117: Chapter 117 I'm not going to mute it, I'm going to make a huge racket!

The rock wall deep within the earth vein exuded dampness. Chen Fan leaned his back against the ice-cold stone, his knuckles touching the bronze coin at his waist.

The coin, engraved with a little fox, was clutched so tightly it felt scalding hot, like a ball of fire threatening to burn through his palm.

Black Crow squatted before the bone dish at the center of the formation. The blind youth’s eyelashes trembled slightly in the faint blue firelight as his ten fingers traced phantom images in the void—he was deciphering the last three segments of the key. The runes on the bone dish flickered on and off with his movements, resembling a swarm of fireflies disturbed from their rest.

"Old Chen, make less noise when fiddling with the coin," Black Crow suddenly spoke, a streak of blood pulling at the corner of his mouth. "The System's monitoring program is sensitive to low-frequency vibrations."

Only then did Chen Fan realize his thumb was unconsciously rubbing the coin's surface. The rustling sound of his fingertip against the engraving was exceptionally clear in the sealed earth vein.

He loosened his grip, and the bronze coin dropped back into his waist pouch. The metallic clink made the back of his neck tense—the critical hit system exploded in his Sea of Consciousness, a red warning flashing like lightning: [Detecting 'Ultimate Soothing Sound' test waveband. Remaining time until full server coverage: 5 hours and 58 minutes.]

"It's coming fast," Chen Fan licked his dry lips.

He looked at Black Crow's slightly trembling fingertips, recalling how three days ago in the junkyard, when this kid had three ribs broken by the System patrol, he had used his own flesh and blood to protect the bone dish inscribed with sonic passwords.

"What do you need me to do?" He bent down and picked up the kindling at his feet—the blue flame. It was residual fire salvaged from the ruins of the broadcast station, currently crackling fiercely in the ceramic jar. Sparks leaped onto the back of his hand, leaving a string of small red dots.

"Inject the blue flame into the formation base," Black Crow's forehead beaded with cold sweat. "Pre-decryption interference requires a living signal source."

Chen Fan didn't ask further and directly inverted the ceramic jar over the indentation of the formation base.

The moment the blue flame touched the stone surface, the critical hit system suddenly grew hot, his temples throbbing. The system prompt in his mind twisted into the sound of a Broken Gong: "...Formatting... Failure... Signal obstructed..."

He grinned. This was the first time the System had been counteracted by his cheat. Amidst the noise, he could even hear the crackling sound of data tearing apart.

The change happened without warning.

The shadows on the rock wall suddenly flowed, like a blot of ink scattered by the wind.

Chen Fan's pupils constricted—it was the shadow pact, an intangible contract spirit specialized in cleaning up 'noise' outside the System.

It had no physical form, yet as it approached, it brought a blast of icy wind that whipped Black Crow's fringe into disarray. "Be careful!" Chen Fan grabbed the battle saber at his waist, ready to charge, but was stopped by a small, slender figure.

It was Little Candle.

The girl stood at the center of the formation. The Anti-Contract Rune swirled like a vortex in her palm. Her originally pale face was flushed red from exertion: "I was never registered!" Her voice was strained, like a plucked bowstring stretched to its limit. "You can't control me!"

The rune suddenly burst into a rain of golden light, knocking the shadow of the shadow pact backward. The water stains on the rock wall trembled three times.

Even more astonishingly, whimpers rose one after another from the depths of the earth vein—dozens of Echo Corpses crawled out from the rock crevices. Their skin was grayish-blue, but their eye sockets burned with a faint blue light, and they repeated in unison with open mouths: "Formatting failed... Signal obstructed..."

"They... they are talking!" Little Candle's hands were shaking, but she smiled like a wildflower suddenly blooming.

Only then did Chen Fan see clearly: these puppets, which once only mechanically repeated System commands, now had lights in their eye sockets that were in sync with the runes on Black Crow's bone dish—it was the sound wave of the truth broadcast that had Awakened them. The memories erased by the System were now crawling back into their decayed brains along the sound patterns.

"It worked!" Black Crow suddenly straightened up. Two streams of bloody tears overflowed from the blind youth's eye sockets. "The Light Speaker has responded!"

The blue flame at the formation center shot skyward, condensing into a blurry human figure in mid-air.

It was a silver-haired woman. Her outline was like a piece of watercolor paper soaked in water, yet he could clearly see the fine hairs on her ear tips and the cinnabar mole at the corner of her eye—a mole identical to Su Shuang's.

"I am Su Shuang's older sister, Su Yao," her voice was like wind chimes blowing in the breeze, carrying the soft Wu dialect accent Chen Fan often heard in the Teahouse. "I was also the first person to say 'No' to the System."

The phantom raised a hand and pointed toward the area above the earth vein. "The souls of the initial players are imprisoned in the Starlight Tower. Every System broadcast is draining their pain."

Chen Fan's breath hitched—he remembered Su Shuang often staring blankly at the moon late at night, remembered the silver hair she hid in the secret compartment of the tea cabinet. It turned out that wasn't an ornament; it was a mark of her lineage.

"Old Chen!" Black Crow's shout pulled him back to his senses. "Stick the bronze coin into the formation eye!"

Chen Fan's hand paused on his way to the waist pouch—this coin was given to him by Su Shuang in the Newbie Village, who said it was "a keepsake."

At this moment, the little fox engraving on the coin surface was glowing faintly, as if urging him on.

He gritted his teeth and pressed the coin into the groove of the formation eye.

The critical hit system suddenly emitted a sharp beep. This time, the prompt was as clear as a morning bell: [Target Locked: Starlight Tower Sonic Control Center. Interference Window: 12 hours.]

"Let the whole city hear it—" Chen Fan roared, his voice slamming against the rock wall, causing stones to fall. "They aren't data; they are people!"

The seven abandoned broadcast stations roared simultaneously.

This was a sound Chen Fan had never heard before.

It wasn't the mechanical electronic tone of the System, but a tremor carrying breath, a sob choked with grief, and fragments of erased memories—the sound of player [Late Lin] counting bread, the laughter of player [Ink Seven] saying "Fan Qi Baozi Shop," the roar of the Iron Tongue Monk before his prayer beads shattered, Little Candle's gasp the first time she grasped the Anti-Contract Rune... All the 'noise' erased by the System was now surging toward the entire city, following the earth veins, the sewers, and every slightly ajar window.

On the streets, players clearing the zombie tide suddenly knelt, clutching their heads. "I remember now!" A warrior in leather armor cried out while tearing off his helmet. "My daughter is supposed to start elementary school today..."

At the end of an alley, a newcomer squatting by a bonfire suddenly stood up, dropping the bread in his hand onto the ground. "My little brother is still waiting for a bone marrow match in the hospital!"

The patrol team beneath the Starlight Tower froze collectively. Their weapons clattered to the ground. One young member suddenly laughed, laughing until his face was smeared with tears and snot: "My mom said, I have to live to eat dumplings at home..."

At the top of the Starlight Tower, the red light flashed wildly.

The silver-haired woman's phantom suddenly solidified. She touched her earlobe, where she wore a bronze coin identical to Chen Fan's. "Little brother..." Her tears splashed into the void, scattering fine starlight. "You finally brought the voices back."

Chen Fan stood at the end of the earth vein, gazing at the blue flame shooting into the sky.

The firelight illuminated the engravings on the rock wall—countless names erased by the System, now gently vibrating with the sound waves, as if applauding.

He touched the empty space where the coin used to be at his waist, his throat tight.

Black Crow leaned against the bone dish. The blind youth's bloody tears had stopped, and he was wiping his face with his blood-stained sleeve: "Old Chen, System alert..."

"I hear it," Chen Fan looked up. A piercing screech, like metal scraping glass, came from above the earth vein.

He knew the System was activating its final protocol, intending to erase the memories of all Awakened and seal the truth back into the data prison.

But he didn't care anymore—he looked at Little Candle, who was squatting among the Echo Corpses, gently stroking the top of each one's head, as if comforting startled children; he looked at Black Crow, the youth carefully tucking the bone dish into his chest, his knuckles still stained with blood, yet smiling like a child; he looked at the vibrating names on the rock wall, the people the System called 'data,' who were now proving they were alive through sound.

"I won't mute myself, nor will I flee," Chen Fan whispered softly to the blue flame, his voice mixing with the sound waves and traveling deep into the earth vein. "This fight, we'll make noise until the very end."

As the Starlight Tower's alarm tore through the night sky, the 'Kindling Echo Formation' in the deep earth vein suddenly surged three inches higher.

Within the firelight, the bronze coin Chen Fan had inserted into the formation eye glowed faintly, the little fox engraving radiating a warm light, as if responding to a call crossing time and space.