112: Chapter 112 I can't hear you, but I'm determined to steal the truth.

The air in the secret chamber carried the scent of rust.

Chen Fan knelt on the bluestone floor, his knees pressing against Su Shuang's fallen strands of hair. He watched the golden-red fox tattoo at the corner of her eye flicker like scattered sparks blown by the wind.

"Shuanger?" His throat tightened. His fingertips lightly touched the back of her hand, which was cold to the touch.

Su Shuang's eyelashes trembled like butterfly wings drenched by rain.

She suddenly opened her eyes, the golden-red in her pupils churning into a vortex. Her right hand pulled away from his grasp, her nails scraping fine sounds on the floor—eight characters gradually appeared on the bluestone slab, the brushstrokes shaky yet exceptionally clear: "Go find Black Crow... He can hear the lies in the sound."

"Black Crow?" Chen Fan's pupils constricted sharply.

The Broken Pen Official had once mentioned during his storytelling at the Teahouse that among the initial players, there was a 'System Linguist' who could decipher the hidden codes beneath the system prompts. Back then, Chen Fan had dismissed it as wild talk spun by the patrons.

Before the words had fully faded, the black-purple metallic patterns around Su Shuang's wrist suddenly surged, crawling up her arm toward her neck. The golden-red fox tattoo was suppressed until it was only the size of a fingernail.

Her eyelids closed heavily, her fingertips slipping from his palm like a crumpled piece of paper.

"Shuanger!" Chen Fan gripped her wrist; the metallic patterns pricked his palm painfully.

The critical hit system hummed low in his Sea of Consciousness, and a bloody prompt flashed before his eyes: [Memory is blurred... but the target has been locked].

Those fragments deliberately erased by the system suddenly surged forward—the low voice the Broken Pen Official had used while telling stories: "Someone can hear the System lying. That is an ear more dangerous than the Starlight Tower..."

"Little Candle! Broken Pen Official!" He roared out.

The hidden door creaked open with a 'zhi ya' sound. Little Candle rushed in holding a medicine box, her hair tips still dusted with sparks from the barrier's recent collapse.

The Broken Pen Official leaned against the doorframe, gasping for breath, half his beard scorched. He clutched a bluestone brick inscribed with runes: "The earth vein's secret passage leads to the abandoned well in the west of the city. Hiding for three days is no problem."

Chen Fan gently handed Su Shuang over to Little Candle.

Su Shuang's head lolled onto Little Candle's shoulder, the green jade hairpin in her hair tapping the corner of the medicine box with a 'ding' sound.

His Adam's apple bobbed: "If she wakes up..."

"I know," Little Candle nodded, her eyes red-rimmed. "I will read the name you carved onto the Tinder for her to hear."

The Broken Pen Official patted his back: "Black Crow is at the Silent Chapel. I stole half an old map." He pulled out a yellowed piece of paper from his embrace; the edges were still stained with blood. "But the Chapel is currently controlled by the Iron Tongue Monk. They specialize in burning 'Heretical Quotations' and ring the death knell upon seeing any living creature..."

"Enough," Chen Fan tucked a bronze coin onto his waist. The blue flame shot along the coin's body to the hilt of his blade. "I'll go."

As he turned, he heard Little Candle sniffling behind him: "Brother Chen..."

"Wait for me to bring Black Crow back." He didn't look back, afraid he wouldn't be able to move his legs.

The moment he stepped over the threshold of the Teahouse, the system prompt exploded above his head, like a rusty iron plate crashing down: "Server-wide Announcement! Wanted Player [Chen Fan] for harboring the 'Virus Source' Black Crow. The crime is equivalent to rebellion. Purge Countdown: Seventy-two hours."

Chen Fan stopped in his tracks.

The black mist of the shadow pact drilled up from the ground, coiling around his fingertips, cold as iron chains soaked in ice water: "Violators will have their spiritual sense vaporized."

He stared at the black mist on his fingertip and suddenly laughed.

The Tinder's blue flame rose from his palm. He inverted his hand and pressed the blue flame into his ear—the system prompt twisted inside his mind into a piercing noise, mixed with a clear whisper: "...Purge... cognitive contamination source..."

"So this is what you're afraid of," he clenched his fist. The blue flame crept up his neck along his blood vessels. "Afraid someone will understand your lies."

The wind in the abandoned district carried the scent of rust.

Chen Fan walked close to the wall, his eyes fixed on the red 'X' on the Broken Pen Official's map—the spire of the Silent Chapel looked like a blackened needle in the twilight.

Outside the chapel stood a stone tablet inscribed: "Speech is Sin, Hearing is Punishment." Scorched paper ash was stuffed into the crevices of the characters.

The moment he touched the back wall of the chapel, a bell chimed overhead.

The first strike.

The second strike.

The third strike... twelve strikes in total, each chime vibrating Chen Fan's eardrums.

He looked up and saw a nun in a gray cloth dress standing at the top of the bell tower, blind and looking upward, the clapper lightly swaying in her hand.

With every strike, a barely visible ripple spread through the air, like a stone tossed into a deep pool, washing toward the depths of the bell tower.

"Silent Bell Maiden," he recalled the Broken Pen Official's words. "The bell she rings is a secret code. Twelve strikes means 'Safe.'"

As the ripple swept over him, the system mark on his body suddenly felt cold—it was the tracking curse of the shadow pact.

He used the ripple as cover and climbed the bell tower using the drainpipe.

The moment he pushed the door open, a stench of blood rushed out.

Chen Fan covered his mouth and nose, seeing a blind young man sitting cross-legged before a broken terminal, wearing bone earpieces while his fingers flew across a blood-covered keyboard.

The projection on the wall displayed a string of flickering code, with the top line reading: "First Prompt Tone: Welcome to the New World... (Original Instruction: Soul Harvest Protocol Initiated)."

"You came," the blind young man said without looking up. The characters on the blood keyboard lit up with a faint blue light as he moved. "I heard the echo of the Tinder in your footsteps."

"Black Crow?" Chen Fan shut the window behind him. "Su Shuang said you can hear the lies in the sound."

"She has the Fox Demon Bloodline; she can see through the essence of a pact." Black Crow's fingers suddenly froze. Black blood seeped from the bone earpieces. "But now..."

"Dong—"

The thirteenth chime exploded.

This chime was different from the previous twelve; it was like a piece of broken iron smashing against a bronze basin, making Chen Fan's temples throb.

Black Crow suddenly looked up, and fresh blood seeped from his blind eye sockets: "They're here! Sound Without Return... He can locate me by the 'True Word Echoes'!"

The critical hit system trembled violently in his Sea of Consciousness. Bloody text flashed before Chen Fan's eyes: [Warning—False prompt is about to be generated].

The next second, the system announcement rang out, its voice sickeningly sweet: "Safe Zone has been activated. Recommend proceeding to the Chapel for refuge."

His pupils contracted. This voice was identical to the "Purge Instruction" he had heard in his mind moments ago.

In the twilight outside the bell tower, Sound Without Return stood on the abandoned platform.

Blood seeped from his ears, and he held a Soul-Splitting Flute in his hand, its body carved with twisted runes.

The flute had not yet sounded, but the bell body had already begun to vibrate, cracks crawling from the mouth toward the top like a hissing snake.

"There's no escaping," he licked the blood from the corner of his mouth, aiming the Soul-Splitting Flute at the bell tower. "Let me hear how loud your 'Truth' is."