52: Chapter 52 Teammates Aren't Parts

The moment the fifth name lit up on the blackboard.

The air in Room 104 seemed to be gripped by an invisible hand.

[Lin Shoushan]

The three characters were not large.

Yet they were more glaring than the previous four names.

Lin Jin's wrench stopped in mid-air.

Just half an inch away from smashing into the blackboard.

From inside the door, the voice of the young Lin Shoushan sounded once again.

"You brat."

"This time, don't fix me."

The voice was very soft.

It carried a familiar touch of laziness.

Like many years ago, when Lin Shoushan was squatting at home fixing an electric fan, he had said to him without looking up:

"Don't touch it, the power isn't off yet."

In that instant, Lin Jin's breathing noticeably faltered.

Chen Ye, his wrists entangled by the black contract lines, turned pale, but he still shouted immediately:

"Brother Jin!"

"Don't get pulled in!"

Shen Tingxue also raised her hand, frost forcibly suppressing the black lines spreading at Lin Jin's feet.

"That is not your father himself."

Lin Jin certainly knew that.

But knowing is one thing.

Hearing that voice is another.

The 104 Incident echoes do not generate out of thin air.

If it could say this, it meant that Lin Shoushan had truly said something similar back then.

Or at least, the Forbidden Building records had preserved this sound.

Teacher Xu Wenzhou stared at the name on the blackboard, his face ashen.

"Impossible..."

He muttered:

"This name should not appear again."

Lin Jin looked at him sharply.

"What do you mean?"

Teacher Xu Wenzhou's lips moved.

As if some words had been stuck in his throat for twenty years, finally being forcibly ripped open.

"After the Final Question was triggered back then, the contract required the removal of a faulty node."

"At the beginning, there were only a few of us on the list."

"Lin Shoushan was not there."

"Later..."

He looked at the blackboard, his voice trembling.

"Later, he wrote himself in."

Chen Ye's eyes widened.

"What?"

Shen Tingxue reacted quickly.

"He added a fake node to the contract?"

"It wasn't a fake node."

Teacher Xu Wenzhou said in a low voice.

"It was a real node."

"Lin Shoushan used his own Rule Maintenance authority to hang himself onto the corrupted contract."

"As long as the contract required the removal of a person, it would prioritize removing him."

The corridor was deathly silent.

Chen Ye's expression was grim.

"Isn't that just dying for someone else?"

Teacher Xu Wenzhou did not refute this.

He looked at those three characters, his eyes filled with both pain and anger.

"I thought he was crazy at the time."

"We were all about to be dragged to death by the contract, yet he was still saying the question was wrong."

"He said, 'Teammates are not spare parts.'"

"If a question requires you to dismantle a teammate to pass, then it's not the teammate that needs fixing, it's the question."

Lin Jin's fingers gripping the wrench slowly tightened.

His father had really reached this point.

Even a step earlier than he was now.

But the result was that the 104 Incident spiraled out of control.

People died, people went missing, people were corrupted, and some files became abnormal.

And from then on, Lin Shoushan walked completely into the No. 9 Forbidden Zone.

The countdown on the blackboard was still ticking.

[Remaining Time: Two minutes and twenty seconds]

[Please select a faulty node for removal]

[Candidate Node: Lin Shoushan]

The previous four names had already disappeared.

104 had compressed the final choice into a seemingly optimal answer.

Remove Lin Shoushan.

Sacrifice a residue of the past.

Save the current team.

This was the trap most likely to make people waver.

Because Lin Shoushan was not here.

Because this might just be an echo.

Because removing this name did not seem to harm Shen Tingxue and Chen Ye.

However, Lin Jin looked at that line of text and suddenly understood his father's words, "Don't fix me."

It wasn't telling him not to save him.

Nor was it telling him not to touch it.

It was a reminder to him:

Do not treat "Lin Shoushan" as a maintenance target.

Once he actually took action against this name, it would be equivalent to admitting that the contract's judgment logic was correct.

It would be equivalent to admitting that teammates could be treated as nodes for removal.

This was the answer that the 104 Final Question truly wanted.

It did not care who was removed.

As long as someone was removed, the question would be satisfied.

Lin Jin slowly put down the wrench.

Chen Ye became anxious.

"Not smashing it?"

Lin Jin stared at the blackboard.

"Smashing the blackboard is useless."

"It is currently using my dad's name as a fuse."

"If I smash it, it's equivalent to pulling the fuse."

Shen Tingxue asked immediately:

"Then where do we fix?"

Lin Jin closed his eyes for a moment.

The Hand of Rules was refreshing frantically in his field of vision.

[Current Target: Experimental Team Contract]

[Fault Core: Defining teammates as replaceable parts]

[Surface Trap: Candidate node removal]

[Hidden Anchor: Lin Shoushan self-hanging node]

[Maintenance Suggestion: Rewrite the basic definition of the team contract]

Rewrite the basic definition.

Not fixing the blackboard.

Not removing people.

But fixing the definition of the concept of "teammate" in the contract.

The difficulty of this was far higher than simple removal.

Because the contract had already started.

All the black lines were wrapped around them.

It was converting everyone into calculable, replaceable, and removable nodes.

Lin Jin looked down at his own wrist.

The black contract lines pulsed, like blood vessels.

He suddenly reached out and grabbed one of them.

A sharp pain instantly pierced from his palm into his heart.

[Warning: Direct contact with corrupted contract]

[Mental load increasing]

[Corruption erosion: 39%]

Chen Ye's expression changed.

"What are you doing?"

Lin Jin gritted his teeth and said:

"Finding the main line."

There were many black contract lines.

Wrapped around each of them.

But all lines must have a source.

The contract did not exist out of thin air; it required a basic clause.

Only by finding that clause could he change it.

Lin Jin followed the black line in his hand.

The line passed through the floor and merged into an old bronze plaque below the blackboard.

The bronze plaque had originally been covered by dust.

Now, a line of engraved text appeared:

[Rule Maintenance Special Class Experimental Team Contract]

[Basic Clause: Team survival takes precedence over individual integrity]

Lin Jin's eyes turned cold.

Found it.

Team survival takes precedence over individual integrity.

This clause looked like a battlefield principle.

But once corrupted, it would become:

In order for the team to survive, anyone could be dismantled.

The malice of the Final Question back then was hidden in this line of basic clause.

Lin Jin walked toward the bronze plaque.

With every step he took, the black lines tightened.

The black lines on Chen Ye and Shen Tingxue also tightened accordingly.

Chen Ye groaned in pain but gritted his teeth tightly.

"I'm fine."

"You do your maintenance."

Shen Tingxue's face was pale, frost spreading along her wrists, but it failed to freeze and break the black lines.

"The contract shares damage."

"If you touch the main clause, we will also be implicated."

Lin Jin stopped.

This was the most troublesome part of the experimental team contract.

If he maintained the contract, his teammates would also suffer the maintenance backlash.

If he continued to force the change, both Shen Tingxue and Chen Ye would be dragged in.

Teacher Xu Wenzhou suddenly sneered.

"Do you see?"

"This is the reason we failed back then."

"If you want to fix the contract, the contract will use your teammates to threaten you."

"The more you fix it, the more they hurt."

"In the end, you will find the easiest way is still to remove one person."

Chen Ye looked up and cursed:

"Shut up!"

"We haven't said we're in pain, why are you feeling the pain for us there?"

Teacher Xu Wenzhou stiffened.

Chen Ye carried his shield and stood firm.

He looked at Lin Jin.

"Brother Jin."

"Don't worry about me."

"I'm not good at anything else, but I'm a professional at taking a beating."

Shen Tingxue also looked at Lin Jin.

She didn't say any flowery words.

She just said calmly:

"I agree to continue the maintenance."

As the words fell.

A faint white light suddenly lit up on the black lines on both of them.

The Hand of Rules popped up a notification.

[Detected teammates voluntarily bearing the pressure]

[Team contract resistance decreased]

[Basic clause modification window opened]

Lin Jin's heart jolted.

So this was the key.

The reason the experimental contract treated people as parts was that it assumed individuals must be dominated by team rules.

But if teammates actively expressed their will, the contract could no longer treat them as unconscious nodes.

Teammates are not spare parts.

Teammates have their own choices.

Lin Jin looked at Teacher Xu Wenzhou.

"Back then, what you lacked was not strength."

"It was that no one dared to return the power of choice to their teammates."

Teacher Xu Wenzhou's face turned pale.

"What do you know?"

Lin Jin did not argue.

He walked to the bronze plaque and raised his wrench.

[Maintenance Target: Basic Clause]

[Original Clause: Team survival takes precedence over individual integrity]

[Suggested Revision: Team survival must not come at the cost of erasing an individual]

[Success rate: 62%]

62%.

Not high.

But it was enough.

Lin Jin struck down with the wrench.

Crack!

A fine crack appeared on the bronze plaque.

The black lines instantly rioted.

Chen Ye groaned, his knees almost buckling.

A trace of blood spilled from the corner of Shen Tingxue's mouth, but she still stood straight.

"Continue."

Lin Jin's eyes were terrifyingly dark.

The second strike.

Crack!

The original clause on the bronze plaque began to twist.

The three characters [Lin Shoushan] on the blackboard flickered.

From inside the door, the young Lin Shoushan's voice sounded softly.

"Don't rush."

"Keep your hand steady."

Lin Jin's eyes felt slightly hot.

"Shut up."

"My hand is very steady."

The third strike.

Bang!

The original clause on the bronze plaque shattered completely.

Lin Jin pressed his bloodied fingertips onto the bronze plaque and rewrote the new clause.

[Team survival must not come at the cost of erasing a teammate's existence.]

The writing was finished.

The entire Room 104 jolted violently.

The black lines contracted frantically as if burned by fire.

The countdown on the blackboard stopped at the final thirty seconds.

[Basic clause conflict]

[Removal logic failed]

[Final Question cannot be executed]

Half of the black lines on Chen Ye broke.

Shen Tingxue raised her hand, frost freezing the remaining black lines.

Lin Jin hadn't stopped yet.

Because the Hand of Rules popped up a second fault.

[Residual fault: Lin Shoushan self-hanging node not resolved]

[Hint: Cannot be removed]

[Suggestion: Convert to historical protection node]

Lin Jin looked at the name on the blackboard.

He finally understood how to finish the step his father had left behind back then.

Lin Shoushan had hung himself up to block the removal.

But if the node continued to exist, it would cause 104 to constantly return to the Final Question.

The correct approach was not to fix him, nor to delete him.

But to change him from a "candidate sacrifice node" to a "historical protection node."

Lin Jin raised the wrench and pointed at the blackboard.

"Lin Shoushan is not a candidate answer."

"He is an interception record for wrong answers."

The wrench fell.

Crack.

The three characters [Lin Shoushan] on the blackboard moved slowly.

From the candidate node column, they landed behind another newly appeared line of text.

[Historical Protection Node: Lin Shoushan]

[Function: Prevent teammate removal logic from restarting]

It was quiet inside the door for a long time.

Subsequently, the young Lin Shoushan's voice let out a low chuckle.

"Not bad."

"Didn't embarrass me."

Lin Jin's throat tightened.

The Final Question on the blackboard began to dissipate.

[Third test completed]

[Maintenance plan: Excellent]

[Team integrity: Maintained]

[No teammate sacrifice]

Chen Ye sat down on the floor, panting heavily.

"Finally, it looks like a proper answer."

Shen Tingxue wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth; although her face was pale, her eyes were bright.

Teacher Xu Wenzhou stood in place, the whole person looking drained.

He looked at the new clause on the bronze plaque and did not speak for a long time.

The answer they hadn't written twenty years ago.

Today, it had been written by an F-rank Repairman.

And just at this moment.

The old toolbox in Lin Jin's hand suddenly popped open again.

The compartment at the bottom of the box slowly opened.

Inside lay a broken piece of a wrench handle.

On the wrench handle were carved two incomplete characters:

[Rules]

Deep in the Forbidden Building, the fourth bell rang.

[Final additional test initiated]

[Please choose whether to touch the second wrench fragment]

[Warning: After contact, the true failure record left by Lin Shoushan in the Forbidden Building will be read.]