193: Chapter 194 Jiangcheng's Unworthy Heart, Chen Ye Almost Chosen as Heart Valve

[First Sub-chamber Candidate: Jiang City]

When this line of text lit up, everyone in Jiang City who had just connected to work order no. 002 felt their chests thump violently.

It wasn't their own heartbeat.

It was the second beat transmitted from the gods heart deep underground.

Thump.

Inside First Hospital, the medical chart in Fang Ning's hand was shaken to the floor.

She lowered her head and saw a ring of golden fine lines emerging on her chest.

[Medical Care Node]

[Can serve as a ventricular wall stabilizing structure]

At the North City Rest Station, Old Liu had barely sat down for long when the legs of his chair suddenly sank.

A golden blood vessel bulged from the ground beneath his feet, crawling forward along the rest station's buckle rope net.

[Fatigue Containment Node]

[Can serve as a reflux buffer structure]

In the temporary classroom, the circle beneath Qin Shanhe's feet lit up.

[Teacher Without School Node]

[Can serve as a sub-chamber consciousness coordination structure]

At No. 1 Bypass Station, before Meng Huai had finished bandaging his newly replaced hand, a drop of golden blood welled up from the brass coupling ring.

The blood drop did not fall.

It hovered in the center of the coupling ring, as if it were about to grow into a tiny heart valve.

[Bypass Rotation Node]

[Can serve as a sub-chamber valve structure]

More and more nodes were lit up.

The Hospital, rest stations, bypass stations, Night Watch Bells, Return Application Stations, temporary classrooms, Awakening Hall, and work order Record desks.

The places they had desperately built to keep people from being snatched away by God were now being named one by one by the gods heart.

It no longer forced everyone to be on the same beat.

It had learned to be smart.

"You want to beat your own way in different places, right?"

"Fine."

"Then I will take every beat into a different ventricle."

"Let every city become a separate room for the gods heart."

Jiang City would be first.

In the Main Control Room, Lin Jin saw the city model being outlined by golden threads into a massive ventricular shape.

The east side of Jiang City was Valve No. 1.

First Hospital was the blood supply point.

The temporary classroom was the nerve bundle.

The rest station was the reflux pool.

Work order no. 001 was marked as the central ventricular septum.

Cheng Du's face turned pale as he watched.

"It is turning the mutual aid network into a myocardial network."

"Every time a person helps another, it contracts once."

"Every time we make a Record, it pumps blood once."

"Every time a bypass transfer is made, it opens a valve once."

Chen Ye gripped his shield, his eyes turning red.

"The things we repaired are being used against us as its organs?"

"It's not a problem with the things themselves."

Lin Jin stared at the model.

"It stole their purpose."

"Rest stations are for people to sit, not for God to use for reflux."

"The Hospital is for saving people, not for supplying blood to God."

"Work orders are for recording repairs, not for being ventricular septa."

The gods heart's third beat fell.

Thump.

This time, all nodes contracted simultaneously.

The rest station's buckle rope net tightened violently, almost strangling the people in the chairs.

The waveform of First Hospital's monitors was forcibly pulled into a uniform peak.

The gray application forms at the Return Application Station were sucked toward the center, as if they were about to become cells in the blood.

Fang Ning roared:

"We cannot let it beat one more time!"

Cheng Du's voice was tight:

"There are nine beats left."

"After nine beats, the Jiang City sub-chamber will be formed."

"Once formed, every time the entire city saves itself, it will provide energy to the gods heart."

Lin Jin grabbed work order no. 001 and turned to rush toward the city foundation main valve.

"Build a clutch."

Chen Ye followed.

"What clutch?"

"Helping people is still helping people."

"Recording is still recording."

"But we won't let these actions drive the gods heart."

Cheng Du understood immediately.

"Separate the mutual aid actions from the gods heart's blood-pumping shaft!"

"Correct."

"Materials?"

"Every node marked as a ventricular wall must be equipped with a local clutch plate."

Cheng Du quickly reported the locations.

"No. 1 Bypass Station coupling ring."

"First Hospital monitoring bus."

"Rest station buckle net."

"Temporary classroom circle."

"Return Application Station long table."

"Awakening Hall calibration disk."

"Work order no. 001 core."

Lin Jin gave orders while running.

"Listen up, all nodes!"

"Do not close the stations, do not stop saving people, do not stop recording!"

"Between your actions and the golden heartbeat, add a fragment that says 'I am doing this, not to provide energy to God'."

Chen Ye looked devastated.

"How do we add this thing?"

Lin Jin reached out to him.

"Shield plate."

Chen Ye cursed and pried off a piece of metal from the back of his shield that was already cracked beyond recognition.

"If I keep dismantling this shield, only the handle will be left."

He Zhibai immediately shouted over the comms:

"Public maintenance cost recorded."

"That'll do."

Lin Jin flattened the shield plate and carved a line of text on it:

[Actions are actions, energy supply is energy supply]

He inserted this ugly fragment into the golden pump shaft next to the city foundation main valve.

Click!

The ventricular line in the city model paused for a moment.

It worked.

Every node immediately followed suit.

At First Hospital, Fang Ning inserted a discarded bedside sign next to the monitoring bus.

[Care does not supply God]

At the rest station, Old Liu used a wrench to nail a broken chair nameplate into the middle of the buckle rope net.

[Sitting is not reflux]

At the Return Application Station, Ye Guizhou stamped the edge of the long table.

[Signing does not enter blood]

In the temporary classroom, Qin Shanhe drew a diagonal line across the center of the circle with chalk.

[Teaching does not become nerves]

At the Awakening Hall, the Old Calibrator scraped the dust off the bottom of the old calibration disk and smeared it onto the golden thread interface of the main terminal.

[Verification does not return to the main terminal]

One clutch plate after another lit up.

The ventricular outline in the Jiang City model was cut into many disconnected segments.

The gods heart's fourth beat fell.

Thump.

This time, Jiang City did not contract as a whole.

Some places were still saving people.

Some places were still recording.

Some places were still resting.

They moved.

But they did not beat for God together.

The God Head's voice pressed down from the sky.

"Collaboration is circulation."

"Circulation is the heart."

"The heart is belonging."

Lin Jin inserted work order no. 001 into the final core slot, his hands covered in blood and grime, his voice hoarse:

"Collaboration is not an organ."

"People helping people does not equal pumping blood for you."

Work order no. 001 lit up violently.

Luo Wensheng's Record, Ye Guizhou's signing, He Zhibai's ledger, Cheng Du's rest position, the shield plate Chen Ye had dismantled, Shen Tingxue's frozen boundary, and Zhou Heng's lightning synchronization needle all appeared on the back of the work order.

They were not one heart.

They were many actions.

Each action had a source, time, object, and revocable Record.

God wanted to synthesize them into a ventricle.

But they all had rough edges.

[Jiang City sub-chamber construction obstructed]

[Mutual aid nodes cannot be merged into myocardium]

But when the gods heart's fifth beat arrived, a new warning appeared.

[Insufficient ventricular wall]

[Searching for substitute heart valve]

[Conditions: Multiple instances of active load-bearing, multiple instances of protecting others, multiple instances of using one's own shield surface to take external pressure]

Lin Jin looked up sharply.

The Shield Warrior emblem on Chen Ye's chest lit up.

Before he could react, the broken shield in his hand had already unfolded automatically.

The holes on the shield surface where the load-bearing plates had been removed lit up with golden light one by one.

[Target: Chen Ye]

[Adapted structure: Human heart valve]

[Function: Bear the gods heart reflux impact for Jiang City]

[Advantage: Strong voluntary protective tendency]

Chen Ye's face turned pale.

"Me?"

The next second, his chest contracted violently.

His entire body was pulled toward the city foundation main valve by a force.

The shield deformed in his hands, its edges bending into the arc of a heart valve.

Cheng Du cursed over the comms:

"It can't find a city, so it's finding a person!"

"Chen Ye, don't take the hit!"

Chen Ye's teeth chattered, but his body had already instinctively raised the shield.

Because the gods heart's sixth beat had come.

If no one took the hit, half of the clutch plates they had just installed would be blown away.

He saw the lights in First Hospital flickering.

Saw the chairs in the rest station shaking.

Saw the coupling ring at the bypass station screaming.

He roared almost subconsciously:

"I'll take the hit!"

Lin Jin rushed over and punched his shield surface.

"Take the hit my ass!"

Chen Ye was stunned by the blow.

"Then what do we do?"

"The shield can take the hit."

Lin Jin stared at him intensely.

"You cannot become the shield."

Shen Tingxue's Ice Line immediately wrapped around Chen Ye's wrist, not to restrain him, but to pry his hand half an inch off the shield handle.

Zhou Heng's Thunder Spear pierced into the shield surface, channeling the gods heart's reflux impact toward the foundation rails.

Thirteen kicked Chen Ye in the back of the knee from behind.

Chen Ye fell to his knees with a thud, just in time to avoid the golden heart valve ring that was about to latch onto his chest.

"Why did you kick me!"

Thirteen said coldly:

"I was afraid your hero complex would flare up again."

Lin Jin snatched the already shattered shield and inserted it into the mechanical slot next to the city foundation main valve.

"Chen Ye's shield can serve as a temporary valve flap."

"Chen Ye himself cannot."

He Zhibai immediately wrote:

[Shield damage: Public maintenance cost]

[Shield bearer's body must not automatically bear the load with the shield]

Ye Guizhou stamped:

[Shield connection received]

[Does not constitute human heart valve authorization]

Luo Wensheng recorded:

[Chen Ye expressed "I'll take the hit," but after intervention by teammates, no permanent load-bearing consent was formed.]

Chen Ye's face turned green hearing that.

"You have to Record this too?"

Lin Jin nailed the last clutch plate into the shield surface.

"Yes."

"So you can't act tough later and say you never thought about doing something stupid."

The sixth beat fell.

Boom!

The shield's temporary valve flap was split into three cracks by the impact.

But Chen Ye was not embedded into it.

He was just knocked rolling twice by the aftershock and scrambled up while cursing.

"My shield!"

Cheng Du stared at the pressure gauge.

"It held!"

"The seventh and eighth beats were diverted!"

All clutch plates in Jiang City began to work.

Hospital care continued.

Rest stations continued.

Bypass stations continued.

But every action no longer pulled on the gods heart.

When the gods heart's ninth beat fell, the "First Sub-chamber Candidate" on the Jiang City model finally turned gray.

[Jiang City sub-chamber construction failed]

[Human heart valve generation failed]

[Mutual aid network cannot be co-opted]

Lin Jin finally heaved a sigh of relief.

But only halfway.

Because on the Mainframe screen, the city nodes that had just been marked by the gods blood lit up one by one.

Hai City, Beiyuan, Nanling, Qinghe County...

Every place that had just established local filter cores, local beats, and local work orders saw the same prompt.

[Mutual aid nodes detected]

[Local beats detected]

[Temporary maintenance points detected]

[Sub-chamber candidate sequence generating]

Cheng Du's face was ashen.

"It copied Jiang City's failure experience."

"Now it will try to turn every responding city into a ventricle."

work order no. 002 vibrated crazily.

Intern Liang Yu's receipt from Hai City popped up first.

"Jiang City!"

"Our drainage ditch is beating!"

"A heart valve grew next to the pancake bag work order!"

The old miner in Beiyuan roared right after:

"The mine cart turntable is contracting!"

"It wants to pick me as the mine heart valve!"

Screams from students came from Teacher Song Qing's side in Qinghe County.

"Teacher's chest is glowing!"

"The blackboard has turned into a ventricular wall!"

Lin Jin looked at work order no. 002 and grabbed Chen Ye's shattered shield.

The line of text just carved onto the shield surface was still hot.

[Actions are actions, energy supply is energy supply]

He shoved the shield plate, the clutch diagram, the installation Record, and the warning about Chen Ye almost being selected as a human heart valve into work order no. 002.

"Broadcast it."

Luo Wensheng recorded it immediately.

Ye Guizhou stamped it.

He Zhibai logged it.

Lin Jin's voice was hoarse, yet steady:

"Tell all cities—"

"Install the clutch first."

"Then save people."

"Shields can break."

"People cannot be valves."

work order no. 002 turned into countless gray lights bearing the shield's cracks, rushing to all parts of the world.

But just as the gray lights dispersed, the gods heart suddenly stopped for a beat.

A full beat.

Cheng Du's face turned suddenly pale.

"Heart stopped?"

"No."

Lin Jin looked up at the sky.

After the gods heart stopped, all the marked city nodes around the world lost their golden light at the same instant.

The next second, the God Head's voice rang out.

Cold.

Calm.

No longer attempting to co-opt.

[Sub-chamber plan cancelled]

[Verdict: Mutual aid network cannot be cardiated]

[Switching plan: Excision of mutual aid network]

On the Mainframe screen, the connection lines between all the cities worldwide that had just responded to work order no. 002 turned into golden knife-lines one by one.

God no longer wanted to turn them into a heart.

It wanted to cut off all these lines of mutual aid.

The first blade fell toward the dirty work order receipt between Jiang City and Hai City.