178: Chapter 179 God wanted to forget the pain for the adults, Jiang Cheng pressed the wound.

"Then let me first help you—"

"Forget the pain."

As the voice of God Head fell, all the golden paths above Jiangcheng extinguished simultaneously.

But the next second, finer golden lights lit up from every adult.

It was not a professional insignia.

It was memory.

In First Hospital, the golden lock on Xiao Man's mother's wrist, labeled "Naming Qualification Temporarily Withheld," had just loosened. Before she could even hold her child steadily, a flash of the scene where she had just been kneeling on the ground crying out crossed her eyes.

The scene was gently brushed over by the golden light.

The fear vanished.

The anger vanished.

The tears on her face hadn't even dried, yet her eyes gradually calmed down.

"Just now..."

She looked down at the child in her arms.

"Was I too emotional?"

Her husband beside her also stared blankly at the golden path that had retreated from beneath their daughter's feet.

"Actually, the Holy Healing Preparatory Academy... seems to really be more suitable for her."

Fang Ning felt a chill run down her back.

"Don't believe it!"

She rushed over and grabbed the couple by their shoulders.

"You haven't become rational."

"It's that it erased why you were afraid just now!"

But as soon as her words fell, golden light lit up before her own eyes.

She saw the golden wristband that had almost wrapped around the nameless baby boy's wrist.

She saw the blood blister burned onto her finger when she cut the wristband.

She saw the mothers in the ward crying until they lost their voices.

The golden light covered her.

The pain was pulled away.

Her breathing suddenly smoothed out.

A terrifyingly gentle thought popped into her mind: Perhaps unified registration really could reduce chaos.

Fang Ning raised her hand abruptly and smashed the handle of her scissors hard onto her burned finger.

Intense pain exploded.

She sobered up, cold sweat streaming down her forehead.

"The pain is still there."

She gritted her teeth and shouted into the communicator.

"Mainframe, it's not deleting facts."

"It's deleting pain markers!"

In the Mainframe control room, the memories of all the adults were lighting up.

Qin Shanhe's broadcast voice came to an abrupt halt.

He saw the scene where the Combat Academy was erased by reality.

He saw the old students looking up one by one from the underground classroom.

He saw the hollow space in his heart, like it had been gouged out, when he smashed the Deans Seal.

The golden light wiped over it.

The hollow was filled in.

His expression became calm, even showing the relief that comes after exhaustion.

"If the unified system had taken over at the time..."

He spoke in a low voice.

"Perhaps there could have been less chaos."

As soon as these words came out, the complexions of the old students nearby changed completely.

"Teacher Qin!"

Qin Shanhe's eyes trembled.

But the golden light pressed down again.

[Failed memory cleaning in progress]

[Regret reduced]

[Protective instinct deviation corrected]

Cheng Du was also hit.

He sat beside the Mainframe, half of his body having just relaxed one notch from permanent stationing.

The golden light reflected every day of his twenty years connected to the Mainframe.

Pain.

Hunger.

Fatigue.

Countless times wanting to curse, yet even his breathing was caught by the pipes.

The golden light wiped over it.

The bloodshot veins in his single eye slowly faded.

"Actually, guarding it isn't so bad..."

He muttered.

"Someone has to guard it."

Lin Jin turned his head sharply.

"Old Cheng!"

Cheng Du raised his head, his expression terrifyingly empty.

"I've gotten used to guarding it."

"If someone else replaces me, they'll have to go through the pain all over again."

Lin Jin's heart sank.

This move by God Head was even more insidious than snatching children.

It didn't snatch people.

It erased the pain that "should not happen again" for them.

Once people stopped hurting, they would feel the past wasn't that serious.

They would feel that enduring a little longer was fine.

They would feel that sacrificing others, sacrificing themselves, and sacrificing the next generation were all just more stable arrangements.

Just as Lin Jin wanted to rush over, his own vision lit up.

The blood mist of the Abandoned Hospital.

The name of the White Tower First Floor.

The excruciating pain in his right hand when The Seventh Seat shattered, as if it were being torn apart alive.

The look in Lin Shoushan's eyes as he watched him through the treatment pod in the No. 9 Forbidden Zone.

And that instant, the fear that bubbled up from the bottom of his heart when he smashed the Hand of Rules with his own hands—if I don't have it, what else can I repair?

The golden light covered it gently.

That fear began to fade.

What followed was a sense of relief.

As long as he accepted the God's repair authority, he wouldn't have to hurt so much.

No need to guess the lines.

No need to rely on feeling with his hands.

No need to risk his life every single time.

A line of golden text appeared next to the wound on his palm.

[After pain cleaning, repair efficiency improves]

[Accept painless repair status?]

Lin Jin's fingers twitched.

Shen Tingxue grabbed his right hand.

She didn't use ice.

She directly pressed her fingers onto the split wound on his palm.

Pain exploded instantly.

Lin Jin gasped, his eyes instantly clearing.

Shen Tingxue stared at him, saying word by word:

"Does it hurt?"

"It hurts."

"Then remember it."

Her voice was also trembling.

Because her own memories were also being erased by the golden light.

The fear of the Ice Phoenix losing control for the first time in the Abandoned Hospital.

The tearing sensation when Shen Qingshuang appeared in the hidden cabin.

She had watched with her own eyes the moment the clear button grew on her aunt's palm.

The golden light wanted to make all of this feel lighter.

Light enough that she could calmly say: It's over.

But Shen Tingxue held Lin Jin's hand tightly, her fingertips almost digging into his wound.

"I don't want to become calm by forgetting."

Lin Jin panted, looking up at the console.

"Old Cheng!"

"Where is the pain sensation line?"

Cheng Du didn't answer.

He was still being dragged by the golden light into a state of "voluntarily continuing to guard."

Lin Jin gritted his teeth, grabbed a wrench, rushed over, and smashed it hard against the rest position next to Cheng Du.

Clang!

"Cheng Du!"

Clang!

"You said you'd take the first shift of rest!"

Clang!

"Not to continue sitting in jail!"

Cheng Du's eyelids jumped violently.

He looked down and saw his palm still pressed on the [Rest] position.

That line of text wasn't written by God.

It was something they had just modified using Deans Seal fragments, brass rings, and a pile of messy human voices.

[Rest First Shift: Cheng Du]

The corners of Cheng Du's mouth twitched.

"I..."

The golden light still wanted to wipe away his twenty years of pain.

Cheng Du suddenly raised his hand that could still move and slapped himself hard in the face.

Slap!

The sound was so loud the control room went quiet for a moment.

"I've been in pain for twenty years."

He raised his head, his single eye once again crawling with bloodshot veins.

"It's not for you to optimize!"

The Mainframe circuit diagram was finally forcibly pulled up by him.

"Top right corner!"

"Golden pump!"

"It's not a memory bank, it's an emotional pain-relief pump."

"Don't cut the memory, cut the forced pain relief!"

Lin Jin lunged to the right side of the console and pried open the golden pump's casing.

There were no blades inside.

Only clumps of glowing cotton wool, sucking pain away from the memories of all the adults in the city.

With every clump sucked away, the corresponding person would become calm, obedient, and easily accepting of the "optimal arrangement."

"Fang Ning!"

Lin Jin shouted into the communicator.

"What is The Hospital's pain relief principle?"

Fang Ning panted as she replied:

"Pain relief requires the person's informed consent."

"It must consider the pain level."

"It must retain sensory feedback."

"You cannot cut off all pain sensation just for quiet!"

"Then make a pain valve."

Lin Jin inserted the No. 001 work badge next to the golden pump.

"It's not about letting people hurt forever."

"It's that you cannot help people forget pain without their consent."

Luo Wensheng immediately wrote on the work order:

[Pain memory processing sub-order]

[Forced cleaning: Prohibited]

[Personal request for help: Allowed]

[Temporary sealing: Requires personal confirmation, retrievable]

[Pain Record: Can be saved with someone else's accompaniment]

He Zhibai added to the account:

[Psychological support, rest, treatment, retelling, and cost of silence: Publicly assumed]

[Cannot be converted into memory deletion]

Ye Guizhou stamped:

[Pain help interface received]

[Not equal to consent for cleaning]

Tang Qi held down the iron badge on her chest.

"I refuse 'not hurting is more correct'."

Su Yan also said in a low voice:

"When people are in too much pain, they can rely on others to support them."

"Not by deleting the part of the person that hurts."

Shen Qingshuang stood in front of Yu Xing, the golden light trying to wipe away the sensation of her pressing the button one thousand two hundred and four times.

If it didn't hurt, she could be much more relaxed.

She could even reorganize herself back into a qualified executor.

She looked down at her hand and suddenly pressed the remaining [Unsettled] Abyss card into the wound on her palm.

Fresh blood seeped out.

"This part belongs to me."

Her voice was very low.

"No one is allowed to help me forget."

Yu Xing looked at her, not saying forgiveness.

Only saying:

"Record."

Luo Wensheng wrote down the first wound receipt.

[Shen Qingshuang confirmed: Execution memory clearing must not be forcibly cleaned.]

[Status: Can request help, cannot be erased.]

More and more voices came from all over Jiangcheng.

Fang Ning pressed her burned finger.

"I confirm, the fear of almost letting God take my child just now must not be cleaned."

The father who had wavered held his daughter tightly.

"I confirm, my fear that I wouldn't be able to raise her well must not be taken away by God either."

"I can learn."

"But I cannot, because of fear, forget that she just called me Dad."

Qin Shanhe picked up the broadcast again.

His voice was hoarse.

"I confirm, the pain when the Combat Academy was erased must not be cleaned."

"The pain of the underground students being locked up for twenty years must not be cleaned."

"These are not management deviations."

"They are signposts for not managing like this in the future."

Cheng Du panted, grinning as he cursed:

"I confirm, twenty years at the Mainframe must not be cleaned."

"In the future, whoever dares to say 'anyway, you're used to it,' I'll slap them."

One "wound receipt" after another was connected to the golden pump.

It wasn't about letting people sink in pain forever.

It was about adding choices next to the pain.

[I need to rest]

[I need someone to listen]

[I don't want to talk now]

[I'm willing to talk later]

[This part cannot be deleted]

The golden pain-relief pump began to lose speed.

Because it could no longer uniformly judge pain as a malfunction.

Lin Jin wedged the wrench into the pump core.

Shen Tingxue's Ice Line stabilized the casing.

Zhou Heng's Thunder Needle diverted the backlash.

Chen Ye raised his shield to block the golden cotton wool gushing from the pump.

Lin Jin turned the valve inch by inch, twisting the [Forced Cleaning] gear to [Personal Request for Help].

Click.

The first gear disconnected.

The blankness in the eyes of the adults across the city began to recede.

Click.

The second gear reconnected.

Some people burst into tears on the spot.

Not because God had hurt them again.

But because the pain that had almost been taken away just now had returned.

Xiao Man's mother held her child, shaking as she cried.

"I almost felt just now that it was okay to hand you over."

"I'm sorry."

The child didn't understand anything, only kicking wildly in her arms.

Fang Ning stood to the side, not telling her to stop crying.

She just handed her a piece of paper.

[Postpartum support registration]

[Can request help]

[Do not clear]

When the last gear was connected, the God Head countermeasure work order issued a piercing alarm.

[Adult failure memory cleaning failed]

[Regret still retained]

[Trauma still affects judgment]

[Protective instinct still cannot be optimized]

Lin Jin, his hands covered in blood, looked up at the golden screen.

"Right."

"Retain it."

"Some pain is just to remind people, don't let the same thing happen again."

The golden pump stopped completely.

A new maintenance write-back was generated.

[Pain is not necessarily correct.]

[Pain is also not necessarily a malfunction.]

[Any system must not clear failure, regret, trauma, and protective memories without personal confirmation.]

[People may request help, rest, treatment, postpone retelling, but must not be forcibly made to forget why they resist.]

In the control room, Lin Jin finally let go of the wrench.

But the next second, the God Head countermeasure work order didn't disappear.

It slowly turned to a colder page.

[Adults refuse to forget]

[Judgment: Intergenerational pain continues to propagate]

[Switching maintenance plan: Intergenerational pain relief]

On all the children in Jiangcheng, golden threads suddenly lit up.

Those threads connected to the wound receipts on their parents, teachers, doctors, and night watchers.

God Head said gently:

"Since the adults refuse to forget."

"Then let the children who love them—"

"Feel the pain for them."

In First Hospital, Xiao Man suddenly cried until she couldn't make a sound.

The wound receipt on her mother's wrist was turning into a golden thread, drilling into the child's small chest.