34: It's true that eating soft rice tastes better when you force yourself.

The golden light looked divine, but up close, it emitted a parching heat that could dry a person out.

Su Chen extended a fingertip to test the air; before his pad even touched the bronze surface, the protective layer of Yang Energy sizzled like frying oil.

Interesting. This wasn't a coffin; it was clearly hundreds of high-voltage transformers that hadn't been powered on yet.

Before he could figure out the anti-theft mechanism, Zhao Wanting, who had been on standby behind him, suddenly lunged like a cat with its tail stepped on, frantically throwing herself at the nearest coffin.

"Screech—!"

The ear-piercing sound of nails scratching against metal erupted in the secret chamber.

Zhao Wanting's carbonized fingers managed to leave several bloodstains on the hard bronze surface.

Black blood flowed along the patterns, unexpectedly outlining a complex double-helix design.

Su Chen's brow twitched.

The pattern looked unfamiliar to him, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lin Mengyao tremble, looking as if her soul had been snatched away.

"The Lin family's... ancestral sigil?"

Lin Mengyao's voice was colder than the chill in the cellar.

"The compatible ones... must marry! The hour has come... enter the bridal chamber!"

Two inhuman roars squeezed out of Zhao Wanting's throat. Then, her eyes rolled back, and she fell straight backward.

Countless hair-thin golden threads emerged from her seven orifices, like parasites seeking a host, frantically coiling around the lid of the coffin she had scratched.

This crazy woman sure knows how to cause trouble.

Su Chen ignored the "discarded parts" on the ground, his gaze falling on the coffin that was slowly sliding open a crack.

There was no expected stench of rotting corpses; instead, a scent of ink wafted through the air.

Qin Ya summoned her courage and stepped forward, using her pointer to lift a corner of something inside the coffin.

Stacked inside weren't gold, silver, or mummified corpses, but neat piles of red paper that looked as if they had just come from a print shop.

"This material... isn't right."

Qin Ya's face was pale as her trembling fingers picked up the top sheet.

"It feels like sandpaper; it's pressed from bone meal."

Su Chen leaned in for a look, his pupils constricting slightly.

The dark red handwriting was still flowing, like a living thing.

The most absurd part was the date—it was three days from now.

【Marriage Contract: Sacred Yang Divine Body (Su Chen) and Pure Yin Cauldron (Lin Mengyao)】

【Betrothal Gift: Junior Yang Energy Crystals ×100, Survival Supplies Blind Box ×1】

【Penalty for Breach: Obliteration】

"One hundred crystals?"

Su Chen licked his back teeth, a glint of greed and amusement flashing in his eyes.

In this godforsaken place, a single crystal could upgrade a beat-up Jeep into an armored vehicle; a hundred was practically blood money.

It seemed that in this damn apocalyptic game setting, his Sacred Yang Divine Body was worth quite a lot.

"Su Chen... my name is on this."

Lin Mengyao stared intently at the bone-meal marriage certificate, her breathing rapid like a fish out of water.

"It's not just you. If you had looked closely just now, these hundreds of coffins probably hold enough space for the names of every girl in the entire school."

Ignoring her panic, Su Chen turned and pressed his palm against the side of the coffin. As his Internal Qi circulated, an extremely subtle vibrating force seeped through his palm into the bronze wall.

Hum... hum... the frequency of the vibration feedback was very chaotic.

If it were an ordinary mechanism, Su Chen would have smashed it with a single slap long ago.

But the internal energy circuit of this thing was a closed loop; if violently destroyed, the massive amount of Yang Energy stored inside would instantly overload.

It was like playing with a lighter in an oil depot—it might not kill the monsters, but it would certainly finish him off first.

"This thing is a 'Yang Energy Resonator'."

Su Chen withdrew his hand and brushed off the bronze rust, his tone as flat as if he were giving a lecture.

"To open it and get the supplies, brute force won't work; we need a 'key'."

"And that key is what's written on this damn marriage certificate—Yin-Yang Harmony."

In plain terms, the system doesn't want to see you use brute force; it wants to see some R-rated drama.

And it has to be consensual on the woman's part.

"You mean..."

Qin Ya glanced at the terms on the marriage certificate, her cheeks instantly flushing red. Shame made her instinctively turn her head away.

"I don't have time to play guessing games with you."

Su Chen checked his watch; though the face was long shattered, the intuition of approaching danger made his scalp tingle.

"Either these coffins stay locked forever and everyone starves, or we follow its rules—even if it's just an act."

Lin Mengyao froze in place.

Memories of being locked in the ancestral hall by her grandfather as a child to memorize obscure clan rules suddenly flashed through her mind.

Back then, she thought it was just feudal garbage—things like "The Lin family's female line must serve the Pure Yang with their bodies" or "When the great catastrophe arrives, only Yang can break it."

It turned out... none of it was crazy talk.

The Lin family had known all along that the apocalypse was coming.

And she, Lin Mengyao, had been "manufactured" as a bargaining chip since the moment of her birth for this very moment.

A sense of absurdity at being toyed with by fate surged in her heart, followed by overwhelming rage.

By what right?

Why should her life be decided by scraps of paper from hundreds of years ago?

But when her stomach cramped again, the biological instinct for survival instantly crushed her so-called dignity.

Su Chen.

Lin Mengyao suddenly spoke, her voice surprisingly calm.

Su Chen arched an eyebrow; before he could speak, his collar was grabbed.

A scent mixing sweat and orchids wafted towards him.

Lin Mengyao's exquisitely flawless face rapidly enlarged in his vision.

"Don't misunderstand..."

She gritted her teeth, tears of humiliation even hanging from the corners of her eyes, her voice trembling yet firm.

"I just... don't want to die!"

The next second, two cold and soft sensations collided forcefully with the corner of Su Chen's mouth.

There was no romance; it was practically a bloody slaughter.

"Boom—!"

The moment their breaths mingled, the silent bronze coffin exploded with a loud bang, as if a powder keg had been ignited.

The previously sealed lid flew off, slamming heavily against the wall.

It wasn't a mummy coming back to life, but a fountain of compressed biscuits, canned food, and those blindingly bright golden crystals.

At the very top of the pile of supplies, a simple and ancient bronze key floated quietly, with the scarlet character for "Marry" etched onto its handle.

Su Chen unceremoniously grabbed the key, feeling a surge of Yang Energy within him. A satisfied curve formed at the corner of his mouth.

Eating this soft rice hard indeed tastes better.

Before he could take stock of the loot, the surrounding space began to warp violently.

The shelves, walls, and even the rubble on the ground began to disassemble, float, and reorganize like Lego bricks.

The dim lighting turned into glaring fluorescent tubes, and the foul air was replaced by the scent of chalk dust.

What had been a gloomy and terrifying underground secret chamber just seconds ago transformed in the blink of an eye into a spacious, bright lecture hall.

All the girls were forcibly teleported to their seats, while Su Chen stood at the podium.

On the blackboard behind him, blood slowly seeped out, outlining new rules stroke by stroke.