Chapter 42: Vulnerability (2)
42 – Vulnerability (2)
Lin Xun turned to look back the way he had come.
As he expected, the dim passage was now blocked, replaced by a basement door identical to the others.
In the entire space, eight doors surrounded him, forming a cramped area. A dim yellow bulb on the concrete ceiling flickered, then went out completely.
His flashlight automatically turned on. Lin Xun shone it over the doorplates of the doors. The basement door numbers in the residential complex were six-digit—and they still were now—but clearly, they were no longer correct.
101010, 111010, 110101…
Combinations of 0 and 1—this was binary.
Binary, two, eight doors, two to the eighth power, 256.
These pieces of information flashed through Lin Xun’s mind. He surveyed his surroundings and suddenly noticed many wisps of black Qi lingering in the air.
In such an environment, black Qi was always filled with malice.
Perhaps this was the demonic Qi the seniors spoke of. Now that the compass had failed and signals were lost, it indicated that demonic Qi had invaded and was already affecting the real world.
The basement system was connected through the underground garage. If the demonic Qi originated from here, it could indeed spread throughout the entire Chaoyang residential complex… It was understandable that Xiaoxiao’s family, living in the basement, would be most severely affected by the demonic Qi.
At the same time, he felt a faint taste of blood in his throat, a heavy pressure weighing on his body, and his breathing gradually grew labored.
In for a penny, in for a pound. In this situation, he decisively cut off his network connection. Sure enough, the pressure around him cleared instantly.
He walked up to one of the doors.
110101, converted: 53. May 3rd was Dong Jun’s birthday. It felt auspicious.
Without much hesitation, he approached this door. The handle was rusted and covered in a layer of dust, as if it hadn’t been touched in years.
In the utterly silent space, the rusty door hinge creaked as the iron door swung open.
Lin Xun: “…”
White walls, gray concrete floor, dim yellow lighting, black Qi permeating the air—the atmosphere was overwhelmingly oppressive.
The space beyond the door was a blank wall, with two more doors opened on the left and right walls.
The door numbers on these two doors had gained an extra digit. One now ended with 0, the other with 1.
He pushed open room 1101011.
A dense, icy mass of black Qi, accompanied by a chilling wind, rushed toward him—almost like a large splash of ink thrown directly at his face.
Lin Xun reflexively closed his eyes. The cold energy passed through his body, then surged forward again with the wind. After several such cycles, the black Qi seemed to give up attacking him and drifted away elsewhere.
—Was this a demonic entity?
Lin Xun had no doubt that if an ordinary person were standing here now, they would have already been possessed by the demonic entity.
Unfortunately, he was currently offline, immune to all attacks.
—As the obstructing black Qi drifted away, a space almost identical to the previous one appeared before him, with the door number gaining yet another digit.
Lin Xun took a deep breath but did not proceed further.
There were three methods of mathematical reasoning: induction, analogy, and deduction.
If he used the simplest logic to estimate the current situation, he could foresee that behind any door, there would be two more doors. One could keep pushing doors open, keep moving forward, and the binary numbers represented by the door numbers would grow longer and longer.
This feeling was like… computer theory manifesting in reality.
Because, at the most fundamental level, all computer operations were implemented through binary.
Assuming Lin Xun had infinite time to navigate within this computer system, and further assuming these basement rooms were endless, then he could reach any door and traverse all binary commands.
The basement was underground. If his movement below ground equated to equal-distance displacement above ground, then theoretically, he could also reach every location in this world through these rooms.
So, how should he get out?
Lin Xun had only a superficial understanding of the underlying principles of computers. In fact, he only knew how to build upon the upper layers.
He began recalling all the relevant knowledge he possessed. After about a dozen… minutes, he felt this behavior of his was somewhat ridiculous.
—You’re actually trying to use computer knowledge to escape from the rift between the human and demon realms.
But on second thought, if the rift between the human and demon realms could be expressed in this form, then using computer knowledge to solve it wasn’t entirely wrong.
Yet, he still had no leads.
His phone battery was at thirty percent—seemingly insufficient.
Before the signal disappeared, the Goddess of the Luo River had sent out his geographical location according to previous commands, but the seniors might not realize he was underground rather than above ground.
Moreover, he hadn’t eaten dinner yet and was now faintly hungry.
This was an epic miscalculation, Lin Xun thought. He had originally believed that cutting off the internet would guarantee his absolute safety, but now it seemed there was also the possibility of being trapped to death.
Just then, a mechanical voice suddenly sounded in his mind.
“Environment abnormal. Passive skill ‘Heavenly Eye Technique’ activated. Please be cautious.”
As the voice faded, a surge of heat rose and swirled around his eyes. Faint, multicolored flashes appeared before Lin Xun’s vision, and a misty haze spread across his sight. After about five minutes, the mist and heat dissipated, and everything returned to normal.
—At first, it seemed nothing had changed. But the next moment, Lin Xun discovered that when he focused his gaze on this room, the entire real world deconstructed before his eyes. A layer of illusory code rose before him—complex, dense, thousands upon thousands of lines.
What exactly was written, Lin Xun couldn’t discern at a glance, but he felt it resembled the source code of Linux. Linux was an open-source operating system with extremely high freedom, its kernel written in C language, and its applications were incredibly widespread—even mainstream supercomputers ran on Linux clusters.
“System,” Lin Xun spoke into the silence. “Can I have a mission hint? I think I might die here.”
The system remained silent.
Lin Xun tried pushing open a few more doors, and the code updated accordingly.
Lin Xun: “Or, should I just delete the database and run?”
As he spoke, he picked up the keyboard: “It’s easy to damage a Linux system. Do I have root privileges? No… that might affect me too.”
The system still didn’t respond.
Lin Xun gave up on conversing with the system and stared blankly at the overwhelming code.
At this moment, he recalled a common trope found in many martial arts stories.
The protagonist is trapped in a room filled with books. He must master all the knowledge within to escape—and upon doing so, he becomes the greatest under heaven.
Should he start learning code too? After memorizing all this code, would he become the greatest programmer under heaven?
If that were true, then he was willing.
However, it was unrealistic. He was a bit hungry now and very cold.
Lin Xun pulled himself together and began reading the code carefully from the first line.
The next second, a rumbling sound erupted, and the ground beneath his feet shook violently!
Leaning against the wall to steady himself, Lin Xun silently observed the trajectory of the room’s movement and the pattern of its rearrangement.
After one round of tremors, the room had shifted to an unknown location, and the doorplate had quietly changed. He felt utterly lost in this basement maze.
Lin Xun took a few deep breaths, leaned against the wall, and told himself, “You need to stay calm.”
There was no problem in the world that Lin Suanfa couldn’t solve. If there was, it simply meant there wasn’t enough time yet.
And indeed, that was the case. He already had a vague idea in his mind, but he needed more evidence.
Lin Xun opened his phone and started a timer. If the tremors were regular, the intervals between the room’s rearrangements would provide him with a lot of information.
He hoped he could find a clue before his phone ran out of battery.
Ten minutes.
Twenty minutes.
Half an hour.
The battery seemed to be struggling. To conserve power, he first turned off the flashlight.
In the pitch darkness, he sensed a faint tremor once again.
Dust fell from the ceiling. Lin Xun steadied himself again, ready to face the storm.
How…ever, this tremor stopped abruptly halfway through—just a few light shakes before ceasing completely in an instant.
Lin Xun’s train of thought was instantly thrown into disarray.
In the surrounding silence, a distant sound suddenly echoed.
“Meow…”
Lin Xun’s heart skipped a beat.
That soft, kitten-like meow sounded so much like his own Zhi Zhen.
He doubted his hearing, but a few seconds later, the same meow sounded again, this time much clearer.
Lin Xun: “Zhi Zhen?”
“Meow.”
The sound grew clearer and clearer. Three minutes later, Lin Xun clearly heard the light, almost imperceptible footsteps unique to felines.
He turned on the flashlight, and the next moment, a white shadow darted in through the nearest door.
A fluffy white kitten with blue eyes—it was Zhi Zhen.
—Zhi Zhen without a program interface.
Lin Xun: “How did you get here?”
Zhi Zhen let out a short meow, then turned and headed in another direction.
Lin Xun followed.
Zhi Zhen hardly paused in any room, immediately running toward another door.
At first, Lin Xun made an effort to remember the sequence of doorplate numbers, but Zhi Zhen ran faster and faster, leaving him no time to look. He could only quicken his pace to keep up.
As they twisted and turned through the maze, the surrounding demonic Qi grew fainter, and Zhi Zhen’s pace slowed slightly.
The door ahead was closed, and its plate bore only a single number: 0.
Zhi Zhen flicked its tail.
Lin Xun stepped forward, turned the doorknob, and walked out.
His vision blurred for a moment, and the scene before him suddenly transformed into a normal basement corridor, with even Xiaoxiao’s house lights shining not far away.
He looked back and saw that the door had disappeared, replaced by a dark, unlit passageway.
His phone signal had also returned to normal. His hands trembling slightly, he was about to make a call when he heard the elevator nearby ding. A flurry of hurried footsteps approached, led by Old Man Huo, accompanied by Master Wanchan, with Chang Ji and Xiaoyaozi also present.
Old Man Huo’s beard trembled as he spoke: “You…”
Master Wanchan chanted a Buddhist invocation: “Amitabha, the rift to the demon realm is a bottomless abyss from which none return. Fortunately, you have not yet entered.”
Zhi Zhen circled around his feet. Understanding its intent, Lin Xun picked it up.
He brought the cat before his master: “Master, with your vast experience, could you take a look and see what kind of divine beast this is?”
Old Man Huo frowned as he examined it: “It’s a kitten.”
Lin Xun turned the cat around to face him.
Zhi Zhen blinked its eyes. Under the light, its pupils narrowed into vertical slits, their color carrying a hint of coldness, yet its extraordinary beauty always made it appear innocent.
Lin Xun asked, “Are you a little trickster?”
The elders each began channeling their energy, seemingly preparing to cast some kind of formation to seal the rift.
Lin Xun’s cultivation was insufficient, and he had yet to learn how to use Spiritual Power, so he was not among them.
He took a few steps back, scrutinizing Zhi Zhen.
Finally, he picked up his phone and switched to his chat interface with Dong Jun: “Now I’m going to tattle.”
Zhi Zhen meowed softly and gently patted his arm a few times.
Lin Xun ignored it.
He composed a message and sent it to Dong Jun.
A Happy Zhi Zhen: Do you believe in things that science cannot explain?
Dong Jun’s reply came quickly.
Dong Jun: I am a materialist.
A Happy Zhi Zhen: Then do you believe in Cultivation?
Dong Jun: Are you planning to stay up late?
Lin Xun glanced at the chat interface, then at the innocent-looking Zhi Zhen, feeling deeply perplexed.
Zhi Zhen seemed completely unaware, even snuggling against his chest and lying down peacefully.