129: Chapter 130 I Was Left by My Father on the Half of the White Pagoda

[Lin Jin]

[Class Tendency: Rule Maintenance]

[Status: Not Enrolled]

[Admitted: Eighteen Years Ago]

"The one who was brought home on the day you were born—"

"—wasn't the complete you!"

Lin Shoushan's voice drifted out from behind the gap in the green door.

The mechanical wheel ground to a sudden halt.

Chen Ye's hand froze on the rim of the wheel, and the Thunder Spear Zhou Heng used to jam the axle trembled slightly.

Only Shen Tingxue did not look back.

She stomped on the gear that was about to reverse, stabbing her Ice Key into the crack beside the axle to forcefully freeze the mechanical circuit in place.

"Don't stop."

She spoke in a cold voice.

"The door is closing."

These words were like ice water poured over everyone's minds.

The pale fingers of the The Sixth Seat were still pressing down above the White Tower, and the green evacuation door was now only a hand-span wide.

The pale little hand reaching out from inside the door was caught in the gap, its knuckles turning blue from exertion, yet it never let go of the list.

Chen Ye suddenly snapped back to his senses.

"Turn!"

He grit his teeth as the wound on his chest that had just stopped bleeding began to seep blood again.

Zhou Heng pressed down on the Thunder Spear with both hands, pushing the axle once more.

Shen Tingxue used Ice Line to wrap tightly around the damaged gear, layer by layer.

Yet Lin Jin still stood frozen in place.

The name on the list was like a nail, pinning down his entire eighteen years of life.

It wasn't a future admission.

It wasn't a reserve serial number.

He had been admitted by the White Tower on the very day he was born.

Then what exactly was the self that had been living on the outside all these years?

A son raised by his father?

A defective product released from the White Tower?

Or just a shell that had lived for eighteen years in place of the real Lin Jin?

"Lin Jin!"

Shen Tingxue suddenly looked up.

She didn't say "trust your father," nor did she say "the list might be fake."

She only stared into Lin Jin's eyes.

"You are standing right here."

"Chen Ye knows you, Zhou Heng knows you, and I know you."

"Reach your hand out first."

Lin Jin's breath hitched.

The hand in the gap of the door had already begun to slip.

He rushed forward and grabbed the other's wrist.

It felt ice-cold to the touch.

Yet it was not a corpse.

The hand had an extremely faint pulse.

The girl behind the door seemed to have finally grasped reality, her fingers digging tightly into Lin Jin's palm.

At the same time, the power of the The Sixth Seat pressed down once more.

Boom!

The gap in the green door narrowed instantly.

The girl's arm was squeezed by the doorframe, leaving bloody marks.

The list also ripped down the middle. The fifth line, where Lin Jin's name was, was wrapped alone by a pale light, about to be dragged back into the tower.

"Zhou Heng, the list!"

The Thunder Spear disengaged from the axle, turning into a purple arc of light.

Zhou Heng didn't try to pin down the paper.

The tip of the spear bypassed the list and stabbed into the white thread behind it that was controlling the retrieval.

Purple lightning exploded.

Losing its pulling force, the list drifted half an inch out of the door.

Chen Ye couldn't free his hands, so he simply pressed his forehead against the rim of the wheel and slammed his shoulder forward.

"Don't worry about me!"

"Pull her out first!"

Lin Jin gripped the hand tightly, leaning his body backward.

But the girl behind the door did not come out.

Her shoulders seemed to be tied down by countless invisible threads.

A familiar young girl's voice rang out from inside the door.

"Don't pull my body."

It was Luo Wensheng.

"My body... isn't here."

"This is the hand they left behind to write."

Lin Jin's movements paused.

On the pale wrist, lines of ink-colored text emerged.

[Responsible for Listening]

[Responsible for Recording]

[Responsible for Transcribing]

[Do Not Retain Self]

This was the "writing function" that the White Tower had stripped from Luo Wensheng.

She was not a complete person.

Yet that tiny pulse still proved she hadn't completely turned into a tool.

Lin Jin did not let go.

"Then let's bring your hand back first."

The inside of the door fell silent for a moment.

Luo Wensheng's voice suddenly carried a sob.

"Can even my hand come back?"

"Yes."

Lin Jin jammed his rusty wrench into the gap of the door.

"Your name can come back, and so can your hand."

The Hand of Rules extended inward along the ink characters on Luo Wensheng's wrist.

The gray-white prompts flashed violently.

[Target: Luo Wensheng's Writing Remnant]

[Fault: Body, name, hearing, and writing function have been split and stored separately]

[Currently Recoverable Parts: writing function and right hand remnant]

[Obstacle: The Echo Scribe position is still continuously active]

[Maintenance Suggestion: Sever the fixed definition of "the writing function must remain in the Record Room"]

002 could have severed it with a single strike.

But Lin Jin did not touch it.

That wrench was still sealed within the formation even now.

He looked at the words on Luo Wensheng's wrist and suddenly spoke:

"Luo Wensheng."

"Besides writing archives, what else did this hand of yours write in the past?"

An intermittent voice came from behind the door.

"It wrote... the blackboard newspaper at school."

"It wrote letters for neighbors."

"It also copied a book of stories."

"My handwriting wasn't pretty."

"The teacher said... it was too cramped."

Lin Jin looked at the hand that the White Tower had defined as a writing tool.

"Then it doesn't belong to the Record Room."

"It belongs to the Luo Wensheng who wrote blackboard newspapers, letters, and stories."

He didn't change the rules.

He merely handed back the fact that had been deleted by the White Tower.

The ink characters on Luo Wensheng's wrist suddenly fell into a state of chaos.

[writing function Purpose Conflict]

[Non-Archive Recording Behavior Exists]

[Fixed Call Failed]

Shen Tingxue took the opportunity to wrap her Ice Line around her wrist.

The butt of Zhou Heng's spear hooked onto the list.

Chen Ye let out a loud roar, and the mechanical wheel turned another half-circle.

Clack, clack, clack—

The green evacuation door was forced open.

That pale right hand finally escaped the gap in the door, falling into the ice layer condensed by Shen Tingxue along with half of an arm covered in ink.

There was no body.

Yet it did not dissipate either.

Luo Wensheng's sobbing voice came clearly from within the ice.

"I made it out a little bit."

With his forehead pressed against the rim of the wheel, Chen Ye panted like a broken bellows, yet he still managed to smile.

"A little bit is still making it out."

Most of the list had also been dragged out by Zhou Heng.

Twelve names were finally fully exposed in the sky above the academy.

Su Yan.

He Zhibai.

Luo Wensheng.

Ye Guizhou.

Lin Jin.

There were seven more names below.

But Lin Jin did not keep reading.

The fifth line was emitting the exact same black patterns as those on his chest.

That was no ordinary archive.

It was a connection.

One end was in the White Tower.

The other end was inside his body.

Lin Jin raised his Hand of Rules and pressed it against his own name.

This time, there was no obstruction from the White Tower.

Perhaps it was because the evacuation channel had recovered by five percent.

Or perhaps, the part of him that had been trapped for eighteen years was actively responding to him.

[Target: Lin Jin's Initial Admission Record]

[Record Time: Thirteen minutes after birth]

[Received Content: Class Initial Naming Page, Rule Maintenance Seat Candidate Number, System Identification Core]

[Unreceived Content: Body, soul, personality, memory, name ownership]

[Current Status: Main body separated from the System Identification Core]

Lin Jin stared at the prompt, his breathing gradually returning to normal.

The White Tower had not taken the baby.

Nor had it duplicated a Lin Jin and sent him back to reality.

What was left behind was the System Identification Core.

It was the part used by the Career System to determine "what Lin Jin should become."

Lin Shoushan's voice came from the basement level once more, already much weaker.

"See that?"

"You're not fake."

"And you're not a substitute."

"You are the very brat I carried out of the delivery room."

Lin Jin's Adam's apple bobbed.

"Then why did you say I'm not complete?"

"Because the Career System doesn't fully recognize you."

Lin Shoushan let out a wheezing laugh.

"Thirteen minutes after you were born, the Rule Maintenance Seat slapped the Seventh Candidate Number on you."

"It didn't want you as a person."

"It wanted the hands you'd grow up to have, hands capable of repairing rules."

"I tore off the candidate number, the Class Naming Page, and the System Identification Core, and threw them into the White Tower's waiting area."

"Then I used the shell of an F-Class Repairman to hide you right under the system's nose for eighteen years."

Lin Jin looked down at the cracked school badge on his chest.

So F-class wasn't a failure.

It wasn't his father suppressing his abilities.

It was a disguise.

An incredibly ordinary class shell had enveloped the candidate whom the Rule Maintenance Seat wanted to find the most.

Enduring the pain, Chen Ye asked:

"Then the part left in the White Tower... does it count as alive?"

Behind the door, it suddenly fell silent.

Lin Shoushan did not answer immediately.

This silence was more unsettling than any answer.

After a moment, his voice sank.

"At first, it wasn't."

"It was just a number, a page of Class Naming, and a System Identification Core."

"But over the last eighteen years, the White Tower has been feeding it your archives."

"Your awakening records, enrollment records, dungeon records, and every trace of you using the Hand of Rules..."

"It has been learning how to become you."

Lin Jin's hands slowly tightened.

No wonder the White Tower could always target his abilities with such precision.

No wonder the Rule Maintenance Seat could find the candidate patterns deep within the school badge.

The System Identification Core stripped away by his father had never stopped growing.

It was just that the nutrients for its growth weren't a real life.

They were archives.

They were records.

They were all the definitions of "who Lin Jin should be."

Behind the green evacuation door, footsteps suddenly sounded.

They were not rushed.

They were not heavy.

They had the exact same rhythm as Lin Jin's walk.

Shen Tingxue stood by Lin Jin's side, holding her Ice Key horizontally.

Zhou Heng gripped his Thunder Spear once more.

Draggin his shield, Chen Ye took half a step out from behind the mechanical wheel.

The gap in the door slowly widened.

From the darkness, a right hand emerged first.

There were no wounds on the back of the hand.

The fingers were long and steady, holding a gray-gold wrench with one hundred percent completeness.

Then, an eighteen-year-old youth walked to the edge of the green light.

Black hair.

Black eyes.

His height, silhouette, and even the faint fatigue from staying up late at the corners of his eyes were completely identical to Lin Jin's.

The only difference was that there was no F-Class Repairman school badge on his chest.

Hanging there instead was a pure black class plate.

[Rule Maintenance Seat · Seventh Candidate]

The youth looked at Lin Jin through the door.

There was no anger on his face.

Only a calmness that had waited for eighteen years.

"Dad was wrong."

He spoke.

His voice was also exactly the same as Lin Jin's.

"I wasn't learning how to become you."

"Starting thirteen minutes after birth, I have always been Lin Jin."

He raised the complete wrench and pointed it at Lin Jin standing outside the door.

"You took away the body, family, friends, and eighteen years."

"I was left with only a name."

"Now—"

"—it's your turn to return my life to me."