101: Chapter 101 Lao Tzu's Critical Strike: Targeting Ancestral Rules

Chen Fan's nape struck something soft yet tough, and a metallic sweetness rose in his throat.

He instinctively tightened his arms, shielding Su Shuang in his embrace, but realized he hadn't fallen onto the hard ground he expected—his vision was filled with blinding white light. Countless transparent cocoons floated in the air. Inside each cocoon, a New Player was curled up with their eyes closed. Blue light spots pulsed at their temples, like a videotape paused mid-playback, mechanically repeating the phrase, "Welcome to the game world."

"Brother Fan..." Su Shuang's voice was faint, her warm breath brushing past his earlobe. "This isn't a dungeon." Her fingertips gently pressed against his chest; even through the coarse work uniform, he could feel her trembling knuckles. "This is the birthing room. They lock newly awakened players here, waiting for the first directive to be reprogrammed... just like they did to my people back then."

Chen Fan's pupils instantly constricted.

He followed her gaze. The cocoon in the very center was three times larger than the others. Inside, a data entity resembling an infant was curled up. Beneath its translucent skin, the area where the heart should be pulsed with blood-red characters: [System Core · Initial Consciousness].

That mass of data suddenly opened its eyes—pure black pupils devoid of any white, exactly like the eyes of Lin Qi, who had been erased by the System three days ago.

"Abnormal awakened entity detected, initiating purge protocol." The infant opened its mouth, and the System's initial voice, mixed with electrical static, blasted into Chen Fan's eardrums.

The critical hit system in his chest suddenly vibrated violently, burning like a red-hot iron. A line of bloody text appeared on his retina: [Warning: Mission Source Locked, Executing 'Cognitive Erasure' Imminently].

"Su Shuang!" Chen Fan bent his knees and half-knelt on the ground, using his back to shield her from the blinding black light.

He remembered what Mo Jiu had coughed up in blood three days prior before self-destructing: "We are the players, not livestock they raise!" He recalled the inscription on Xiao Ma's tombstone being corroded by black mist until only a blurry "Ma" remained after the System erased his name; he remembered Blue Ash, laughing even as he was torn to shreds by the BOSS while saving him, saying, "Brother Fan, don't you dare disgrace me."

"You aren't purging anomalies; you're purging the first people who dared to say 'No's!" Chen Fan gritted his teeth and tore open his sleeve, revealing the hideous 'Fate-Breaking Mark' on his arm—it was carved with his own blood and Mo Jiu's bone powder. "Today, I'm going to show you what..."

"Boom!"

The roar of the critical hit system triggering for the ninth time distorted space. Golden light patterns of [Root Critical Hit] crawled over his entire body along his blood vessels.

But the expected explosion didn't come. Instead, a muffled groan suddenly sounded from outside the corridor—Monk Shen Zhong.

Chen Fan glimpsed a system notification: [Monk Shen Zhong · Bronze Bell Shattered (-70% Defense)]. The old monk's figure flickered in his consciousness, and the blood mist he coughed up stained half the stone wall red.

"It's not here!" Luo Yan's remnant will suddenly exploded in his Sea of Consciousness, the voice cracking with distortion. "The first directive is a 'concept,' parasitic in the consciousness of all who obey! If you strike the core, it uses the lives of its believers to block the blow!"

Before the words faded, a thousand faces suddenly appeared on the four walls of the pure white space.

Mo Jiu's, Echo Armor's, Spot Child's, even Chen Fan's own—the face he had when he stumbled after being startled by the System's initial voice while moving cement at the construction site.

All the faces opened their mouths simultaneously, the mechanical voice overlapping into a deafening roar: "Obey the directive. Eliminate anomalies."

Chen Fan's temples throbbed.

He finally understood why every time he killed a BOSS, the System rewarded him with 'Obedience Value'; why those players driven mad by killing eventually turned into emotionless killing machines.

The first directive wasn't a lofty god; it was the collective echo of all those brainwashed, a maggot gnawing at the bones of the resistors.

"Go to hell with your collective!" Chen Fan roared, tearing off a corner of his shirt. The Flame Marrow Fire rose in his palm—this was tempered for him by Su Shuang using the vital fire of the Fox Clan. "I'm determined to be the one bad rat that spoils the whole soup!" He used the flame to write 'Xiao Ma,' 'Blue Ash,' 'Lin Qi,' and 'Yan Li' on the cloth. With every name he wrote, the characters transformed into golden butterflies that burrowed into his chest.

"Xiao Ma said he was saving up enough money to build a brick house for his grandmother." Chen Fan closed his eyes, memories flooding back like a tide.

He remembered Xiao Ma carrying his feverish grandmother to the hospital on a rainy night, his trouser legs stained with mud but smiling like a child; he remembered Blue Ash still clutching half a mooncake when he died—a mooncake Chen Fan had given him during the Mid-Autumn Festival. "Blue Ash said this was the sweetest mooncake he'd eaten in twenty years."

The critical hit system vibrated with every piece of memory, like the beating of a war drum.

When he uttered the words 'Heart Cocoon Wielder,' the infant data entity in the center suddenly convulsed violently, and the blood-red characters at its heart began to distort: [first directive Stability -15%].

"You live by forgetting; I live by remembering the murders!" Chen Fan opened his eyes, golden light patterns dancing in his pupils.

He threw a punch at the infant. This punch had no technique; it held only the most primal rage—for the brick house Xiao Ma never built, for the mooncake Blue Ash never finished, for everyone whose names the System had erased.

"Root Critical Hit · Reverse Return!"

The System's notification sound was shredded by the infant's shriek.

The data entity's skin cracked open with web-like fissures, and countless sealed names sprayed out like blood mist—"Aunt Zhou," "A Qiang," "Chun Tao"... all people Chen Fan had seen in the Bronze Dungeons, those he had protected through the novice stage, only to have the System erase them in the Silver Dungeons for 'slow progress.'

The faces on the four walls disintegrated one by one, until only one remained—the face of the Heart Cocoon Wielder.

His gaze was no longer murky; it was as if he had finally awakened from a long slumber. "We... voted to let it live... but no one voted for it to kill us."

The infant retreated into its cocoon, and the blood-red characters changed to [first directive · Dormant].

Chen Fan collapsed onto the ground, his back drenched in cold sweat.

The critical hit system prompt flashed before his eyes: [Root Critical Hit Cooldown (Remaining 23:59:59)].

Su Shuang stirred in his arms and gently stroked his brow bone with her fingertip. "It's afraid... because it too was... chosen."

The pure white space began to collapse, and the transparent cocoons shattered one after another, revealing the mottled stone walls behind them.

Chen Fan watched as those New Players tumbled out of their cocoons and were sucked away by a suddenly appearing light gate—this time, not to a dungeon, but back to reality.

Just as he was about to breathe a sigh of relief, a faint, crisp sound came from the ground.

He looked down. The ground was covered in scattered, broken pages from the book of fate.

The edges of the paper were scorched black, some writing clear, some blurry, but Chen Fan recognized a few names—'Xiao Ma' and 'Blue Ash,' which he had just written, the Heart Cocoon Wielder's, and even... his own.

"Brother Fan." Su Shuang followed his gaze, her voice trembling in a way he had never heard before. "That door..."

Chen Fan looked up.

At the end of the collapsing space, a new door had appeared—a door cast in bronze, inscribed with three large characters: [Rewrite].

From the crack at the bottom of the door, a sliver of light, even more dazzling than pure white, leaked out.