Chapter 11

Chapter 11

I rewound the tape and listened to it again.

Every single word made my scalp tingle.

This meant that another “Lin Zhaowan” truly existed within the System. She wasn’t a clone, but the part of my consciousness that had been stripped away after my death-the part that still retained my creative abilities. She had anticipated the Hunter’s existence, so she hid the true rewriting authority inside a certain textual container.

“What new book?” Xu Zhibai asked in a hushed voice.

I wanted to know that, too.

However, the second half of the tape was nothing but static, as if it had been intentionally erased. Zhou Rang looked at me and said, “She broke the answer apart, fearing the Hunter would read it all at once.”

“Then where are the remaining clues?”

“The Author Tower.”

My heart skipped a beat.

The Author Tower was a scene from a grand finale I had never officially published; I had only ever written the name on a sticky note. That place was originally intended to house all my unfinished setting drafts, and it was also the judgment grounds I had prepared for the ultimate villain.

The Rule Hunter clearly knew where I was headed.

Outside the dormitory building, the corridor broadcast suddenly crackled to life.

“The temporary additional exam is beginning.”

“All examinees, please proceed to the auditorium within three minutes.”

I cursed under my breath and ran toward the auditorium with Xu Zhibai. When the auditorium doors opened, a massive white screen had already been erected in the center of the stage. Projected onto the screen was my name and a new rule.

Temporary Rule: Those publicly named by the System shall not refuse to explain their own Pollution Source.

This was aimed directly at me.

The auditorium was surrounded by mirrors and students. The Rule Hunter stood on the stage like a judge-or an executioner. The black book in its hand had grown another layer thicker, clearly continuing to absorb text related to me.

Instead of taking the stage, I threw the *Recorder Training Manual* directly at the projector.

The light flickered, and the words on the screen trembled twice.

I spoke loudly, “My Pollution Source is the System’s illegal fragmentation of an author’s consciousness.”

The entire room fell into a dead silence.

Xu Zhibai looked like her soul was about to leave her body, clearly thinking I was committing suicide. But I knew that the Temporary Rule only required me to “explain the source”; it didn’t say I had to remain silent. The auditorium rules overrode the school rules in priority; speaking out now was not a violation.

More importantly, I was telling the truth.

Once the System’s own violations were publicly written into the field, the auditorium would initiate an appeal process. I had designed a particularly annoying mechanism for this scene back then, specifically intended to torment the ultimate boss. I never expected it would be turned against the System first.

Sure enough, a new line of text flashed onto the projection screen:

Information recorded. Please submit evidence.

For the first time, the Rule Hunter’s expression visibly changed. It raised its hand to erase the projection, but I beat it to the punch, jamming the tape into the projector’s interface. A raspy female voice immediately echoed throughout the auditorium.

“Don’t believe in reclamation. That is dismemberment.”

“It will tear the author apart into a part that can write rules and a part that can feel fear…”

The auditorium instantly erupted into chaos.

The students in the mirrors began whispering to one another. For the first time, the “examinees” around us, who were normally only capable of obeying rules, showed signs of doubt. The System’s greatest authority lay in its constant pretense of being legitimate. Once that shell cracked, every Dungeon operating under its command would start to shudder.

The Rule Hunter glared at me.

“You are inciting a malfunction.”

“No.” I stood below the stage, looking up at it. “I am simply submitting evidence.”

A conclusion slowly descended onto the white screen.

“Appeal upheld. Proceeding to the Author Tower for verification.”

The auditorium floor split open in response.

In the bottomless darkness, what lit up in circles were not steps, but lines of sentences being generated in real-time.

The Author Tower was open.