184: Chapter 185 God picked up Jiang Cheng, and Lin Jin tied a slipknot for the whole city.

The gravity of the entire Jiangcheng began to invert upwards.

The first things to fly were papers.

The gray application forms that hadn't been sorted yet at the Return Application Station detached from the desks one by one, like snowflakes being sucked into the sky.

Immediately following were chairs, medical kits, tool bags, and the half-eaten pieces of bread in children's hands.

In the neonatal section of First Hospital, the wheels of the incubators lifted half an inch off the ground.

The Nurses screamed and lunged forward, but they dared not press down hard.

Because there were children inside the incubators who had just been awakened to reactions.

Fang Ning grabbed the emergency securing strap on the ward wall and roared: "Secure the incubators!" "Use the transport straps!" "Buckles facing outwards!" "Don't tie dead knots!"

These words saved the children in the first row.

Two Nurses used their bodies to press against the securing straps, buckling the incubators back onto the floor rails.

But outside the window, the entire night sky was obscured by a giant golden palm.

The palm lines lay across the sky like rivers.

Within every palm line, countless class insignias flowed slowly.

It wasn't crashing down.

Nor was it grabbing down.

It simply turned its palm downward, like a mother bending over to pick up a child who refused to walk.

And so, Jiangcheng began to leave the ground.

In the temporary rest station, Old Liu, who had just sat down, floated upward along with his chair.

His wife tried to hold onto him, but she also lifted off the ground.

Old Liu's gaze began to soften again.

"How about…" "We just let it hold us for a moment?"

As soon as these words were spoken, the golden light above the chair immediately softened.

[Exhausted Subject Confirmed]

[Embrace Protocol Adapted]

[Ascent Process Painless]

Qin Shanhe's voice rang out over the broadcast, sounding like it was tearing through the air:

"Everyone!" "Don't use your bodies to hold people down!" "Grab onto fixed objects!" "Buckle up if you can use seatbelts!" "Use slipknots for everything!" "Whoever dares to tie someone down with a dead knot, I will dismantle them with my own hands!"

Inside the Main Control Room, Lin Jin was thrown against the edge of the console by the inertia of the ascent.

Shen Tingxue's Ice Line hooked around his waist, but she didn't wrap it tight, only forming a loop that could be pulled open.

Lin Jin looked down at it.

Shen Tingxue's voice was steady: "A slipknot." "You can untie it."

Lin Jin nodded, grabbed the No. 001 work badge, and rushed to the circuit map.

The schematic diagram of the entire Jiangcheng was lifting upward.

It wasn't buildings flying away one by one.

It was the city's "sense of belonging" being pried up from the ground.

Rest stations, The Hospital, temporary classrooms, bypass stations, and Return Application Stations were all glowing with golden borders.

The God wasn't just holding people.

It was holding all the "places where people are willing to stay."

Cheng Du understood at a glance, shouting until his throat went hoarse:

"It's treating our footholds as handles!" "We just gave them chairs, porridge, bells, and bypass stations." "Now it's lifting them up by following these places!"

Chen Ye panicked: "Then aren't we harming them?"

"No." Lin Jin stared fixedly at the circuit.

"The problem isn't the footholds." "It's that the footholds have been turned into handles by it."

He pressed the work badge onto the console.

"Open a sub-work order."

Luo Wensheng's writing immediately appeared on the work order page.

[Sub-work order: City-wide Embrace Ascent Block]

He Zhibai added: [Risk: Rest, care, vigil, bypass, and Return Application Stations have been rewritten by the God as handles to lift people away from reality.]

Ye Guizhou stamped it: [Block request received] [Must not be considered a prohibition on rest and care]

Lin Jin grabbed the communicator:

"All stations, listen up!" "Do not dismantle rest points, do not remove vigil bells, and do not close bypass stations now!" "Add a slipknot that can be untied by oneself to all securing straps, ropes, chains, and door bolts!" "We are not pinning people to the ground." "We are giving people a foothold, and also the right to let go!"

Fang Ning understood immediately.

She picked up the ward securing strap, demonstrated to the Nurses, and shouted:

"This knot can be pulled open!" "Children cannot pull it themselves, so Nurses, write it clearly in the handover Records!" "Whoever is on shift is responsible for being able to untie it!"

Xiao Man's mother held onto the edge of the incubator, her fingers turning white.

She wanted to tie the strap dead.

But Fang Ning held her hand down.

"Don't tie it dead." "Tying it dead will turn into another form of grabbing."

The woman cried as she released her hand and retied the slipknot the way Fang Ning taught her.

"Then what if it comes loose?"

"We will watch over it." Fang Ning said.

"We don't rely on a rope to love her for us."

In the temporary rest station, Old Liu was lifted a foot off the ground by his chair.

His wife couldn't hold onto the chair leg.

Repairman trainees rushed over, connecting the old bus station's safety railing, waiting chairs, and floor bolts into a triangle with ropes.

Old Liu saw the rope ends tied into slipknots.

He suddenly smiled, but tears fell.

"You still let me be able to leave?"

His wife choked out: "If you want to leave, tell me first." "Not by being carried away by it." "And not by being tied down by me."

Old Liu reached out and pulled the slipknot rope.

The chair sank heavily and dropped back to the ground.

In the rest shed of the No. 4 Welfare Institute, the children's bowls, blankets, and temporary beds were all floating upward.

Su Yan stood by the door, pale, hearing the breathing of that divine hand outside.

It was coaxing in a low voice:

"The ground is too cold." "Come up." "You won't go hungry here."

A little boy holding a schoolbag looked up at the sky.

The fabric above the shed was sucked upward, bulging.

The bowl of white porridge he had just been holding was still in his hands, but the surface of the porridge was bulging upward.

He asked in a small voice: "Then can I go up and see, and then come back?"

Everyone froze for a moment.

They couldn't say "No." Saying that would be like another door.

Tang Qi squatted down and looked at him.

"Do you want to go up and see now, or do you want to know if there is a way to come back?"

The little boy was stunned.

"A way to come back."

Ye Guizhou immediately posted a second piece of paper on the side of the shed.

[Before leaving, a way back must be confirmed] [Without a way back, it must not be disguised as a free choice] [Temporary care points must retain exit and return Records]

The little boy understood the first half and looked up to ask: "Did it give a way back?"

There was no answer from outside.

The golden light of the divine hand dimmed a little.

The little boy hugged his bowl tightly.

"Then I won't go for now."

The ropes in the shed were connected one by one to the old piles on the ground, with the slipknots facing outward.

It wasn't a prison.

It was a net that could be pulled open by people.

More and more slipknots lit up.

Jiangcheng was like it was in an inverted gale, tying knots for itself.

Bridge railings, fire hydrants, hospital bed rails, old school desks, storm drain covers, bypass station connection rings, rest station iron chairs, and Return Application Station long tables were all connected by temporary rope nets.

But Lin Jin soon discovered that the rope nets were not enough.

The city was still rising as a whole.

Fine cracks appeared on the ground.

Underground pipelines groaned under the unbearable weight.

Cheng Du stared at the pressure gauge, his face looking terrible.

"Slipknots can only protect people." "They can't protect the foundation." "It has switched to lifting now."

Beneath the palm of the divine hand, five giant palm lines hung down golden light, like five invisible ropes, hooking into the underground of Jiangcheng.

[Embrace Protocol Deepened] [Target: Jiangcheng Real-world Foundation] [Ascent Method: Overall Lifting]

Chen Ye stared at the screen: "It wants to carry away even the ground?"

Cheng Du gritted his teeth: "The God doesn't understand the city." "It only knows that if a child refuses to leave, it moves the bed along with the child."

Lin Jin crawled under the Mainframe to find the city's foundation line.

It wasn't a single line.

It was a net composed of countless life Records.

Who was born where.

Who went to school where.

Whose threshold was worn down.

Which road was repaired three times.

Which ruins buried the old cornerstone of the Combat Academy.

These things weren't grand.

But they made the city what it was.

The divine hand was bypassing the people and directly carrying away "here."

"We can't just anchor the people," Lin Jin said in a low voice.

"We must anchor the ground."

"How do we anchor it?" Shen Tingxue asked.

Lin Jin looked at Qin Shanhe's communication.

"Is the old site of the Combat Academy still there?"

Qin Shanhe was silent for half a second.

"It's gone in reality." "It's there in memory."

"What about the Underground Containment School?" "It's there." "The old hospital, the Awakening Hall, First Hospital, the bus station, the welfare institute, the bypass stations."

Lin Jin listed all the locations in one breath.

"All locations, report one thing that happened only here."

Qin Shanhe immediately connected to the broadcast.

"The whole city, report your location names!" "Not ownership, not belonging." "Report what happened here!"

The first voice came from First Hospital.

Fang Ning said: "The neonatal department of First Hospital, seven children were almost pre-named by the God tonight, but were saved by pending-naming protection."

Luo Wensheng recorded.

Ye Guizhou stamped it.

The second voice came from the old bus station.

Old Liu said: "The north city bus station, I almost walked through the door just now, and my wife set up a chair for me."

The third came from an old student of the Underground Containment School.

"The Underground Containment School for failed experiments, we waited here for twenty years, and today we graduate, but we won't lock the people who come after us back inside."

The fourth came from a survivor of the Combat Academy.

"The Jiangcheng Combat Academy is already gone." A student said, choking up.

"But we ran laps on the playground, fought for the last chicken leg in the cafeteria, and called out each other's names before it collapsed."

Qin Shanhe's voice was hoarse: "Record."

More and more locations began to report what had actually happened to them.

Not "who this belongs to." But "things that happened here that no one can replace."

After these Records were connected to the foundation line, the golden light of the five palm lines paused for the first time.

The divine hand could carry away buildings.

It could lift the ground.

But it was very difficult to also change every specific thing that had happened into "the God's embrace."

Lin Jin pressed the No. 001 work badge onto the foundation bus line.

"This city is not a bed." "It's not a cradle." "It's not a child that can be lifted up by God." "There are things that have happened here." "There are accounts that haven't been settled." "There are people who haven't been judged." "There are bypass stations that haven't been finished." "There are people who have just sat down." "So—"

He used a wrench to fiercely twist the foundation valve.

"Jiangcheng is not moving for now!"

Boom!

The city-wide slipknot rope nets, location Records, bypass connection rings, rest station chairs, and hospital bed rails all lit up simultaneously.

Jiangcheng's upward trend stopped abruptly.

The divine hand in the sky was forced to hover.

Between the palm and the city, only less than a hundred meters remained.

The golden palm lines were still pressing down.

The ground was still trembling.

But this time, Jiangcheng was not carried away.

Someone in the crowd finally burst into tears.

Others sat on the ground, gasping for air.

The slipknot rope nets creaked, as if the bones of the entire city were in pain.

Cheng Du stared at the pressure gauge, his voice deep:

"It's blocked." "But it can only block it for a while."

Lin Jin looked up at the sky.

The divine hand did not retreat.

It hovered above Jiangcheng, and a crack slowly split open in its palm.

Inside the gap, it wasn't flesh and blood.

It was a golden door.

From behind the door came the system notification sound that countless people had heard when they awakened their classes.

[National Class Transfer System master terminal activated] [Temporary access point established in the palm of the divine body's right hand] [Will directly take over all class interfaces in Jiangcheng]

Cheng Du's face went pale.

"It's not holding us anymore." "It's going to use its palm as an Awakening Hall."

In the sky, that golden palm door slowly opened.

Inside the door, rows of brand-new class naming pages flipped open automatically.

The very first one at the top read: [Lin Jin] [Recommended Class: Divine Repairman]