16: Chapter 16 Even bricklayers deserve to wear crowns?

Chen Fan knelt on one knee on the blue tiles of the Teahouse, the lingering bell vibrating in his palm until his tiger's mouth went numb.

He could clearly feel the fox tattoo on his arm heating up with his heartbeat, as if a ball of fire was about to shoot out from under his skin.

"Drink it." Su Shuang's voice came from beside him.

He turned his head and saw that she was already standing on the other side of the roof ridge, holding a plain white teacup in her palm, with a few snow plum blossoms floating in the mist. "The premonition backlash will scorch your spiritual meridians. This cup of 'frost soullead' can suppress..."

"Now is not the time to hide it." Chen Fan interrupted her, his Adam's apple bobbing.

He looked at the sky in the distance, which was cleaved by the system interface—a blood-red wanted poster floated under the gray clouds, his own face magnified into a three-square-meter giant portrait. The words "Brick Hauler" were marked on his forehead in scarlet font. "The more they want me to hide, the more I'm going to smash this window paper open."

Su Shuang's fingertips trembled slightly, the ripples in the teacup reflecting the surging light in her eyes.

She wanted to say something, but was drowned out by the sudden explosion of the server-wide announcement.

【Ding—New Player Livestream Activated: [Return to Construction Site · Zombie King Rises Again]!】

Chen Fan looked up, and a huge projection screen appeared in mid-air.

In the scene, the rusty iron door of the Warehouse in Area B was kicked open, and Zhao Iron Pillar stood at the very front, stepping on cement blocks.

This man's originally swollen face was flushed grayish-blue with excitement. He raised his rusty shovel high above his head: "Chen Fan? That brick hauler? Today I'll become the face of the entire server and nail him onto the pile of Zombie King corpses!"

"Brother!" Xiao Tao's scream shot up from downstairs.

The maid, wearing twin ponytails, held a wooden ladder, clutching a stack of wanted posters. "They've plastered your wanted posters all over the Beginner Zone! I counted, seventeen hanging at the east alley entrance, outside the West Market bun shop..."

Chen Fan didn't reply.

He stared at the outer wall of the warehouse behind Zhao Iron Pillar in the livestream—the cracks caused by him smashing the Zombie King with bricks three days ago were still there.

The lingering bell in his palm suddenly grew hot. On a whim, he pressed the bone fragment onto it, and instantly, a damp, foul odor rushed into his mind through his spiritual meridian.

Deep underground. A ball of red light was pulsating.

It looked exactly like the core of the Soul Extraction Device he had seen in the construction site's underground pit.

"They aren't going to kill the BOSS," Chen Fan's voice suddenly deepened, his knuckles turning pale. "They are going to offer a sacrifice."

Su Shuang's pupils contracted sharply.

She understood—the rebirth data chain of the Zombie King was coinciding with the frequency of the system extracting souls.

Zhao Iron Pillar leading the charge was merely providing 'fuel' for that machine.

"You can't go." She reached out to grab his wrist, only to see him already leaping off the eaves.

His work pants brushed against the edge of the tile, dislodging two pieces of broken porcelain.

"I hauled bricks here to survive back then." Chen Fan raised dust as he landed. He looked up and smiled at her, revealing white teeth. "Today, I will take back the dignity they trampled underfoot, starting from that very ground."

The system prompt sounded right on time: 【Temporary Mission Triggered: Participate in the [Construction Site Instance Restart], defeat the Zombie King, reward a Random class token (0.1% probability)!】

The Beginner Zone erupted into chaos.

Players who had been hiding in the safe houses scattered like disturbed hornets, brandishing wooden sticks and iron shovels towards the construction site.

Chen Fan mixed into the crowd, deliberately rolling up his work pant sleeves to his elbows—the scar from being scratched by a zombie last time was still there.

In the livestream, Little Honey's camera immediately zoomed in.

This girl, with pink twin ponytails and flashing lights clipped to her headset, exclaimed: "Fam, look! The Brick Hauling God is actually wearing his construction gear onto the battlefield! Is this patch... modified from a cement bag?" She suddenly lowered her voice. "I just asked an old player, the class token can unlock exclusive skill trees, a 0.1% chance! But look at Chen Fan's condition—is he seriously going to fight the LV6 Zombie King with a brick?"

The iron door of the Warehouse in Area B creaked open slightly.

The hairs on the back of Chen Fan's neck stood up.

The passive premonition delivered a sharp pain 0.5 seconds early—this was the strongest danger warning he had received since activating the system.

He looked at the dark shadow slowly crawling out from inside the door, his throat tightening.

How was this a Zombie King?

Its three-meter-tall body was wrapped in rotting gray cement work clothes, with ghostly blue data chains wrapped around its spinal vertebrae.

The most horrifying thing was the broken iron crown on its head; the rusty crown horns pierced into its skull. Its health bar clearly read: [Construction Site Zombie King LV6 (Reborn Body)]

"Charge, you bastards!" Zhao Iron Pillar rushed forward, wielding his shovel.

Behind him, six lackeys raised green-grade weapons, their blades striking the chains and splashing sparks.

But the Zombie King didn't even turn its head. A rebar shot out like a stinger from its tailbone, piercing the chest of the nearest player with a 'poof'.

"Trash!" Dao Ge spat out a mouthful of saliva.

This man had knotted muscles, and a giant axe nearly half his height rested on his shoulder. The blade was sharpened until it gleamed.

He pushed off the ground with one foot and leaped up, the air current from his axe swing blowing away two pieces of sheet metal: "My 'Mountain Splitter Axe' has cleaved Silver-tier BOSSes. Hacking a Reborn Body..."

There was a dull 'thud'.

Dao Ge's axe blade got stuck in the chain.

The Zombie King slowly turned its head, and its right eye suddenly burst forth with a blinding red light—this was the color Chen Fan had seen in the underground secret chamber when the Soul Extraction Device activated!

"It's going to extract souls!" Chen Fan's pupils constricted.

He saw Zhao Iron Pillar still standing there foolishly, holding his shovel and shouting "Hit the weak spot," while the red light crawled towards his feet along the chain.

Without hesitation.

He lunged like a cannonball towards Zhao Iron Pillar's back.

As both of them flew out, Chen Fan heard a crisp 'crack' from his left arm—the Zombie King's tailbone swept past his arm, and foul, sticky fluid mixed with garbled data seeped into the wound. His skin cracked at a visible rate.

"Chen Fan was hit!" Little Honey's scream pierced the livestream. "Fam, look at his arm... it's smoking blue! That's data corrosion! It's over, it's over, Bronze Tier 3 can't withstand LV6..."

But Chen Fan didn't fall.

He gritted his teeth and pushed himself up, pressing his right hand against his chest.

There, the copper bell formed by the layered lingering bell and bone fragment was vibrating wildly. The critical hit system's notification exploded into a chorus: 【Bloodline Resonance Detected + Hatred Value Exceeded Threshold, Passive Premonition Upgraded—Can sense danger 1 second in advance!】

The next instant, he instinctively leaned sideways.

The rebar the Zombie King swept towards him whistled past his ear, smashing into a cement pillar behind him and kicking up a cloud of rubble.

"You guys are fighting for the class token," Chen Fan wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and stepped onto the rebar frame to leap into the air.

Wind rushed into his work pants. He looked down at the upturned faces below and suddenly laughed. "What I'm fighting for is—"

"Life!"

The Zombie King seemed enraged.

It roared to the sky, and the iron crown clattered to the ground.

Chen Fan's gaze locked precisely onto the iron crown—on its inner side, where the rust had peeled away, two small characters faintly appeared: 【frost soul】.

"Weak point exposed for three seconds!" Zhao Iron Pillar was the first to react.

He kicked away the lackey at his feet and charged towards the exposed nape of the Zombie King's brainstem, wielding his shovel.

Dao Ge's axe blade also pulled free from the chain, throwing off a string of sparks.

Everyone charged towards the BOSS's weak point with bloodshot eyes, but only Chen Fan stared at the iron crown on the ground.

He could feel the lingering bell heating up in his palm. Those two characters were like a needle, stabbing fiercely into his memory—Su Shuang had said that the "frost soul" guarded by the Fox Clan for generations was the key to breaking the deadlock.

The moment the iron crown landed, Zhao Iron Pillar's figure was already pouncing over.

He grinned, his fingernails nearly digging into the edge of the iron crown: "I'm going to be..."

Chen Fan looked at his distorted face, the hum of the warning system sounding in his ears.

He bent down, grabbed half a brick lying at his feet, and rubbed the still-damp cement on the brick with his fingertips—this was his old companion from three years of hauling bricks at the construction site.

"Trying to snatch it?" he whispered. "I prepared it for you long ago."