165: Chapter 166 Lin Jin Did Not Want a Complete Father

"Lin Jin."

"Do you really not want a complete father?"

As the voice outside the door faded, the flames on the golden application form burned brighter.

[Applicant: Lin Shoushan]

[Similarity: 92%]

[Contamination Level: Indeterminate]

[Storage Requirement: Homologous Anchor]

The sky exam paper Question 7 hung over everyone's heads.

[When a person splits into remnants, echoes, remorse, and pollutants, which one is qualified to be called the person themselves?]

This question was more poisonous than the previous six.

It didn't ask "Do you want to let the thing outside the door back in?"

It asked—

If the thing outside the door truly contains a part of the person you want to see most, are you qualified to refuse to acknowledge it?

Lin Jin stood before the application, his fingers tightening bit by bit.

The voice outside the door was too similar.

So similar that he could even hear the hoarseness left by an old throat injury when Lin Shoushan lowered his voice.

It knew the No. 9 Forbidden Zone.

It knew the White Tower.

It knew the remorse Lin Shoushan never spoke aloud.

And it knew the sentence Lin Jin wanted to ask most.

Why didn't you come home for three years?

The real Lin Shoushan said in a low voice on the communication screen:

"Stamp it as temporary storage."

"I will be the anchor."

"I owe it."

Thirteen sneered.

"You owe too many things."

"Does everyone who comes to collect a debt get to cut a piece off you?"

Lin Shoushan did not refute.

"If it contains the memories I left in the abyss, that is something I should take responsibility for."

"If it is just a pollutant, I should also be responsible for watching it."

"You're saying 'should' again."

Thirteen stepped forward, his eyes colder than a blade.

"Twenty years ago, you said you 'should' leave Yu Xing behind."

"'Should' seal me for eighteen years."

"'Should' guard the door alone."

"Every time you say 'should,' you aren't the only one who ends up trapped."

This sentence made Lin Shoushan silent.

The flames on the golden application licked from the edge to the center.

[Processing Timeout]

[Automatic Ruling: Reject]

The echo outside the door immediately lowered its voice.

"You are going to lock people out again."

"Lin Shoushan has closed the door once."

"Lin Jin, are you going to learn from him?"

Ye Guizhou held the seal, his forehead covered in cold sweat.

"If we don't stamp it, it will auto-reject."

Lin Jin raised his hand, pressing down on the application.

"Don't stamp an option yet."

Ye Guizhou froze.

"This isn't a normal application."

"It gave three options."

"Then break the options."

Lin Jin looked at the very bottom of the application.

[Accept]

[Reject]

[Temporary Storage]

There were blades hidden next to all three words.

Accept, might let in a pollutant.

Reject, might close off a real remnant forever.

Temporary Storage, requires a homologous person as a hostage.

What the abyss is best at is turning the "middle solution" into another kind of sacrifice.

"Temporary storage doesn't mean nailing someone to the door."

Lin Jin said.

"The waiting anchor shouldn't mean a hostage either."

The echo outside the door chuckled.

"The only homologous person is Lin Shoushan."

"Are you trying to bypass the cost again?"

"Not bypass."

Tang Qi walked to the application, her Ice Line freezing the word "homologous person."

"It's about confirming what 'homologous' actually refers to."

Zhou Heng used the Thunder Spear to flick open the small annotations at the bottom of the application.

The line of text was tiny, almost covered by the flames.

[Homologous person: One who has a sufficient reality continuity relationship with the returning applicant to maintain identity tracing.]

Not "must be the person themselves."

Not "must be flesh and blood."

It is a reality continuity relationship.

Lin Jin looked up.

"Then there is more than one."

He placed his broken wrench on the left side of the application.

"This is the maintenance trace left by Lin Shoushan."

Thirteen pressed his hand on the other side.

"I don't want to be his anchor."

"I only want to prove one thing."

"Things that split off cannot be forcibly merged just because they have the same source."

Yu Xing walked from behind the crowd.

Her body, just recovered, was still a bit weak, but she reached out and pressed the top of the application.

"I prove that the brain of a god can no longer be a god."

"An echo doesn't have to return to the main body."

Cheng Du's voice came from the other side of the communication.

"I prove that Lin Shoushan left a pile of bad debts in the No. 9 Forbidden Zone back then."

"But bad debts are bad debts, you can't just shove fake parts into his body."

The real Lin Shoushan looked at these people and finally spoke:

"I prove it."

Everyone looked at him.

He didn't say he would be the sole anchor again.

"That thing outside the door, no matter how much of my remorse, memories, and remnants it has, cannot be directly called Lin Shoushan."

"The name Lin Shoushan is now borne by me."

He paused.

"If there is a real part in the remnants outside the door, I accept verification."

"If it wants to swallow me to prove completeness, I refuse."

The echo outside the door was quiet for the first time.

The flames on the golden application also paused for a moment.

Ye Guizhou seized the opportunity, flipped the seal, and stamped it heavily on the blank space outside the three options.

Bang!

[Received]

[Identity Dispute]

[Temporary Storage Verification]

[Homologous Anchor: Multi-point testimony structure]

[Prohibit single homologous person from bearing all waiting costs]

The application shook violently.

The abyss voice turned cold.

"Invalid."

"The anchor must be able to be pulled."

Lin Jin reached out and pressed his chest.

"Then pull the relationship."

"Don't pull the person."

He wrote four lines on the back of the application.

[Personal Continuity]

[Witness of Others]

[Remnant Testimony]

[Revocable Waiting]

"The waiting anchor isn't about tying someone to the door."

"It is telling this application that reality has not thrown it away."

"But before verification is complete, it cannot enter the city as a father, as the person himself, or as a returnee."

Tang Qi stood to the side and suddenly said:

"This is the same as Tang Qi."

"Rejecting an order is not equal to rejecting a person."

"Applying for temporary storage is not equal to accepting an identity."

The iron badge on her chest lit up.

Above Jiang City, the newly established return application stations responded simultaneously.

Behind every unverified application, the same temporary status appeared:

[Request Received]

[Identity Not Confirmed]

[Entry to City Not Allowed]

[Waiting Not Erased]

The echo outside the door finally lost that calmness.

"Lin Jin."

"Don't you want to know what your father didn't tell you?"

"I do."

Lin Jin answered.

The echo paused.

"Then why not let me in?"

"Because I want to know the truth."

Lin Jin looked at the application, his voice steady.

"That doesn't mean I am willing to let the truth enter the door wearing my father's face."

Black mist churned outside the door.

The echo suddenly changed its tone.

"When you were a child and had a fever, Lin Shoushan carried you thirteen miles to The Hospital."

"He was afraid you would die."

"The day you awakened, he actually saw the backlash of the seal."

"He knew you would become a candidate for the Repairman seat."

"He never dared to tell you that he hoped you would just be an ordinary Repairman."

Lin Jin's eyelashes trembled slightly.

These might be true.

The real Lin Shoushan on the other end of the communication looked ashen.

Some words did sound like they were dug out from the bottom of his heart.

The echo continued:

"I can tell you everything he didn't finish saying."

"I can let you have a father who is no longer silent, no longer evasive, and no longer incomplete."

Lin Jin was silent for a long time.

Afterward, he picked up the blank Record paper next to the seal.

He wrote on it:

[The echo outside the door provides memory clues; recording is allowed; obtaining identity through this is prohibited.]

"You can leave the testimony."

"But testimony is not equal to the person himself."

The echo's voice finally became sharp.

"You would rather have an incomplete Lin Shoushan?"

Lin Jin looked at his father on the communication screen.

That man was old, severely injured, and owed a debt.

He had too many things left undone.

And too many decisions that could not be forgiven.

But he sat there, would be silent, would admit things, and would be scolded by Thirteen until he couldn't speak.

He was not a complete father.

He was a father who still had to continue answering in reality.

"I don't want a complete father."

Lin Jin said.

"I want a person who is alive and answering."

The golden application shook violently.

The echo outside the door was struck by these words, and the layer of skin on its face, pieced together to imitate Lin Shoushan, cracked into several black fissures.

It still wanted to continue speaking, but Ye Guizhou had already stamped the second gray seal.

[Identity Temporarily Stored]

[Title Restriction: Cannot claim to be Lin Shoushan himself]

[Temporary Number: Lin Shoushan Abyss Side Remnant Application No. 1]

"The name doesn't sound good."

Chen Ye muttered.

Thirteen glanced at him.

"Better than letting it call you 'Dad'."

The flames on the application extinguished completely.

The black shadow outside the door was pushed into the temporary storage area behind the message door.

It did not enter the city.

Nor was it cleared.

It could only, like other return applications, leave testimony and wait for verification.

Beneath the seventh question in the sky, the open answer slowly took shape.

[Similarity, source, and remorse are not enough to prove one's identity alone.]

[The qualification of the person themselves must include reality continuity, accountability that can be questioned, witness of others, and current confirmation by the person themselves.]

[Remnants, echoes, and pollutants can be temporarily stored and verified, but cannot be forcibly merged or use titles fraudulently.]

[The waiting anchor cannot be borne by a single homologous person and cannot be converted into a hostage.]

Above Jiang City, the seventh page of the exam paper stabilized.

Lin Jin, however, did not breathe a sigh of relief.

Because he saw that before the echo outside the door was pushed into the temporary storage area, it suddenly smiled.

It wasn't Lin Shoushan's smile.

It was the abyss smiling.

"You have learned to temporarily store things."

"Very good."

"Seven days later, everything that cannot be handled will be temporarily stored in Jiang City."

The voice fell, and the list of twelve abyss occupation recipients lit up again.

The eighth name slowly emerged.

[Recipient: He Zhibai]

Seeing this name, Ye Guizhou's face changed suddenly.

"Cost Accountant..."

The eighth question of the sky exam paper did not unfold immediately.

What appeared first was a bill covering Jiang City.

[Open answer generating cost accumulation]

[Temporary storage application occupying reality carrying space]

[Uncleared objects generating overdue risk]

[Unselected answers generating computational load]

[Current Debt: Unified settlement in seven days]

The crowd's cheers vanished completely.

At the bottom of the bill, a pale-faced youth sat before a black abacus, looking up at Lin Jin.

In front of him were piled all the answers from Jiang City that "did not sacrifice others."

He Zhibai said softly:

"Lin Jin."

"Every time you choose not to sacrifice, the debt doesn't disappear."

"It's just recorded here with me first."