105: Chapter 105 My name is not for you to seduce.

The dust had not yet completely settled, and Chen Fan's knuckles were still wedged in the residual warmth of the Flame Marrow fire seed.

He crouched down, his blood-stained fingers just about to touch the corner of the player manual that had drifted out when the Iron Page disintegrated, when a light gate suddenly lit up deep within the secret chamber, seizing his gaze.

That light wasn't the system's usual cold white; it was a warm orange, much like the streetlight at the entrance of his hometown village that always stayed lit late into the night—the same lamp that had accompanied him as he counted stars while squatting by the roadside eating a cold bun after being scolded by the foreman until midnight when he was fifteen.

His Adam's apple bobbed as Chen Fan staggered to his feet. Blood and foam dripped from his chin onto the ground, blooming into dark red flowers on the bluestone slabs.

A translucent scroll floated at the edge of the light gate, the five characters for "First Obliteration Order" on its cover shifting like living things.

Chen Fan had only taken two steps when a wisp of black mist suddenly emerged from the scroll and coiled around his wrist.

The thing had no physical form, yet it made his divine sense feel as if it were being pricked by needles, the pain making his knees buckle: "Reading constitutes signing; violators' divine sense will be evaporated."

It was a shadow pact.

He remembered what Silent Eye had said before—this thing would stick to the reader like a leech and carve their name into the obliteration list in the deepest depths of the system.

But the words of the Heart Cocoon Wielder suddenly exploded in his ears: "They voted for it to live... but no one voted for it to kill us." Chen Fan's nails dug deep into his palms, the taste of blood spreading in his mouth.

He thought of Granny Zhang's hand clutching his hem before she was erased, the screams of the old patrons in Su Shuang's Teahouse as they disappeared after being judged "useless" by the system, and the dense names on the Iron Page's human skin—lights that should never have been extinguished.

"To hell with your signing." He bit his fingertip, and beads of blood dripped through his fingers as he crookedly wrote "No deleting names" in the air.

This was the oath he had made to Su Shuang before the Gate of Rewriting three days ago. At that time, they were still squatting in the ruins eating compressed biscuits, and the tip of her fox tail had secretly brushed against the back of his hand as she said, "Brother Fan, I believe in you."

The shadow pact suddenly shrieked, and the tentacles formed from black mist curled up as if they had been burned.

The light gate cracked open with a "creak," the scroll unfurled with a "whoosh," and holographic images surged forth like a tide—

A construction site ten years ago; he was carrying a bag of cement toward the mixer.

Suddenly, countless streams of data fell from the sky, covering him like a silver curtain of rain.

The system notification exploded in his mind: "Purifier Candidate Locked—Chen Fan, Critical Hit Potential ∞." The youth in the image looked up blankly, cement dust still clinging to his forehead.

The scene switched to a meeting room in the Administration Bureau. A man in a suit in the holographic projection pushed up his glasses: "The uncontrollability of the Awakened has exceeded the threshold; a self-purification mechanism must be cultivated.

If Chen Fan loses control..." His fingertip tapped the edge of the image, "Backup Vessel: Su Shuang (Fox Demon Bloodline · High Compatibility)."

Chen Fan's pupils constricted violently.

He remembered Su Shuang coughing up blood in the Teahouse three days ago. She always called it an "old problem," but looking at it now—the system had long since locked her in as a backup battery.

A metallic sweetness rose in his throat, and he smashed his fist into the scroll.

The holographic image shattered at the impact, but the black mist of the shadow pact suddenly tightened, making his wrist bone "crack": "Signing incomplete, executing obliteration."

"Chen Fan!"

It was Ink Judge.

Black blood was seeping from the crack in his brain casing, and silver threads curled like spider silk that had been scorched by fire.

Only then did Chen Fan realize that when the Iron Page disintegrated just now, Ink Judge's divine sense silver threads had their protective layer burned through by the back-flowing flames—beneath his bronze mask, half of a mangled face was revealed, with half a melted chip still embedded in his left eye.

"I... I also once refused." Ink Judge staggered over, leaving black-red bloodstains on the ground with every step. "They made me watch the people of the whole city cry, saying that forgetting was a mercy... I convinced myself... but those names..." He suddenly laughed, blood splatter hitting Chen Fan's face. "Now it's my turn to convince myself—dying for you is a mercy."

The black mist of the shadow pact "swished" toward Ink Judge.

Chen Fan tried to grab him, but only caught a handful of his hem that crumbled into dust.

Ink Judge's body began to turn transparent, like an old movie being fast-forwarded.

He gave Chen Fan one last look, his mouth clearly saying "Go," and then disappeared completely, leaving only half a sentence of drifting sound: "The list... is updating..."

Chen Fan clenched his fist, Ink Judge's blood still on his fingers.

He picked up the unconscious Little Candle, only to find that the exit of the secret chamber had been sealed by a metal gate at some point.

A figure stood at the end of the passage. The blind girl's eyes were streaming with bloody tears, her voice sounding as if it were soaked in ice: "I am Quiet Speech, and the Iron Page was my clansman." She walked over step by step in the dark, treading on the shredded skin. "After I was deleted, my consciousness was programmed into the Proofreading Program... the Broken Pen Official left something for you."

When the bone fragment touched his palm, Chen Fan shuddered.

It was a piece of sheep bone that still held body heat, and blood-red characters were appearing on it: "Old Chen, do you still remember that night at the construction site?

What they gave you wasn't wages; it was a code."

Memories suddenly surged.

On a summer night when he was fifteen, when the foreman stuffed the crumpled wages into his hand, his thumb pressed heavily against the back of his hand as he tucked in a bronze coin: "The rules are set by me, this money is to ward off evil." Chen Fan pulled out the long-rusted coin from the depths of his pocket and placed it into the notch of the bone fragment—with a "click," the bronze coin and the bone fragment fit perfectly, revealing a line of coordinates: Starlight Tower Base · Fire Seed Well.

"You... have deviated from the settings..."

The voice of the critical hit system suddenly sounded in his temples. It was no longer a mechanical electronic voice, but sounded like someone whispering against his ear, with a slightly raspy breath, "But... I acknowledge you."

Chen Fan looked down at Little Candle.

The little girl's eyelashes cast small fan-like shadows under her eyes, and the corners of her mouth were still stained with the glucose water he had fed her earlier.

He gently placed Little Candle into Silent Eye's arms: "Take her away, and carve the list at the base of every tower." Silent Eye's fingers stroked the top of Little Candle's head, and she nodded solemnly.

The light gate was still there, the orange light enveloping his shadow.

Chen Fan tore off his blood-stained collar to wipe his face, then turned and walked toward the light gate.

Silent Eye's voice came from behind: "Brother Fan... be careful of the shadow pact." He didn't look back, only gripping the bone fragment tightly.

The system vibrated gently in his mind, as if counting his heartbeats.

"I am not a Purifier." He stood before the light gate, his throat tight. "I am here for the reckoning."

The moment the light gate closed, a wisp of black mist as thin as a strand of hair coiled around his fingertip.

That was a remnant thread of the shadow pact, still carrying the power of the uncompleted contract.

Chen Fan looked down and suddenly smiled—the system always loved to mark his position, but this time, he was determined to stand outside the target.

The moment the light gate closed completely, the alarm in the secret chamber suddenly blared again.

Chen Fan's figure vanished into the light, but he wasn't teleported back to the safe zone as usually happened at the end of a dungeon.

In the darkness, the "No deleting names" message stained with his blood drifted to the ground, slowly melting into the cracks of the bluestone slabs like a seed.