128: Chapter 129 He learned his father's face, but he didn't learn to cut off the power first.

"Son."

"The one in the basement level is already broken."

"Come home."

"Dad will teach you how to rebuild this world."

The man in the projection smiled very naturally.

The lines at the corners of his eyes, the slight tilt of his mouth to the left, and even the subconscious action of turning his rule correction wrench while speaking were exactly like the father in Lin Jin's memories.

That 100% complete rule correction wrench emitted a steady gray-gold light in his palm.

No cracks.

No chips.

It was as perfect as an artifact that shouldn't exist in the human world.

Chen Ye looked at the projection, then at Lin Jin.

He didn't dare to speak rashly.

Zhou Heng's Thunder Spear was already quietly aimed at the man in the projection, though the arcs of electricity at the tip were kept very low.

Shen Tingxue stood half a step to Lin Jin's left.

She didn't try to persuade him, nor did she ask questions.

She simply tilted her Ice Key slightly, ready at any moment to sever anything that tried to crawl out of the projection.

Lin Jin gazed at that familiar face, silent for a long time.

"You said the one in the basement level is broken?"

The Lin Shoushan in the projection sighed softly.

"His body only has thirty percent left."

"If you keep repairing him, he will only drag down the entrance."

"You should understand that parts too broken to continue working need to be replaced."

As these words fell, the tension on Chen Ye's face suddenly turned into disgust.

Zhou Heng also sneered.

Shen Tingxue's grip on her Ice Key steadied completely.

Lin Jin, however, laughed.

"Almost."

The man in the projection narrowed his eyes.

"What?"

"You really learned to mimic him well."

Lin Jin took a step forward, stepping onto the blue original blueprints.

"You know how to spin the rule correction wrench, you know how to call me a brat, you know that I dismantled water heaters when I was a kid, and you know all the tools he left me."

"But you missed the simplest thing."

The man in the projection didn't speak.

Lin Jin raised the rusty wrench in his hand.

"When my dad repaired anything, the first step was never replacing parts."

"It was cutting the power."

All the old tools in the warehouse stopped vibrating simultaneously.

The smile on the face belonging to Lin Shoushan in the projection faded a little.

Lin Jin continued, "The entrance on the basement level is still operating."

"The General Ledger Room is still draining his life."

"Yet you told me to go down and take over immediately."

"This isn't Rule Maintenance."

"This is swapping personnel while the power is on."

"Lin Shoushan wouldn't teach me to do that."

Chen Ye finally couldn't help but grin.

"I knew it."

"Even when Uncle Lin curses, it has more humanity than this thing."

The man in the projection looked at Chen Ye.

That glance was very calm.

However, the Protection Role emblem on Chen Ye's chest suddenly dimmed.

[External Protection Node detected]

[This node does not belong to the designer's bloodline transfer]

[Removing from family maintenance process]

An invisible force struck Chen Ye.

He and his shield were sent flying, slamming heavily against the warehouse wall.

Shen Tingxue's Ice Line wrapped around his waist in time, pulling him back from mid-air.

When Chen Ye landed, his chest was in excruciating pain and his face was pale, but he still held onto the shield tightly.

"He's anxious."

"He's desperate!"

Zhou Heng stepped forward.

The Thunder Spear carved a purple arc along the ground, stabbing straight at the cross-layer connection line beneath the projection.

The Lin Shoushan in the projection simply lifted the rule correction wrench slightly.

Gray-gold light flashed.

[Obstacle-breaking path must obey Chief Designer route]

The Thunder Spear suddenly veered off course.

It wasn't Zhou Heng actively curving the arc.

It was being forcibly pulled into the old obstacle-breaking route on the blue blueprints.

The spear tip grazed past the projection and slammed fiercely into the warehouse ceiling.

The muscles in Zhou Heng's right arm tightened instantly.

He didn't fight the force head-on; instead, he suddenly released the spear handle, letting the Thunder Spear continue its forward momentum.

Then, he kicked the end of the spear.

The Thunder Spear, which should have been dragged away by the design route, suddenly accelerated and pierced straight through the control node at the edge of the blueprint.

"The old routes can be used."

Zhou Heng raised his hand to recall the Thunder Spear.

"But how to walk them, I decide for myself."

The man in the projection finally stopped smiling.

He gently placed the complete rule correction wrench in the center of the blueprints.

Boom!

The entire academy felt as if it were being pressed down by an invisible giant hand.

The four original structures on the blue blueprints lit up simultaneously.

The mobile protection judgment node locked onto Chen Ye.

The low-temperature testimony exit locked onto Shen Tingxue.

The obstacle-breaking buffer path locked onto Zhou Heng.

The maintenance console at the very center rose rapidly beneath Lin Jin's feet.

[White Tower original design authority activated]

[Chief Designer recalls maintenance team]

[Maintenance team members must return to original functional positions]

Chen Ye was dragged by an invisible force toward the outside of the entrance.

A fixed obstacle-breaking trajectory appeared beneath Zhou Heng's feet.

The Ice Key in Shen Tingxue's hand was also forcibly pulled toward the testimony exit in the blueprints.

Those designs were originally meant to save people.

Now, in the hands of the Chief Designer's proxy shell, they had once again become chains that fixed people into tools.

Watching this scene, Lin Jin became completely certain.

"You don't just fail to mimic him."

"You don't even understand these blueprints."

The man in the projection said coldly, "This is my design."

"It is Lin Shoushan's design."

Lin Jin slammed his foot onto the rising maintenance console.

"Designing protection nodes is to allow Protectors to stand in a safe position to judge, not to drive Chen Ye out of the team."

"Designing obstacle-breaking routes is to avoid evacuees, not to make Zhou Heng obey a fixed track."

"Designing testimony exits is to allow trapped people like Shen Qingshuang to still speak, not to nail Shen Tingxue into a key."

He raised the rusty wrench and smashed it hard against the maintenance console.

"You inherited the authority."

"Yet you understood 'protecting people' entirely as 'using people'."

Bang!

The blue blueprints vibrated violently.

Lin Jin didn't write long rules.

Nor did he argue over every word with the opponent.

He only found a red lever covered by white paper at the very bottom of the maintenance console.

Beside the lever, there remained a handwritten note from Lin Shoushan's youth: [Before operation, cut off external power supply first.]

Lin Jin gripped the lever.

The man in the projection's expression changed drastically.

"Let go!"

The 100% complete rule correction wrench swung down through the air.

The gray-gold edge crossed two layers of space, heading straight for Lin Jin's right arm.

Shen Tingxue was faster than it.

Her Ice Key slashed out.

She didn't try to freeze the gray-gold edge, but instead created an inclined mirror surface with ice just before the edge could touch Lin Jin.

The gray-gold light deflected off the ice surface and slammed into the 002 containment array.

The sealed black iron rule correction wrench jumped violently, nearly breaking free.

Qin Shanhe roared, pressing down with both hands.

"Even without the Dean's Seat today, I can still pin down a rule correction wrench!"

Academy array patterns rose from the instructors, students, training grounds, and every dormitory building.

It wasn't the Dean's authority.

It was countless people who were still willing to believe in Qin Shanhe, collectively supporting the containment array.

002 was pressed back to the ground once again.

Lin Jin seized the moment to pull the red lever all the way down.

Click—

There was no explosion.

Only the sound of a very ordinary circuit breaking.

The light on the blue blueprints began to extinguish piece by piece from the edges.

Outside the warehouse, the shadows cast by the six black chairs also dimmed for an instant.

The body of the "Lin Shoushan" in the projection blurred suddenly.

The [100%] on the surface of the complete rule correction wrench in his hand showed cracks for the first time.

The Hand of Rules automatically popped up a notification.

[Target: Rule Correction Tool held by Chief Designer proxy shell]

[Surface integrity: 100%]

[Actual integrity: 61%]

[Camouflage module: 39%]

[Source of camouflage: Rule Maintenance Seat authority projection]

Lin Jin stared at that flawless tool.

"So you only have sixty-one percent after all."

"That remaining thirty-nine percent isn't the tool."

"It's a special effect given to you by the position."

Chen Ye laughed while leaning on his shield.

"Trying to pass off stickers as max-level gear?"

Fine cracks began to appear on the face of the man in the projection.

For a moment, it was Lin Shoushan.

Then, it was a white face without features.

Then, it turned into a paper shell pieced together from blueprints, approval stamps, and maintenance records.

[Chief Designer proxy shell stability decreasing]

[External power supply interrupted]

[Requesting Sixth Seat · Continuation to restore power supply]

The sixth black chair in the sky lit up immediately.

Pale fingers stretched out from behind the door once again.

But just as it was about to touch the projection, three metallic knocks suddenly came from the direction of the basement level.

Clang.

Clang.

Clang.

A pause.

Two more sounds.

Lin Jin looked up abruptly.

A blood-stained maintenance echo emerged from the warehouse floor.

The real Lin Shoushan's voice was hoarse, but carried a hint of irrepressible laughter.

"Didn't forget the sequence."

"Still know to cut the power first."

The proxy shell in the projection turned its head abruptly.

"Shut down the maintenance echo!"

For the first time, it lost that composure belonging to a father.

Yet, Lin Shoushan's voice continued to come through.

"Brat."

"Beside the red lever, there is also a mechanical circuit."

"The system is cut, but the mechanical one can still turn."

Lin Jin looked down.

Behind the red lever, an old-fashioned hand-crank wheel was indeed revealed.

No authority prompts.

No professional certification.

Just an ordinary iron wheel.

Chen Ye understood as soon as he saw it.

He rushed up, ignoring the pain in his chest, and grabbed the rim of the wheel with both hands.

"I'm familiar with this!"

"No other advantages, just strong!"

Zhou Heng rushed to the other side, jammed his spear into the wheel axle to use as a lever.

Shen Tingxue wrapped her Ice Line around the cracks in the gears to prevent the structure from collapsing.

Lin Jin inserted the rusty wrench into the central bearing.

The four of them exerted force simultaneously.

The mechanical circuit that had been sleeping for twenty years emitted a harsh roar.

The original White Tower on the blue blueprints began to turn.

It wasn't that tower of today, high and mighty, devouring people layer by layer.

It was the emergency isolation station originally designed by Lin Shoushan.

The semi-circular tower body slowly opened.

The evacuation passage in the center, sealed shut for twenty years, lit up with a true green light for the first time.

[Mechanical emergency circuit activated]

[No position authorization required]

[No Rule Maintenance Seat approval required]

[White Tower original evacuation passage recovering]

[Progress: 1%]

The proxy shell panicked completely.

It raised the disguised complete rule correction wrench, smashing it frantically toward the connection point of the projection.

"Stop!"

"Opening the evacuation passage will release all unsettled targets!"

"The General Ledger Room will lose stability!"

Lin Jin gritted his teeth.

"Those aren't targets."

"They are people."

The mechanical wheel turned faster and faster.

The progress jumped from one percent to three percent.

Then to five percent.

The phantom image of the White Tower First Floor reappeared over the academy.

This time, there were no bills.

No observation seats.

No replacement samples.

Only a rusty, worn-out, yet truly existing green exit door.

Countless chaotic sounds came from behind the door.

Someone was crying.

Someone was knocking on the door.

Someone was calling their own name.

The containment room where the White Shield Sample was kept suddenly blared with alarms.

He Zhibai's abacus clicking stopped abruptly.

Luo Wensheng's echo was, for the first time, no longer intermittent.

Ye Guizhou's rejection stamp also automatically stamped onto that exit door.

[Incorrect delivery, refuse to continue containment.]

The exit door slowly opened a crack.

A pale, thin hand reached out from the gap.

Tied to the wrist was a faded academy test band.

[Work-study file organization test]

Shen Tingxue's pupils shrank.

"Luo Wensheng?"

There was no girl's voice from behind the door.

The hand that reached out, however, gripped the door frame tightly, as if someone was using all their strength to keep from being dragged back in again.

Immediately after, a piece of paper filled with names was pushed out through the door gap.

At the very top were exactly the four people they had already found.

Su Yan.

He Zhibai.

Luo Wensheng.

Ye Guizhou.

And below these four names, there were eight full lines.

Lin Jin only had time to make out the fifth name before the proxy shell let out a sharp roar.

The Sixth Seat's pale fingers pressed down violently.

The green exit door began to close again.

The paper was caught in the door gap, and the names at the bottom hadn't fully emerged yet.

But the fifth line was already clearly exposed before everyone's eyes.

[Lin Jin]

[Career inclination: Rule Maintenance]

[Status: Not enrolled]

[Reception time: Eighteen years ago]

Lin Jin froze.

Chen Ye also forgot to turn the mechanical wheel.

The Lin Jin on the list was not a future prospective reception.

Not a candidate registration.

But eighteen years ago—he had already been received by the White Tower.

Behind the green door gap, the real Lin Shoushan roared with all his might:

"The one brought home the day you were born—"

"Was not the complete you!"