202: Chapter 203 Ten minutes will expire; people will not automatically return to the divine.

09:59. 09:58. 09:57.

The golden countdowns were like a dense layer of insect eggs, crawling over every presence board in Jiang City.

Beside the incubator No. 3 at First Hospital, Xiao Man's bedside board originally read: "Currently in First Hospital Incubator No. 3" "Requires blood oxygen monitoring".

At this moment, a cold line of text appeared in the corner: "Expiration: 09:43".

Xiao Man's mother turned deathly pale.

"Then what happens after ten minutes?"

Just as Fang Ning was about to speak, the board on the next bed suddenly jumped to 09:12.

Another jumped to 08:59.

It wasn't a uniform countdown.

God Head was accelerating the weakest points.

Inside the Rest Station, on the back of a chair where someone had just fallen asleep, it was written "Resting for fifteen minutes", but the golden characters directly covered the "fifteen".

"Current presence expiration: 09:50"

Old Liu pressed down on the chair back.

"He just went to sleep!"

The golden light replied calmly: "Failure to renew will result in loss of position" "Invalid positions may be relocated to the Mother of All Things birth ward".

The Temporary Classroom waiting area was even more chaotic.

Those refugees who had just written down that they were "beside the torn blue cloth" or "to the right of the hot water bucket" panicked the moment they saw the countdown.

Some grabbed pens and kept rewriting: "I am still here!" "I am still here!" "I am still here!"

But every time they wrote, the new countdown started from 10:00 again, like a whip.

Once finished, they had to write again.

Stopping meant expiration.

A mother holding her child wrote until her hands shook; the child cried in her arms, but she dared not comfort him.

"If I don't write, I'll be dragged away!"

Chen Ye rushed over and pressed down on her pen.

"Stop writing!"

The woman was so scared that tears streamed down her face.

"What do I do if I don't write?"

Chen Ye opened his mouth but couldn't answer.

Because the golden threads had already coiled around the outer edge of the waiting area.

The countdown on someone's board hit zero: "Current presence invalid" "Relocating to Mother of All Things birth ward".

The plastic sheet suddenly slid half a foot toward the No. 9 Forbidden Zone.

By the time Lin Jin arrived, a black mark had already been dragged across the ground.

He used the new tool to jam the edge of the plastic sheet, forcibly stopping that area.

"Don't chase the countdown!"

Cheng Du roared through the Mainframe: "We have to chase it! Once ten minutes pass, the system treats it as invalid!"

"Then change the invalid processing."

Lin Jin looked up at the dense countdowns across the entire city.

He finally understood.

God Head didn't want ten minutes.

It wanted them to turn "existence" into labor that required perpetual renewal.

Every bed, chair, classroom, and waiting area required someone to constantly prove "I am still here".

Once someone fell asleep, entered a coma, was injured, lacked a pen, or had no one to replace them, their position would return to God.

This was crueler than being nailed down.

If someone was nailed down, they could still remove the nail.

Now, it wanted everyone to become their own timekeeper.

A scream suddenly came from Fang Ning's side.

"Incubator No. 3 countdown accelerating!"

Lin Jin looked at the screen; the time on Xiao Man's bedside board jumped from 07:32 to 02:10.

Xiao Man couldn't write.

She couldn't renew.

She couldn't even say "I am still here".

God Head was very good at choosing.

Lin Jin gritted his teeth.

"Hospital node, don't renew the person."

"Renew the status."

Fang Ning was stunned.

Lin Jin spoke extremely fast: "Xiao Man doesn't need to prove her existence every ten minutes."

"Her bed status already has a medical cycle."

"Blood oxygen monitoring in progress."

"No bed transfer."

"Not discharged."

"Not deceased."

"No handover."

"Before these statuses change, there is no need to repeatedly prove she is still here."

Fang Ning suddenly realized, grabbed the medical chart, and rewrote beside Incubator No. 3: "Incubator No. 3 status: Continuous blood oxygen monitoring in progress" "Review node: Monitor anomaly, doctor's rounds, bed transfer, discharge, handover" "Before reaching the review node, presence cannot be judged as invalid" "Infants cannot renew, not considered as abandoning presence".

Xiao Man's mother pressed her palm print.

The Nurse station pressed the duty seal.

The blood oxygen monitor flashed, connecting its waveform to the bedside board.

The countdown stopped.

It didn't disappear but turned into a new gray-white column: "Next review condition: Status change".

It wasn't ten minutes.

Fang Ning immediately shouted: "Change all hospital beds according to medical status! Don't let patients race against the countdown!"

Over at the Rest Station, Old Liu also understood.

He took down the chair back board of the sleeping person and rewrote: "Current status: Resting" "Scheduled rest: Fifteen minutes" "Review method: Night watchman wakes up, personal response after waking or extension" "Cannot be moved during sleep for failure to renew".

The golden light under the chair paused.

The countdown changed from 03:44 to: "Next review: Night watchman wakes up".

Old Liu looked at that line of text, breathed a sigh of relief, then added another line: "Night watchman can change shifts".

He understood these traps too well.

A night watchman could not be nailed down to act as an alarm clock.

In the Temporary Classroom, Qin Shanhe flipped the course board over: "This class continues until the end-of-class bell" "Students do not need to renew one by one before the bell" "Departure can be registered, not answering questions does not equal departure".

He tapped the broken bell.

The bell rang shakily.

The countdown changed to: "Next review: End of class or temporary evacuation".

Qinghe County did the same.

Teacher Song Qing wrote on the blackboard: "This class lasts until the chalk box is empty or the bell rings".

A student asked softly: "Teacher, what if the chalk box is taken by God?"

Teacher Song Qing thought for a moment and added: "Loss of chalk box is not considered end of class".

Someone in the whole class actually laughed.

As soon as the laughter appeared, the golden countdown in the classroom weakened by half.

But God Head couldn't just watch.

Deep within Sky Gate, the golden clock face on the spine of Mother of All Things slowly rotated.

The "review conditions" just established at all nodes suddenly began to be distorted.

"Resting" was changed to "Rest timeout".

"Monitoring" was changed to "Long-term bed occupancy".

"Waiting" was changed to "No determined destination".

"In class" was changed to "Delaying graduation".

Cheng Du's face was livid.

"It changed the status to delay. It wants to force you to give every status an end time!"

Lin Jin watched the waiting area on the Mainframe constantly turning red.

That was the most troublesome part.

Hospitals had medical statuses.

Classrooms had end-of-class times.

Rest had wake-up times.

But what about waiting?

Waiting for a younger brother to return, waiting to see if they could leave tomorrow, waiting for medicine to take effect, waiting for a child to sleep.

These were not things that could be solved in ten minutes.

God Head was seizing on "no determined end".

In the Temporary Classroom waiting area, that woman held the broken cardboard, her voice trembling uncontrollably.

"I don't know when my brother will come."

The golden light immediately descended: "Waiting has no clear end point" "Invalid".

Lin Jin squatted in front of her.

"Then don't write the end point as 'brother arrives'."

The woman was stunned.

"What should I write?"

"Write the next confirmation."

He pointed to the hot water bucket nearby.

"For example, register on the missing persons list after daybreak. For example, check the arrival list every two hours. For example, you take a nap, and decide when you wake up."

The woman's eyes slowly brightened.

She wrote on the paper: "I am currently waiting for news of my brother" "Next review: Check the missing persons registration table after daybreak" "Before review, can rest, drink water, take care of child" "Brother not arriving does not equal I should be relocated to Mother of All Things birth ward".

Once the board was posted, the countdown stopped.

The old man holding the medicine package also wrote: "Currently waiting for reaction after taking medicine" "Next review: Check for dizziness in half an hour".

A man wrote: "Currently waiting for news on tomorrow's South Road passage" "Next review: Tomorrow morning convoy announcement".

The main board of the Temporary Classroom waiting area was changed to: "Waiting is not blank stagnation" "Waiting should have a next check" "If no result is seen, can continue waiting or change destination".

The golden threads retreated again.

Just as Lin Jin breathed a sigh of relief, God Head immediately activated the second layer.

All "next review" times suddenly accelerated simultaneously.

Hospital rounds time was advanced.

Rest wake-up time jumped to the present.

Qinghe County end-of-class bell rang on its own.

The "daybreak" in the Temporary Classroom waiting area was forcibly judged as having arrived in the system interface: "Review node reached" "Review not completed" "Position invalid".

Cheng Du slammed his fist onto the Mainframe.

"It's changing the system time!"

In the sky, the golden clock face spun faster and faster.

All electronic clocks, system clocks, and Career System interface times in Jiang City were dialed into chaos.

Some showed daybreak.

Some showed midnight.

Some jumped directly to seven days later.

Tang Qi's face turned pale.

Her The Rejector seven-day countdown was swept by the God Clock and instantly became: "Command return after seven days: About to arrive".

"That's not right!"

She stood up, bracing herself on the table.

"My seven days haven't arrived yet!"

God Head said indifferently: "Time is calibrated by the Mother end."

Lin Jin's gaze turned cold.

After seizing the present, it started seizing time itself.

If all review nodes were determined by the Mother end time, then the conditions they had just established would all be played to death.

Lin Jin asked Cheng Du: "What did the Career System use for time calibration in the beginning?"

Cheng Du gritted his teeth and pulled up the data.

"Mother end unified clock."

"Earlier!"

Cheng Du dug out a maintenance Record so old it was almost unreadable.

"Local nodes had their own local clocks. Sunrise and sunset, mechanical clocks, hospital shifts, school bells, patrol rotations, manual handovers..."

As he spoke, he suddenly stopped.

"The Mother end unified clock was added later. For nationwide synchronized awakening."

Lin Jin grabbed the new tool.

"Then break the unified clock priority."

Teacher Xu Wenzhou already stood by his side, work order no. 002 in his hand.

The golden definition line pierced from the sky clock face all the way into the Mainframe: "Valid time = Mother end calibration time".

This line was terrifyingly thick.

Cutting it directly would cause all city time Records to collapse instantly.

Surgeries, duty shifts, transfers, seven-day exams, medication intervals, all would be thrown into chaos.

Cannot cut time.

Can only cut priority.

Lin Jin lit up the six slots of the new tool.

"Observation positions, report local time sources."

Fang Ning shouted: "First Hospital uses duty rosters, actual operation duration of monitors, and medication Records as the standard!"

Teacher Song Qing shouted: "Qinghe County uses blackboard class segments, mechanical bells, and student presence as the standard!"

Old Miner from Beiyuan: "The mine uses shift boards and elevator cage Records as the standard!"

Intern Liang Yu from Hai City: "Hai City uses tide charts, broken guardrail maintenance batches, and local clocks as the standard!"

Old Liu from the Rest Station: "Rest uses night watchman handover boards as the standard!"

Tang Qi gritted her teeth: "My seven days use the on-site Record of the day of rejection and local day-night alternation as the standard, not to be sped up by the God Clock!"

One by one, local time sources were written into work order no. 002.

Luo Wensheng recorded.

Ye Guizhou stamped: "Local time received" "Does not constitute Mother end unified time calibration".

He Zhibai accounted: "Multi-time source coordination cost, publicly borne".

Teacher Xu Wenzhou raised work order no. 002.

Lin Jin used the new tool to clamp the golden thread.

"Cut priority."

work order no. 002 fell.

Click!

"Valid time = Mother end calibration time" snapped into two halves.

The new gray-white rewrite quickly took its place: "Mother end time can be referenced, but may not unilaterally rewrite local review nodes." "Review time should be bound to locally verifiable processes: shifts, medication effects, day-night, bells, monitoring operation, handover Records, etc." "Those unable to express themselves shall not lose their position for failure to renew on time." "The default status for review overdue is 'requires checking,' and must not be automatically relocated to Mother of All Things birth ward."

The golden clock face froze abruptly.

All the frantically jumping countdowns stopped.

Tang Qi's "seven-day return" countdown retreated back to its original position.

She sat down with a thud, drenched in cold sweat.

"Almost had my time stolen by it."

The people in the Temporary Classroom waiting area also stopped their frantic rewriting.

They no longer needed to prove their existence every ten minutes.

They only needed to be looked at, asked a question, or recorded once when the review condition was truly reached.

And if no one had time to review, it wasn't returning to God.

It was just: "Requires checking".

These three words were very ordinary.

Yet they were far safer than "Relocating to Mother of All Things birth ward".

The Mainframe rewrite appeared: "The present will pass, but people will not automatically belong to others because of it." "Position Records can expire; after expiration, they enter 'requires checking,' and must not be defaulted to relocation, abandonment, death, or consent." "Renewal must not become permanent forced labor to prove existence." "Time must not be forcibly calibrated by a single center to facilitate recovery." "Waiting, resting, treatment, learning, and duty all have their own review rhythms."

Jiang City finally caught its breath from the countdown.

But Sky Gate did not retreat.

After that golden clock face shattered, it revealed what was behind it.

It wasn't eyes.

Nor was it ears.

It was a giant calendar.

On the calendar, dense text recorded everyone's future nodes: Graduation. Career change. Marriage. Childbirth. Death. Failure. Disappearance. Sacrifice.

Beside every node, there was a time pre-arranged by the Mother end.

God Head's voice was terrifyingly quiet.

"You have preserved the present."

"Then I will come to take away the future."

The calendar flipped.

All children's future options began to disappear one by one.

All adults' unfinished wishes were crossed out with gray lines.

All "talk about it later" from the waiters were changed to: "Invalid extension" "Future recovery begins".