123: Chapter 124, Thirteenth Floor: Lu Chengyuan Personally Identifies Himself

[Thirteenth Floor: Director's Appointment Archives]

[Current Archive Accessor: Lu Chengyuan]

[Lu Chengyuan is on the Thirteenth Floor, waiting to meet himself.]

The elevator doors slowly opened.

There was no cabin inside.

Only a narrow, long room lined with silver-white mirrors.

In the mirrors, the reflections of Lin Jin and the other three were all different.

Lin Jin wore the Special Career Development Division uniform, with a badge reading "Rule Maintenance Project Leader" hanging on his chest.

Shen Tingxue sat on the Second Observation Position, her Ice Key inserted into the back of the chair.

Zhou Heng's right arm was intact, but behind him stood an expressionless Deputy Director Zhou Chengyue.

Chen Ye's mirror was the cleanest.

There was no Chen Ye inside.

Only that S-Class White Shield Sample.

The muscles on Chen Ye's face twitched.

"This elevator is quite polite."

"Before going up, it first tells you how it plans to kill you."

Gu Changye raised his hand to stop everyone.

"Don't enter."

A prompt floated up inside the elevator.

[The Thirteenth Floor only accepts complete archival identities.]

[Entrants must submit a copy of their current identity.]

[The identity copy is only used for floor verification and will not affect the person themselves.]

Zhou Heng sneered.

"The last sentence is usually the least trustworthy."

Shen Tingxue raised her Ice Key.

The Second Observation Position in the mirror immediately turned the back of the chair toward her.

There was no one on the chair.

Yet an icy-white palm reached out from behind the chair, making an inviting gesture toward her.

Shen Tingxue didn't even look, slashing horizontally with her Ice Key.

The mirror surface cracked.

The entire elevator issued a sharp alarm at the same time.

[Identity verification has been compromised.]

[Please submit an alternative identity.]

Countless silver-white thin threads squeezed out from the cracks in the mirror, heading straight for the school badges on the chests of the four.

Lin Jin retreated abruptly.

"It wants to replicate the Mutual Verification Contract!"

Chen Ye slammed his shield diagonally into the elevator doors.

The silver threads wrapped around the shield's surface, and a line of text immediately floated up.

[Extracting Protection Role identity...]

"Extracting my ass!"

Chen Ye lowered his waist and flipped his shield with a sudden twist.

The silver threads were twisted into a clump by the shield's edge, and Zhou Heng's Thunder Spear immediately pierced through the knot.

Purple lightning exploded, and the elevator doors slammed shut with a bang.

Yet the [13] on the floor buttons remained lit.

Shen Tingxue looked at the wall beside the elevator.

"The stairs only go up to the twelfth floor."

"The Thirteenth Floor was added on."

Gu Changye looked up.

On the internal structural diagram of the Archives Tower, the space above the twelfth floor should have been the equipment room at the top of the tower.

There was no Thirteenth Floor.

But that blood-stained nut was heating up in Lin Jin's palm.

A crescent notch on the inner ring of the nut slowly pointed toward the ceiling vent.

Lin Jin raised his wrench.

"We're not going to the Thirteenth Floor."

"We're going to the place recorded as the Thirteenth Floor."

He stepped onto the reception desk and removed the outer frame of the vent.

Behind it was not a ventilation duct.

Instead, it was a narrow maintenance shaft.

On the walls, there was a rusty wrench scratch every few meters.

Lin Shoushan had been here.

Everyone crawled in one by one.

Chen Ye had the most severe injuries and was placed in the middle.

He panted as he crawled.

"I have a question."

"Why are all maintenance shafts so narrow?"

Lin Jin didn't look back.

"To prevent people like you from crawling in when you have nothing better to do."

"Then why did Uncle Lin crawl in?"

"Because he is a Repairman."

"You are too."

"Which is why I'm crawling in right now."

Chen Ye fell silent for two seconds.

"The logic is sound."

Zhou Heng said coldly from behind:

"Save your breath."

The maintenance shaft went all the way up.

The closer they got to the top, the surrounding metal walls became newer.

The old rust was gradually covered by a silver-white painted surface, as if someone was trying to rewrite this physically existing maintenance path into a part of the Archives Tower as well.

When they crawled to the end, a circular inspection door appeared ahead.

There was no lock on the door.

Only two palm prints side by side.

The left one was labeled:

[Lu Chengyuan, Before Death]

[Lu Chengyuan, Post-Reinstatement]

Chen Ye's scalp tingled at the sight.

"They really are letting him meet himself."

Lin Jin embedded the blood-stained nut into the door hinge.

The nut fit perfectly.

The sound of gears turning came from behind the door.

Both palm prints lit up simultaneously.

The left one was so faint it seemed about to go out.

But the right one was blindingly bright.

A voice came from inside the door.

"People outside the door."

"Don't touch the right side."

The voice was young and weary, yet it sounded exactly like Lu Chengyuan.

Immediately after, another, more familiar voice rang out.

Calm and indifferent.

"Don't listen to the left side."

"That is merely an error residue generated before my death."

Two Lu Chengyuans.

One on the left of the door.

One on the right of the door.

Lin Jin did not touch either palm print.

He wedged a regular wrench into the door hinge and twisted it in reverse.

"Neither the dead nor the reinstatement archives have the right to decide who gets to enter."

"A maintenance shaft uses maintenance authority."

Crack!

The circular door was pried open slightly by sheer force.

Zhou Heng inserted the tip of his spear, using thunderous light to prop open the door.

Shen Tingxue used frost to freeze the spring-back mechanism.

Chen Ye braced his shield from behind.

With their combined strength, the four of them pried the door open.

The Thirteenth Floor finally appeared before them.

It was a circular, windowless archive room.

In the center stood two identical Director's desks.

Sitting on the left was a Lu Chengyuan in his twenties.

His uniform was torn, with a penetrating wound in his chest, and half of his body looked like a faded photograph.

Sitting on the right was the current Lu Chengyuan.

He was neatly dressed, his expression indifferent.

The two faced each other.

Between them lay only a thin appointment document.

The document's title:

[Special Career Development Division Director Reinstatement Approval]

Seeing the 0001 iron badge in Lin Jin's hand, the young Lu Chengyuan's expression relaxed slightly.

"Lin Shoushan handed it over to you."

But the Lu Chengyuan on the right raised his hand.

Every silver pen in the entire archive room floated up simultaneously.

"Back out."

"This document is not within the scope of student access."

Chen Ye sneered, leaning on his shield.

"You've been dead for twenty years and you're still managing the student access scope?"

The young Lu Chengyuan glanced at Chen Ye.

"He's right."

"I am indeed dead."

"Twenty years ago, a position replacement contamination appeared on the White Tower First Floor."

"I ordered the project to be terminated."

The Lu Chengyuan on the right spoke calmly.

"You issued a suspension order."

"Not a termination order."

"A single character's difference changes the meaning completely."

The young Lu Chengyuan's eyes turned instantly cold.

"My original document wrote 'terminate'."

"You changed it to 'suspend'."

Their voices were exactly the same.

Yet their tones were completely different.

One was accusing.

One was stating archives.

Lin Jin looked at the reinstatement document on the desk.

"Who approved it?"

The young Lu Chengyuan stared at the document.

"Seven minutes after my death, the Director position triggered an automatic replacement."

"It read all of my employment records and pieced together a version of me that could continue executing the project."

"That wasn't resurrection."

"It's just that the position is not allowed to be vacant."

The Lu Chengyuan on the right said:

"Continuity of positions is the foundation of the Department of Education's stability."

"The White Tower project involves thousands of career archives."

"The sudden death of the Director would cause large-scale rule loss of control."

"I was merely correctly retained."

"Correct?"

The young Lu Chengyuan looked down at the wound on his chest.

"You retained my authority."

"Deleted my rejection."

"Inherited my face."

"Yet you restarted all the projects I had terminated."

The Lu Chengyuan on the right did not defend himself.

"The project is more important than personal will."

As he finished speaking, every silver pen on the Thirteenth Floor turned toward the young Lu Chengyuan at the same time.

[Death residue detected denying current identity.]

[Initiating original archive cleanup.]

The pen tips fell like rain.

In an instant, the young Lu Chengyuan's body was pierced with over a dozen transparent holes.

Shen Tingxue raised her Ice Key, and frost condensed into an arched ice wall in front of him.

Zhou Heng's Thunder Spear swept from the side, knocking the silver pens off course.

Chen Ye rushed between the two desks with his shield raised.

"Killed once while alive,"

"and now killed again by his own face after death?"

The Lu Chengyuan on the right looked up.

"His existence is the root cause of the identity conflict."

Lin Jin had already rushed toward the document in the middle.

A silver thread shot out from beneath the desk, stabbing straight toward the wound on his right hand.

Shen Tingxue slashed backhanded.

An Ice Line severed the silver light.

"Look at the document."

"Leave the back to us."

Zhou Heng shifted his spear stance, and arcs of lightning tightly cordoned off the Director's desk on the right.

Chen Ye did not attack, only planting his shield in front of the young Lu Chengyuan.

This was the first time they had protected Lu Chengyuan.

Protecting a Lu Chengyuan who was already dead, yet could still prove that the other Lu Chengyuan was a fake.

Lin Jin pressed the 0001 iron badge onto the reinstatement document.

The document vibrated violently.

[This archive is continuously in effect.]

[Forced access will trigger position defense.]

"Then let it defend."

Chen Ye roared.

"Today, we'll see exactly who hired a dead man back!"

Lin Jin wedged his wrench into the document's seal.

Snap!

The first page flipped open.

[Application Matter: Restore Lu Chengyuan to the position of Director of the Special Career Development Division]

[Applicant: Lu Chengyuan]

[Application Time: Seven minutes after death]

The second page.

[Reason for Reinstatement: Position cannot be vacant for a long period]

[Identity Materials: All administrative records of Lu Chengyuan before his death]

[Personality Materials: Not retained]

Seeing those last four words, the young Lu Chengyuan closed his eyes.

The Lu Chengyuan on the right, however, had no reaction.

Lin Jin continued to flip the pages.

The third page had only a massive black seal.

It did not look like the Department of Education.

Nor did it look like the White Tower.

In the center of the seal was a humanoid figure holding a tool but having no fingers.

[Approving Entity: Career System - Rule Maintenance Seat]

[Approval Method: Automatic]

[Execution Module: White Tower]

[Position Proxy Shell Serial Number: 01]

Chen Ye's face changed.

"Rule Maintenance Seat?"

Zhou Heng shattered a lunging silver pen with a thrust of his spear.

"Is it related to the maintenance career?"

Lin Jin stared at that black seal.

For the first time, the Hand of Rules did not directly indicate a malfunction.

Instead, a permission inquiry popped up.

[Upper-level homologous rule detected.]

["Hand of Rules" source matching in progress...]

[Matching Degree: 61%]

Exactly the integrity of the rule correction wrench.

The young Lu Chengyuan snapped his eyes open.

"Don't let it complete the match!"

"It's not recognizing your ability."

"It's looking for a new Maintenance Seat host!"

Lin Jin immediately let go of the document.

But it was already too late.

The black seal floated up from the paper.

A fingerless, grayish-black palm passed through the archive room and pressed directly toward Lin Jin's chest.

The Lu Chengyuan on the right stood up from the Director's seat for the first time.

He looked at Lin Jin, with no hostility in his eyes.

Only a calm that had waited for twenty years.

"So it was you."

"The missing part of the Maintenance Seat has finally delivered itself back."

The black palm descended.

The F-Class Repairman school badge on Lin Jin's chest suddenly cracked open.

There was no career serial number inside.

Only a line of old text that had been sealed for eighteen years.

[Initial Career Registration: Rule Maintenance Seat Candidate]

[Sealed by: Lin Shoushan]

[Reason for Sealing—]

The last four words looked as if they had been violently smashed by his father with a wrench, covered in cracks.

Yet they could still be clearly read.

[The God will come to collect.]