After adding one command-“Ning Shuo will be pulled into the System two years later; his first Script will be Li Kingdom Cold Case”-he dealt with only one other matter: he connected the Main God’s emotional nerve lines to the World-Descent Rule.
The “Main God’s corpse” lying on the ground was only an avatar. Not a single Judge had ever seen what the real “Main God” looked like.
That was normal. They were just insignificant subordinates, occasionally kept as pets. What fugitive would expose their appearance because of a pet?
After handling everything, Shu Yan calmly took Shu Xiao to be cremated.
If the Main God saw Shu Xiao’s body, there was a good chance he would guess that Shu Xiao had transferred his permissions to Shu Yan.
Shu Yan was the only ghost left alive. He had to stay hidden so that one day, he could find a chance to strike the Main God a fatal blow.
Shu Yan had never used the ability he inherited from the World-Descent Rule. From beginning to end, he only used time-space travel.
And transferring a skill was a first for him. After the Main God awoke, he assumed Shu Yan had inherited it because Shu Xiao had taught him, and he didn’t grow suspicious.
When Shu Yan asked how Shu Xiao had died, the Main God sounded casual on the surface, but in reality he had been watching Shu Yan’s expression the whole time. “He wasn’t obedient enough.”
With his hands in his coat pockets, Shu Yan sneered. “Do you mean obedient like a dog?”
Seeing that Shu Yan was no different from before, the Main God let out a breath of relief. Even so, he still held Shu Yan accountable for his sharp tongue and locked him into a Script as a Judge.
How much of that was anger, and how much was guilt, only the Main God himself knew.
Shu Yan didn’t care. He waited for those two to come back.
No matter what else might be said, the only thing truly capable of standing against the World-Descent Rule was indeed the Water Moon Mirror.