Chapter 135: root (8)

135 – root (8)

At such a moment, what emotions should he be feeling?

Lin Xun didn’t know. It seemed he didn’t have any particularly intense emotions either.

He just felt a little… cold.

As if buried beneath thousands of meters of ice in the polar deep sea for tens of thousands of years, his fingertips were icy cold. The extreme cold turned into pain, spreading from deep within his body. His blood had frozen, and he couldn’t even shiver.

But an overwhelming sense of suffocation pulled him out of the bone-chilling cold. He was pushed upward by floating ice in the freezing seawater, gradually rising. The moment he made contact with the air, his eyes snapped open. Under extreme pain, a person’s senses expand infinitely. He felt his lungs convulsing and contracting violently. He wanted to gasp, to cough, but in the end, he could only struggle weakly.

The scorching heat waves brought by the Chixiao Longque Sword and Yan Yangzi still raged wildly in this confined space. A cold, cruel sneer tugged at the corner of Yan Yangzi’s mouth, and his crimson eyes reflected Lin Xun’s image, as if he had already foreseen his death.

With great difficulty, Lin Xun curled the corner of his lips into a smile.

Smiling in such a situation—it probably wouldn’t look very pleasant. But—being able to smile under these circumstances—Lin Xun felt that, in terms of sheer presence, he had already overwhelmed his opponent.

Sure enough, Yan Yangzi frowned, then snorted coldly, tightening his grip even more.

Lin Xun felt even more uncomfortable. A choked sob escaped his throat, and his ears were filled with the buzzing sound of blood vessels on the verge of bursting, like the piercing hum in a transformer room.

It felt as though he had just experienced a lifetime’s worth of time, but in reality, less than a minute had passed. Perhaps the human mind has its own intricate and unimaginable structure.

Lin Xun closed his eyes again.

He had long since come to this conclusion: both sword cultivators and keyboard cultivators were creatures not easily killed.

And in such a tense, life-or-death situation, it was either you die… or I live.

—But it definitely wouldn’t be me dying and you living.

He looked at the ten thousand lines of code he had selected.

Ctrl+C.

Ctrl+V.

F11, run.

The blue frame before his eyes shifted, and a small window floated up, displaying eight cold, mechanical words:

Please enter the administrator password.

Below it was an input box.

His consciousness wavered, and Wang Anquan’s voice echoed in his mind again: “Limit the input attempts… to one. One is the safest.”

Then he quipped, “Aren’t you afraid my hand might slip?”

“Don’t be like that. Did you feed your high IQ to the dogs?” Wang Anquan tapped on the keyboard while saying, “People with sharp minds have strong control over their bodies too. Someone like you never slips up. Alright, just one attempt. Life and death are fated. If you fail once, your account will be locked forever, with no chance of redemption.”

“How cruel, Anquan. At least leave me a way out.”

His words, taken literally, sounded like an accusation, but his tone was lighthearted. He knew he wouldn’t slip up, wouldn’t forget.

But now, it seemed that he and Anquan had made an incredibly foolish decision back then.

For example… now, facing the Chixiao Longque Sword, he had only one chance to enter the password.

—And he knew nothing about this password, only able to guess.

Besides that, he also knew that this password was extremely important to Dong Jun.

One chance, just one.

Life and death are fated, success lies with heaven—impossible.

For over twenty years of his life, Lin Suanfa had never lost a single bet when it came to moments that required gambling.

One chance.

The cursor blinked.

The most significant string of characters for a person. He thought, that man was not the type to obsess over dates, over strangely arranged numbers, over trivial details. So what did he obsess over? His career, emotions, good and evil—how should their importance be judged?

Lin Xun didn’t know. He had never been so acutely aware that he didn’t understand even one-tenth of the structure of that man’s inner world.

He stared fixedly at the blank input box. In truth, he only knew what the most important string of characters was for himself.

If his unremarkable life were written into an unremarkable novel, that string of characters would undoubtedly appear at the beginning of the book, at least somewhere within the first three chapters.

He silently recited those two words, and they slowly appeared in the input box as if summoned by his thoughts.

—HelloWorld.

The first words spoken by a computer to humanity.

He clicked confirm.

The screen lingered on this scene for a moment, the air seeming to freeze. A slight dizziness washed over him, and he found himself in a situation both unfamiliar and familiar.

He was messaging this person, noted as Co, or rather, Dong Jun. Just moments ago, he had asked Dong Jun to provide a string of numbers or letters that held great significance to him.

A minute of silence passed. The person on the other end of the chat seemed to be thinking seriously.

And Lin Xun—he had high expectations for this answer, expectations that seemed to stem from youthful love. He thought that if the number Dong Jun finally gave was related to him, he would call him “darling” without hesitation.

The screen lit up, and a chat message popped up.

Co: HelloWorld.

Lo: …Oh.

His slightly elated mood sank considerably, but he still faithfully recorded this string of letters as the root password representing the highest authority of the “Satellite” system.

Co: What’s wrong?

Lo: Nothing.

Lo: It’s just a bit unexpected.

Co: Didn’t you expect it?

Lo: Yes, yes, you love writing code the most. Code is so obedient.

Lo: I don’t know you well enough yet.

Co: ^^

Lin Xun’s gaze lingered on that familiar ^^ emoticon for a long time.

Back then, they had just left campus, the Galaxy had just been founded, and all the future illustrious achievements were still lying in their infancy. Friends from youth were the most open and sincere friends, and lovers from youth were the most intimate and gentle lovers.

Everything was different from how it would later become.

His heart was gripped by an emotion—a stinging, sour ache. But within just five or six seconds, this soft feeling was replaced by a deep, icy coldness. His attention returned to reality.

Password verification passed, and a new prompt box popped up.

“Administrator 01, welcome back.”

A system could have many administrators, each represented by different numbers indicating varying levels of authority. 01, the first.

His emotions remained unruffled as he slowly opened his eyes—perhaps his gaze was too calm or too cold, for he saw a flicker of surprise in Yan Yangzi’s eyes before him.

Of course, Yan Yangzi’s fingers only tightened further. Lin Xun knew that in Yan Yangzi’s eyes, he was already a dead man.

Slowly, he raised his hand and grasped Yan Yangzi’s wrist, which was knotted with sinew and as hard as metal or stone.

Yan Yangzi said coldly, “You’re courting death!”

Lin Xun struggled to curl the corner of his mouth into a faint smile. Unable to make a sound, he mouthed each word slowly and deliberately, conveying his meaning through his lips alone.

He said slowly—

You. Are. Dead.

Yan Yangzi’s lips twitched, about to sneer.

—But he could no longer laugh.

He would never laugh again.

Because in the next moment, Lin Xun’s fingers suddenly exerted force. A dull, crunching sound echoed—Yan Yangzi’s wrist twisted into a grotesque angle, like an aluminum can crumpling under the slightest pressure.

In the next instant, Lin Xun kicked hard at Yan Yangzi’s chest, using the momentum to propel himself backward. He landed steadily on one hand, then rose calmly to his feet.

In contrast, Yan Yangzi was far from composed—first, his wrist was abruptly snapped, then he was kicked squarely in the right side of his chest. Stumbling backward several steps, he barely steadied himself, clutching his limp wrist as he gasped in pain.

Lin Xun spread the fingers of his right hand.

The longsword formed from the keyboard materialized in his grasp.

He turned to face the Crimson Cloud Dragon Sparrow Sword, its tip deeply embedded in the jade pedestal.

Earlier, he had copied the core authentication part of the Crimson Cloud Dragon Sparrow Sword and transferred it into his own body to run, successfully verifying his identity as Administrator 01.

And only one who could wield the Crimson Cloud Dragon Sparrow Sword—

He did not approach recklessly but instead examined the slender, sharp, and deeply ominous divine weapon before him.

At the same time, the longsword in his hand grew faintly warm. The heat spread from his palm, eventually enveloping his entire body. The sword emitted a crimson-gold glow, resonating distantly with the Crimson Cloud Dragon Sparrow Sword. At the center of the heatwave, Lin Xun felt as though he would melt from the inexplicable warmth in the next moment—he, his sword, and the Crimson Cloud Dragon Sparrow Sword would merge into one.

—Indeed, his longsword gradually dissolved, transforming into streams of golden light that flowed into his body. If anyone looked closely at the dazzling radiance, they would find it composed of countless intricate lines of code. Lin Xun reached out and grasped the hilt of the Crimson Cloud Dragon Sparrow Sword once more. He remembered clearly—this was the fifth time he had drawn it.

He said calmly, “If you don’t come out now, I’ll have to punish you.”

The sword seemed to hum faintly in response.

Lin Xun smiled slightly and lifted it upward—

As simply as drawing an ordinary sword from an ordinary sheath, he encountered no resistance, only a sensation of vacuum-like smoothness and fluidity. And so, the blade slowly rose, freeing itself from the jade pedestal that had long imprisoned it. When the gleaming, sharp tip finally left the pedestal, a prompt box popped up before Lin Xun’s eyes once more.

“Administrator 01, welcome back!”

Immediately after, the Crimson Cloud Dragon Sparrow Sword also dissolved into dazzling golden streams of light, gradually returning to his body.

Lin Xun turned to look at Yan Yangzi.

Yan Yangzi’s eyes were wide, his lips trembling, his chest heaving violently. “You… you…”

“Me what?” Lin Xun met his gaze sincerely, but in the next moment, his expression shifted. Like an obedient disciple, he asked, “Senior, is this how one achieves unity with the sword?”

Yan Yangzi seemed so enraged that he couldn’t even catch his breath or speak. He directly drew his sword with his left hand, a long rainbow piercing the sun, and thrust it toward him!

Unfortunately.

Unfortunately, what he now faced was no longer an ordinary keyboard cultivator. He faced the administrator 01 of this world, whose words became law—or, to put it in terms Yan Yangzi could understand, the unyielding Emperor of the cultivation world, one who had formally ascended the throne.

Lin Xun’s right hand closed loosely, and the Chixiao Dragon Sparrow Sword, entwined with blood Qi and baleful energy, appeared in his grasp. With a casual flick of his wrist, he swung it forward.

Sword tip met sword tip.

Clink.

Yan Yangzi’s figure suddenly froze.

The next moment, it flickered.

And the next, a living person vanished just like that—disappeared into thin air.

—Vanished without a trace.

“Formatting happiness,” Lin Xun said. “Goodbye.”

The world fell silent. He looked around and saw everyone watching him—those who had fallen to demonic influence and those who hadn’t—all silently gazing at him, as if overwhelmed by too much information all at once. Except for Qi Yun.

Qi Yun had been tainted by demonic energy and was struggling stubbornly, whimpering in discomfort in Chang Ji’s arms.

Lin Xun glanced at him, smiled faintly, then turned and walked downstairs without looking back.

There were many floors of stairs, but numbers were meaningless to him now. He left the building and stepped onto the wide road.

The barrier between the human realm had been shattered by Yan Yangzi earlier and remained broken. Demonic creatures and demonic Qi filled the surroundings, but they seemed to dare not provoke him anymore. Everywhere he looked were dark, menacing fissures—some large, some small. The largest resembled a canal cutting through the city, while the smallest were like fine, fragile strands of hair. Lin Xun had once stepped into one of these dark fissures, where he saw a tree-like structure of a Linux system.

An old question was now fully answered: aside from today’s complete collapse, demonic realm fissures only appeared underground and, specifically, within underground structures. Why didn’t they appear in more concealed, harder-to-find places like soil or bedrock?

—Because soil and bedrock didn’t exist in this world. This was a world floating on the surface.

All verifications had yielded answers. There was nothing left for him to confirm. Lin Xun felt it was time to bring this to an end.

But there was still one place he needed to go, one person he needed to see. He lifted his gaze to the Galaxy Tower standing quietly across the street.

He pressed the button for the top floor in the elevator, arriving twenty seconds later, and walked toward the room from his memory—Dong Jun’s office, which he had visited before.

He reached the door, a heavy wooden one left slightly ajar, as if waiting for someone. His right hand grasped the handle, and he gently pushed it open.

Before the floor-to-ceiling window stood a person’s back. Lin Xun looked out through the window and realized it faced directly ahead, offering a full view of the building rooftop where he had just been.

He sighed softly, stepped inside, and politely closed the door behind him.

“Yesterday, I said I’d come back to play with you today,” he said lightly. “So here I am.”

Dong Jun remained with his back turned, not looking around, and replied calmly, “Thank you.”

Lin Xun paid him no mind. With an air of utter familiarity, he walked to the center of the room and sat down in Dong Jun’s personal office chair. Crossing his fingers on the desk, he adopted a relaxed posture.

“I don’t really have any more questions,” he said. “But I’m still a bit curious—may I ask?”

Dong Jun: “Mm.”

“I know this world is fake,” Lin Xun said. “I’m dead, or dying, lying in the Nutshell 5.0. You gave me this place—it feels very real, but it’s all an illusion.”

Dong Jun: “Yes.”

“What about the people here? Who’s real, who’s fake?”

“You and I are real. Lin Ting is occasionally real.” Dong Jun’s tone held no noticeable fluctuation. “Everyone else is someone who should logically appear here.”

“Derivatives of my consciousness? From when I was in my early twenties—were they all my real-life friends back then?”

Dong Jun: “Mm.”

“You actually didn’t delete them,” Lin Xun said. “Thank you.”

Dong Jun seemed to smile faintly. “No need.”

“But you also didn’t need to delete them, since they’re all fake anyway. This way, you can keep me confined while I still feel free.” Lin Xun analyzed carefully.

“However, I don’t remember many things from the past…” He pondered, then asked, “Why did I wake up at this age?”

Dong Jun: “Perhaps because I find you at this age particularly precious.”

“And also because I was quite adorable when I idolized you?”

“Very adorable.”

Lin Xun chuckled, his eyes tinged with melancholy. He asked, “That apartment in Chaoyang District—did we live there?”

“For three years,” Dong Jun replied. “The four of us developed the Automated Driving System there, launched it at the Technology Expo, and later came Galaxy.”

Lin Xun: “I thought so. But later… time changes many things, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.”

Lin Xun asked again, “How did we separate?”

Dong Jun: “You felt you had lost your freedom and inspiration, and decided you needed to be alone.”

Lin Xun raised an eyebrow. “And you just let me go?”

“I let you go,” Dong Jun said calmly. “But I could never completely let you go. At the time, I thought I could give you two years.”

“But after two years, I died. I had even prepared a gift for you, wanting to return to your side. Too bad you never received it.” Lin Xun gazed at the grain of the desktop, his fingers unconsciously tracing the smooth edge of the table—a gesture that perhaps betrayed some deeply buried emotion. He asked, “So… was it suicide, or murder?”

After three seconds of silence, Dong Jun answered, “Is there a difference?”

“Of course there is,” Lin Xun said, watching his back, his tone lifting slightly as if making a harmless little joke. “If it was murder, you’d go to jail, boss.”

“Mm,” Dong Jun replied. “But how would you report it?”

Lin Xun nodded. “You’ve got me there. Never mind, I can’t do anything. You’ll remain at large then. How heartbreaking.”

Dong Jun: “What are you heartbroken about?”

“In the end, no one came to save me. Only my Goddess of the Luo River helped—she stayed with me far longer than you ever did.”

“Mhm.” Dong Jun seemed to have known about this all along. He said, “I am Administrator 02, with lower authority than you. I can’t control him.”

“If you could control him, he probably wouldn’t have gotten to meet me.” Lin Xun lazily propped his chin on his hand. “Do you hate him? Just like your father hated you.”

“Pretty much.” Dong Jun replied. “But occasionally we can coexist peacefully.”

“Sometimes I feel like I understand you very well. Other times, I feel like I don’t know you at all.” Lin Xun sighed softly.

Then, he heard Dong Jun say, “I feel the same way about you.”

Lin Xun lowered his eyes, smiled faintly, and continued, “What are the cracks?”

“Probably system vulnerabilities.” Dong Jun said. “They often appear in hidden places, but this world has a defense system that will repair them.”

Lin Xun: “I see.”

“Alright.” He said. “I’m done asking.”

Dong Jun: “You’ve worked hard.”

Lin Xun: “So what do we do now?”

“I already told you yesterday,” Dong Jun remained with his back turned, not looking at him once. “I did something wrong, and I accept any consequences.”

Lin Xun raised an eyebrow: “So now you’re at my mercy?”

Dong Jun: “Mhm.”

Silence flowed through the room for a long time, until Lin Xun spoke again.

“I don’t want to see you anymore.” He said.

Dong Jun said: “Alright.”

“Wait!” Lin Xun added: “One last question—do you love me?”

“I love you.” Dong Jun’s voice softened slightly, carrying a trace of imperceptible tenderness, like the softest inner petals of a rose. After speaking, he gently added: “Darling.”

Watching his back, Lin Xun first bit his lip tightly, then slowly relaxed, forcing a faint smile.

“I love you too.” His voice was slightly hoarse. “Goodbye.”

But I can’t be with you anymore.

With a light stir in his heart, ripples spread through the invisible world of data.

Dong Jun’s figure flickered slightly before completely vanishing into the air. The floor-to-ceiling window stood empty, as if no one had ever been there.

He whispered: “Permanently ban Administrator 02’s account.”

Another ripple spread, the surface of the water swayed and trembled, then gradually calmed.

Lin Xun stood up and left the empty, now and forever silent room without looking back. Before him, the dust of the mortal world swirled.

He went downstairs and stepped onto the street. This world had almost entirely transformed into the demon realm.

What is the fastest way to resolve system vulnerabilities and other serious issues?

—Of course, it’s a rollback, directly restoring the system to a time before the problems occurred.

Lin Xun walked toward the subway station.

Beside him, the city and the entire visible world pressed rewind at this moment. Cracks rapidly closed, demonic Qi was drawn back into the fissures, subways reversed direction, people’s steps retraced, returning to the subway station, returning home.

The sky gradually darkened from the gloomy gray-white of eight o’clock. Dawn vanished in an instant, the sun fell back to the east, stars slowly rose, clock hands turned backward—a magnificent transformation as time returned to four in the morning.

At four in the morning, the Red Sky Dragon Sparrow Sword had not yet been stolen, and it would never be stolen again. The Lin Xun hidden inside Wang Anquan’s gaming pod would vanish at a certain point in time, while the real Lin Xun would return to Chaoyang Community, to his room, to his bed, and fall asleep. He would wake up promptly at eight, refill Zhi Zhen’s cat food, and begin a new day—the final selection of the Technology Expo still awaited him.

Lin Xun walked alone along the quiet road in the early morning when suddenly, a nerve in his mind was stirred, receiving an external access request—an uninvited guest. He chose to grant permission, and then, in the midst of the silence, his phone rang, slightly jarring.

He picked up the phone, and the voice of his junior, Xue Xin, came through the receiver.

“Senior,” Xue Xin gasped heavily a few times, his tone bitter, and said, “Are you really… going to do this?”

“What else?” Lin Xun said softly, “Wake up in reality and see him again? What’s the point?”

He smiled, gazing at the city in the dead silence of the early morning, and whispered, “Isn’t this also a kind of freedom?”