120: Chapter 121 Night Raid on the Archive Tower: A Living Person Hides on the Basement Level

When Inspector Han Su's surveillance backup fell in front of Lin Jin, only a single line of text remained lit.

[Go to the Department of Education's Archives Tower.]

[Find the entrance to the Special Career Development Division's reality general ledger.]

In the next second, the corner of the backup paper began to self-combust.

Gu Changye reacted swiftly, pressing down with a dark blue sealing pattern, but the flames still burrowed inward along the paper's surface.

"This isn't ordinary destruction."

He stared at the line of fire, his expression darkening.

"Inspector Han Su's inspection clearance is being wiped remotely."

Lin Jin pinned the backup paper to the ground with his left hand, and a grey screw popped out from the side of his toolbox, jamming into a crease at the very bottom of the page.

Most of the paper had already burned away.

But hidden within the crease was a piece of underlying information that hadn't had time to display.

[Archives Tower Temporary Access Code: Inspector-0719]

[Validity: Three hours]

[WARNING: The Archives Tower has no basement level.]

[If you see a negative floor, do not trust the elevator.]

As the final character appeared, the entire backup paper turned completely to ash.

Sitting on a medical stretcher, Chen Ye stared at the pile of ash, his brow furrowed into a tight knot.

"No basement level."

"And yet he wants us to find the reality general ledger entrance."

"That entrance is probably underground."

Zhou Heng gave him a cold look.

"Inspector Han Su said not to trust the elevator, not that we can't go underground."

"What's the difference?"

"One is being taken down by the elevator, and the other is finding the entrance ourselves."

Chen Ye thought for two seconds.

"Both sound pretty dangerous."

Qin Shanhe ignored the two of them.

He looked at Gu Changye.

"The Archives Tower is a core facility of the Department of Education."

"Can the Processing Bureau bring people in?"

Gu Changye shook his head.

"Not through normal procedures."

"But what Inspector Han Su left behind is a temporary inspector access code."

"As long as his clearance hasn't been completely erased, it can open the door once within three hours."

Shen Tingxue gripped her Ice Key and looked up, asking,

"Would Lu Chengyuan not know about this?"

"He definitely knows."

Lin Jin closed his toolbox.

"So this isn't a backdoor."

"It's Inspector Han Su forcing open a front-door opportunity for us before his clearance was cut off."

Qin Shanhe fell silent for a moment.

"I'll go with you."

Gu Changye immediately vetoed the idea.

"The academy cannot be left unguarded."

"The White Tower bills, the three sealed rewards, the White Shield Sample, and the list of unenrolled students are all here."

"Lu Chengyuan just cut off Inspector Han Su's inspection clearance. His next step will very likely be targeting the academy."

Qin Shanhe looked at Lin Jin and the other three.

"They are all injured."

"My hand is injured, not my brain."

Lin Jin raised his right hand.

The bandages had been re-wrapped, but blood was still faintly seeping through the back of his hand.

Chen Ye chimed in immediately,

"My chest is injured, not my legs."

The Medical Instructor sneered from the side.

"You almost face-planted on the ground just getting off the stretcher."

Chen Ye's voice immediately dropped a notch.

"Wasn't that because the ground was uneven..."

Shen Tingxue walked over to the stretcher and looked down at him.

"You stay at the academy."

Chen Ye jerked his head up.

"No way."

"The last bill almost erased me from the team's daily routine."

"Now you're going to the Archives Tower, and you want me to stay behind alone?"

"The White Tower would turn right around and write down that I was absent again."

Zhou Heng frowned.

"Your body can't handle high-intensity combat."

Chen Ye gripped his shield handle and grinned.

"Then don't make me engage in high-intensity combat."

"I'll stand in the back."

"Who says the Protection Role always has to be at the very front?"

Lin Jin watched him for a few seconds.

"Can you walk?"

"Yes."

"Can you talk?"

"My throat is hoarse, but it won't stop me from swearing."

"Then we go together."

The Medical Instructor opened his mouth to scold them, but Gu Changye spoke first:

"The Processing Bureau will provide medical accompaniment."

"But there's one condition: Chen Ye cannot take any more high-intensity impacts head-on."

Chen Ye patted his shield.

"Did you hear that? Can't take them head-on."

"But I can take them from the side."

Shen Tingxue gave him a cold glare.

"If you keep smart-mouthing, I'll freeze you to the stretcher first."

Chen Ye immediately behaved himself.

Ten minutes later.

At the academy's east gate.

An unmarked black Processing Bureau vehicle drove out of the blockade zone.

Inside the vehicle were only Lin Jin's group of four, Gu Changye, and two Processing Bureau blockade officers.

Qin Shanhe stood inside the gate, not seeing them off too far.

He only said one thing to Lin Jin.

"Don't think of the Archives Tower as just a place where documents are stored."

Lin Jin looked at him.

Qin Shanhe's voice was deep.

"The most dangerous thing in the Department of Education has never been monsters."

"It's that once something is written into the archives, no one ever dares to say it didn't happen."

The black vehicle disappeared into the night.

An hour later, the Department of Education's Jiangdong Archives Tower appeared outside the car window.

It was a black tower without any lights.

The tower was thirteen stories high, yet its outer walls had no windows.

Above the main entrance hung only a silver-grey plaque.

[Class Archives Preservation Center]

Chen Ye glanced at the directory map.

"Thirteen floors in total."

Zhou Heng said,

"The last digits of Inspector Han Su's access code are 0719."

"It might refer to Archives Room 19 on the seventh floor."

Shen Tingxue shook her head.

"It could also be a time."

Lin Jin stared at the glass of the main entrance.

There was no reflection in the glass.

There were only rows of upright filing cabinets standing like countless silent human figures.

Gu Changye entered the access code.

[Inspector-0719]

The access control screen flashed a few times.

[Clearance Owner: Inspector Han Su]

[Current Status: Suspended Pending Investigation]

[Temporary Inspector Access: One-time]

[Use?]

Gu Changye pressed confirm.

The door opened.

There were no security guards or duty officers inside.

There was only a reception desk.

On the desk lay four blank visitor passes.

On a fifth visitor pass, a name had already been written in advance.

[Lin Jin]

Seeing this, Chen Ye's face darkened.

"It even anticipated your arrival?"

Lin Jin didn't touch the pass.

Gu Changye didn't let anyone take them either.

"Everyone, use the Processing Bureau's temporary credentials."

As if dissatisfied, a line of fine text slowly surfaced on the blank visitor passes.

[Those without visitor passes shall be deemed as materials pending archiving]

In the next second, the sound of sliding tracks echoed from the filing cabinets on both sides.

Hands folded from white paper reached out from the gaps in the cabinet doors.

"Here they come!"

Zhou Heng's Thunder Spear unsheathed.

Just as the first paper hand reached for Lin Jin, it was pinned through by lightning.

But the paper hand did not shatter. Instead, it crawled up the Thunder Spear toward Zhou Heng's wrist, as words rapidly wrote themselves on the paper's surface:

[Zhou Heng — Thunder-type Barrier-breaker Archive — Pending Archiving]

Shen Tingxue flicked her finger.

An Ice Line instantly froze the paper hand solid.

"It's not trying to grab us."

"It's trying to archive us."

Leaning in the back, Chen Ye held his shield sideways, blocking the sheets of paper sweeping in from the walls.

"What happens once it finishes writing?"

Gu Changye slashed through the sheets of paper with a single strike.

"The Archives Tower will store you inside as a document."

"The person remains physically there,"

"but their identity gets archived first."

Chen Ye cursed.

"That's more troublesome than dying."

Lin Jin did not join the attack.

He stared beneath the reception desk.

All the paper hands originated from a silver document-delivery belt.

The document conveyor belt was connected to a visitor pass printer.

"Zhou Heng, sever the wires behind the printer."

"Shen Tingxue, freeze the conveyor belt, don't freeze the cabinets."

"Chen Ye, tilt your shield to the left. Give me three seconds."

The three moved simultaneously.

Zhou Heng's Thunder Spear bypassed the reception desk, and the buffer spike at the spear's butt slammed heavily into the back of the printer.

Shen Tingxue's ice only sealed the gears of the conveyor belt, without touching any of the archives.

Chen Ye tilted his shield at a forty-five-degree angle, redirecting the swirling torrent of paper toward the ceiling.

Lin Jin rushed to the front of the printer and flipped open the bottom cover with his left hand.

There was no ink cartridge inside.

Only a constantly spinning silver-white stamp.

[Pending Archiving]

The Hand of Rules popped out.

[Target: Archives Tower Visitor Registrar]

[Malfunction: Defining those who have not collected their visitor passes as materials pending archiving]

[Repair Method: Restore "visitor identity requires self-confirmation"]

Lin Jin pulled out his ordinary rusty wrench, choosing not to use the rule correction wrench.

The wrench jammed into the stamp's axle, and he twisted it backward with a sudden jerk.

*Click!*

The silver-white stamp stopped.

He used chalk to write eight characters on the inner side of the printer.

[No archiving without self-confirmation.]

The paper hands froze simultaneously.

In the next second, all the half-written names automatically faded away, and the sheets of paper clattered to the floor.

Chen Ye caught his breath.

"The Archives Tower's welcoming ceremony is quite enthusiastic."

"This is only the entrance."

Gu Changye looked up at the elevators.

Both elevators were stopped on the first floor.

The one on the left was labeled with normal floors.

The screen on the right was pitch black.

Instead of taking the elevators, the group headed toward the emergency stairs.

Only one light was lit every other floor in the stairwell.

Second floor, Basic Class Archives.

Third floor, Rare Class Archives.

Fourth floor, Class Change Failure Records.

Fifth floor, Class Pollution Disposal.

Sixth floor, Project Cooperation Archives.

When they reached the seventh floor, the stairwell door was locked by a silver-white seal.

Written on the seal was:

[Special Career Development Division]

[No entry for non-division personnel]

Inspector Han Su's temporary access code lit up once more in Gu Changye's hand.

[Remaining Uses: One]

Gu Changye frowned.

"Once we enter, we won't have the clearance to retreat."

Zhou Heng gripped his Thunder Spear tightly.

"We didn't come here for a stroll anyway."

Lin Jin looked at Chen Ye.

Chen Ye's face was somewhat pale, but he remained standing.

"Don't look at me."

"Open it."

The access code was pressed against the seal.

A flash of silver-white light erupted.

The door to the seventh floor opened.

Behind the door was not an archive corridor.

It was a colossal circular office.

Hundreds of desks were arranged in a circle.

On every desk lay open the exact same grey ledger.

Yet there was no one in the chairs.

There were only empty Department of Education uniforms sitting there.

Right in the center stood a floor sign.

[Special Career Development Division Archive Floor]

[Current Floor: 7]

The moment Lin Jin stepped inside, all the ledgers flipped open simultaneously.

The rustling sound instantly filled the entire floor.

Luo Wensheng's echo rang out urgently from the sealed imprint:

"Don't listen to the sound of the pages turning!"

"It will transcribe the words you speak into the ledgers!"

Shen Tingxue immediately deployed a low-temperature silence zone.

The rustling of pages was muffled, but it did not disappear completely.

Gu Changye pointed toward the deepest part of the office.

There stood a silver filing cabinet door.

The cabinet door number was:

[0719]

Zhou Heng said coldly,

"It really is Room 19 on the seventh floor."

The group quickly wove through the desks.

The empty uniforms remained motionless.

But as Lin Jin passed the third row, a uniform sleeve suddenly lifted, gripping a silver pen, and wrote a line on the ledger.

[Lin Jin and the others have voluntarily entered the Archives Tower for investigation.]

Lin Jin didn't stop his pace.

"We are using a temporary inspector access code in accordance with the law."

Shen Tingxue added,

"Not voluntarily participating in the Special Career Development Division's project."

Zhou Heng directly flicked the silver pen away with his spear.

Chen Ye added from behind,

"And we didn't agree to let you record it either."

The silver pen fell to the ground, yet it continued to crawl on its own.

All the empty uniforms raised their hands at the same time.

Hundreds of silver pens pointed in unison at them.

"Hurry!"

Gu Changye slashed open the array of desks ahead.

Shen Tingxue's frost sealed the uniform arms on both sides.

Zhou Heng's lightning blasted open a straight path toward cabinet door 0719, but at the last moment, he actively curved around to avoid a silver signature line that suddenly appeared on the floor.

Chen Ye didn't rush to the very front.

He stood half a step behind Lin Jin, tilting his shield to deflect all the descending pen tips.

"The three desks on the right are closing in!"

"Lin Jin, there's something under the door!"

Lin Jin had already rushed to the front of cabinet door 0719.

Sure enough, there was no floor beneath the cabinet door.

Only a black staircase extending downward.

Labeled on the side of the stairs was:

[-1]

Inspector Han Su's warning echoed in everyone's minds.

The Archives Tower has no basement level.

If you see a negative floor, do not trust the elevator.

Lin Jin glanced down.

"It's not an elevator."

Zhou Heng came to his side.

"Then let's go down."

Gu Changye, however, raised his hand first to stop everyone.

"Wait."

He squatted down to inspect the first step of the stairs.

In the dust, there was a very fresh footprint.

It wasn't from the leather shoes of the Archives Tower uniform.

It was from maintenance boots.

A small piece was missing from the right side of the sole, leaving a distinct crescent-shaped chip.

Lin Jin's breath caught sharply in his throat.

He had seen this footprint before.

In his father's old toolbox, there was still a mud print with the exact same sole pattern.

It was pitch black beneath the stairs.

But from the deepest depths, the sound of metal clanging suddenly echoed.

*Clang.*

*Clang.*

*Clang.*

Three times.

A pause.

Then two more times.

That was the secret signal Lin Shoushan used to use when repairing things to tell Lin Jin, "Don't come close, there's live electricity inside."

Chen Ye's expression changed.

"There's someone down there."

Shen Tingxue gripped her Ice Key tightly.

The electrical light on Zhou Heng's Thunder Spear brightened inch by inch.

Lin Jin stood before the entrance to the basement level, staring into the darkness.

The Hand of Rules slowly popped up a prompt that had never appeared before.

[Living maintenance echo detected]

[Target Identity: Lin Shoushan]

[Status: Unsettled]

[Distance: Basement level, seventy-nine meters]

Immediately after, a second line of blood-red warning overrode the first.

[WARNING: The target is continuously being used by the Cost General Ledger Room as a "Reality Entrance Maintenance Worker".]

From deep within the darkness, the clanging sound rang out once more.

This time, it was not a secret signal.

But a man's voice, so raspy it was almost inaudible.

"Lin Jin."

"Don't come down."

"Lu Chengyuan is right next to me."