168: Chapter 169 Shen Qingshuang Can't Press the Button for the 1205th Time

[Recipient: Shen Qingshuang]

[If a person has personally executed 1,204 cleansings and has also preserved 1,204 testimonies, should she be judged, pardoned, or continue to be used?]

When the tenth question on the sky exam paper lit up, Shen Qingshuang did not step back.

She walked out from the edge of the crowd, her face pale, with wounds from the No. 9 Forbidden Zone conduits still remaining on her shoulders.

"This question."

"I will stand out myself."

The moment she finished speaking, before the three options on the sky exam paper had fully unfolded, the Abyss moved first.

An ice-blue beam of light descended from the question, piercing precisely into the back of Shen Qingshuang's neck.

[Detected former Master Template Cleansing Executor]

[Detected experience holding high-pollution testimonies]

[Detected conditions for the 1,205th cleansing met]

Shen Qingshuang's body stiffened violently.

Her right hand raised uncontrollably.

A bloody slit cracked open in her palm.

Beneath the flesh, a golden button slowly emerged.

The familiar characters were engraved on the button.

[Cleanse]

Yu Xing's expression changed instantly.

The 1,204 ice-blue memory light spots behind her trembled simultaneously, as if hearing the most familiar voice from the past twenty years once again.

Shen Qingshuang bit her teeth hard.

"Don't come near me."

Shen Tingxue had already rushed up.

"Aunt!"

"Freeze me!"

Shen Qingshuang's arm moved inch by inch toward Yu Xing, her fingertips getting closer and closer to the button in her palm.

"It wants to make me press it again."

"Who is the target?"

Lin Jin asked.

The sky gave the answer.

[1,205th Cleansing Target: Yu Xing's current independent personality]

[Additional Cleansing Targets: Luo Wensheng's original voice Records, Jiangcheng Question Nine dissenting pen marks]

[Cleansing Reason: Testimony overload, affecting the stability of the final exam]

Luo Wensheng's body, which had only just been pieced back together, swayed violently.

The ordinary pen in her hand dropped to the ground, and her translucent throat light began to flicker.

Those original voice pen marks that had just scattered to various parts of Jiangcheng were also wiped across by an invisible hand, leaving large areas of blank space.

The Abyss was not trying to discuss whether Shen Qingshuang should be judged at all.

It was using her.

Using the person who had pressed the Cleansing button 1,204 times to press it one more time.

Shen Tingxue's Ice Line entangled Shen Qingshuang's right arm.

Frost instantly covered the joints.

But the golden button in her palm was still sinking downward.

Shen Qingshuang was in so much pain that her forehead was covered in cold sweat, yet she forcibly twisted her body backward.

"Don't freeze the button."

"Freeze my shoulder!"

Shen Tingxue's eyes trembled.

She knew what that meant.

Freezing the shoulder meant possibly crippling Shen Qingshuang's entire right arm.

Seeing her hesitation, Shen Qingshuang roared:

"Tingxue!"

"Don't let me touch her again!"

Shen Tingxue bit her lip until it bled.

The Ice Key fragment pierced into the ground, and the frost abruptly closed in along Shen Qingshuang's shoulder blades.

"Crack!"

Shen Qingshuang's right arm was frozen in mid-air.

The button stopped.

But the next second, the exam paper re-evaluated.

[Current Executor's actions obstructed]

[Initiating inherited execution]

The Ice Key in Shen Tingxue's hand suddenly turned black.

An identical golden button emerged from her palm.

[Inheritance relationship established]

[New Executor: Shen Tingxue]

Shen Tingxue's pupils shrank sharply.

The Ice Line instantly went out of control, wrapping around her wrist in reverse, forcibly pushing her hand toward Yu Xing's memory bank.

Shen Qingshuang's face turned deathly pale.

"No!"

She violently slammed her frozen right arm into Shen Tingxue.

The ice layer shattered.

The sound of bone cracking was so clear it made everyone around shudder.

She used her own shoulder to knock Shen Tingxue's palm off course.

The golden button grazed past the memory light spot in front of Yu Xing.

One of the light spots was grazed.

Yu Xing's body jolted, and her eyes went blank for a moment.

She had forgotten one awakening.

Just one.

But that emptiness made her feel as if a piece had been hollowed out of her entire being.

Shisan rushed up to support her.

"Yu Xing!"

Yu Xing caught her breath and raised her hand to press her forehead.

"Don't let her press it a second time."

Lin Jin was already behind Shen Qingshuang, using a wrench to pry open the old conduit scab on the back of her neck.

There were no rule prompts.

He could only feel it with his hands.

A hot line, connected to the Abyss question.

A cold line, connected to the low-temperature testimony warehouse.

And a gray line, hidden between the two, contracting slightly with every breath Shen Qingshuang took.

Lin Jin's eyes darkened.

"It has tied the testimony line and the cleansing line together."

"If we cut the cleansing line, the testimonies will shatter along with it."

Shen Qingshuang gritted her teeth.

"Then cut me first."

"Shut up."

Yu Xing spoke up suddenly.

She steadied herself and walked toward Shen Qingshuang step by step.

Shisan wanted to stop her, but she raised her hand to block him.

Yu Xing looked at the right hand that was still struggling.

"You have pressed it 1,204 times."

Shen Qingshuang said in a low voice:

"Yes."

"Every time, I wanted to kill you."

"Deservedly so."

"Every time, I also relied on the one sentence you left behind to wake up."

Shen Qingshuang closed her eyes.

"That is not atonement."

"I know."

Yu Xing raised her hand and took a memory light spot from behind herself.

Not all of them.

Just the fragment of the one that had been grazed away just now.

"I won't let you keep it this time."

She pressed the light spot into her own chest.

Her body arched in pain.

"My memories, I will take them myself."

Then, she looked up at Luo Wensheng.

"Give the Record backup to her."

Luo Wensheng picked up the pen, her hand still shaking, but she immediately wrote:

[Fragment of the 417th awakening, retrieved by Yu Xing herself.]

[Recorder: Luo Wensheng.]

Ye Guizhou stamped the seal.

[Received.]

[Does not represent consent to cleansing on behalf of the individual.]

He Zhibai quickly added a line to the ledger.

[Testimony storage costs transferred to public Records, cannot be offset by the Executor's continued use.]

The memory light spots began to rearrange themselves.

They were no longer maintained through Shen Qingshuang's old conduit.

And they were no longer hung in the Ice Key's single warehouse.

Yu Xing kept the original.

Luo Wensheng recorded the source.

Ye Guizhou registered the receipt.

He Zhibai recorded the maintenance costs.

Shen Tingxue was responsible for low-temperature sealing of the copies.

Shared by many.

No one could delete it alone.

The cold line on the back of Shen Qingshuang's neck finally loosened.

"It can be cut now!"

Lin Jin raised the wrench and tapped the gray line three times in succession.

"Clang."

"Clang."

"Clang."

Teacher Xu Wenzhou closed his eyes, and 002 fell with the sound.

"Cleansing Executor is a position."

"Shen Qingshuang is a person."

"Snap!"

The gray line snapped.

The golden button in Shen Qingshuang's palm exploded violently.

At the same instant, the button in Shen Tingxue's palm also shattered into ice dust.

The Abyss Cleansing order lost its executor and lunged toward the exam paper in the air instead.

[Executor detached]

[Switching to automatic system cleansing]

Zhou Heng had long been waiting in mid-air.

The Thunder Spear swept across, blocking the first black line.

Chen Ye's shield held off the second one.

Shisan kicked over the base of the golden button that was regenerating.

"Still want to be automatic?"

"Do you have hands of your own?"

Yu Xing raised her hand, and all the memory light spots lit up simultaneously.

The voices left behind before each of the 1,204 cleansings rang out together.

"I don't want to forget."

"Remind me next time."

"Don't sleep through it for me."

"I haven't finished asking."

These voices were not a judgment.

Nor were they a pardon.

They were simply proof—

The people who had been pressed away were still demanding an answer.

The three standard options on the tenth question of the sky exam paper began to crack.

[Immediate judgment and cleansing] shattered into black ash.

Because cleansing is not judgment.

[Direct pardon and archiving] was pierced through by Yu Xing's memory light spots.

Because preserving testimony does not equate to atonement.

[Continue using Executor] was smashed by Shen Qingshuang raising her own hand.

Her right arm was already hanging down, almost unable to move.

But she still used her left hand to grab the remaining Abyss card and forcibly tore the four words "Continue using" from her chest.

Fresh blood gushed out.

Yet she stood very firmly.

"I do not ask for forgiveness."

"I do not ask for an immediate verdict."

"And I will no longer be a button for any system."

She turned to Yu Xing.

"Whenever you ask, I will answer."

Yu Xing looked at her.

"What if I never ask?"

Shen Qingshuang's voice was hoarse.

"Then I will wait."

"Waiting does not mean there is no sin."

"I know."

Below the tenth question of the sky, the new answer was not a pretty conclusion, but a temporary execution Record.

[Shen Qingshuang relieved of Cleansing Executor duties.]

[Her preserved testimonies have been handed over to multiple parties for safekeeping, with ownership belonging to Yu Xing herself.]

[Shen Qingshuang listed as an accused person awaiting trial and as a witness.]

[Without Yu Xing's permission, she may not be cleansed, pardoned, or continue to be called upon.]

[She herself must remain in a state where she can be questioned.]

The Abyss card on Shen Qingshuang's chest cracked, leaving only a corner.

Only two words remained on it.

[Unresolved]

She looked down at it but did not pull it out.

"Keep this."

Yu Xing did not stop her.

"Keeping it is fine."

"Don't take it as a grievance."

Shen Qingshuang nodded.

"It is not a grievance."

"It is that the debt has not been answered yet."

The crowd did not cheer.

This question was won too heavily, and too painfully.

Shen Tingxue looked down at her aunt's nearly ruined right arm, her eyes reddening, but she did not step forward to hug her.

Shen Qingshuang did not ask for her support either.

The two of them stood a few steps apart, as if finally acknowledging that the rift between them could not be repaired by a simple "come back."

The tenth page of the sky exam paper stabilized.

Only two lines remained on the list of twelve Abyss profession recipients.

The eleventh line lit up quickly.

[Recipient: Lu Chengyuan]

Inspector Han Su's communication screen automatically popped up from the top of the Archives Tower.

He stared at that name, his voice sinking to the extreme.

"Lu Chengyuan has been dead for twenty years."

"What exists now is merely a proxy shell for the position."

In the direction of the Department of Education, a dilapidated office emerged from mid-air.

Inside the office, the neatly dressed man raised his head.

An Abyss profession card hung on his chest.

[Abyss Profession: Department Head of Empty Seats]

[Ability: Can transfer all of one's own guilt to those who obey within the chain of command]

[Cost: The position shell will never again possess the right to self-defense]

Lu Chengyuan looked at the exam paper above Jiangcheng and spoke calmly:

"Ladies and gentlemen."

"Now, please prove—"

"That every person who executes my orders is not my accomplice."