21: Chapter 21 The Eye in the Chip Recognizes Me

As the wooden door of the Teahouse creaked shut behind Chen Fan, the bowl of medicine Xiao Tao was holding swayed, sloshing out half a drop of brown liquid that spread into a deep brown circle on the blue brick floor.

However, her gaze was entirely glued to the chip in Chen Fan's arms—inside the transparent crystal, barely the size of a fingernail, faint wisps of grayish-white mist could be seen swirling, like fireflies trapped in a glass jar.

"Place it next to the bone fragment," Chen Fan's voice was hoarse, bearing the trace of having screamed until his voice broke at the bottom of the Tower.

He walked to the tea table and gently brushed his fingertip across the charred leg bone lying there—he had picked it up three days ago in the ruins of the Newbie Village, and Su Shuang said it was the remains of her older sister.

When the chip was still ten centimeters away from the bone fragment, the air suddenly rippled like water. The medicine bowl in Xiao Tao's hand clattered to the ground, scattering porcelain shards near Chen Fan's trouser cuff.

A holographic illusion exploded in the center of the tea table.

Chen Fan's pupils contracted sharply.

It was a scene from the Newbie Village that he knew intimately: Old Horse Head, wearing blue cloth overalls, shouldering a shovel and running toward the village entrance; A Qiang, who had been bitten to death by a wild boar last month, hacking at a tree demon with a wooden sword; and a little girl with pigtails squatting by the well, watering the wild flowers required by a system quest.

But every time they completed a task—Old Horse Head driving the shovel into the system-designated pit, A Qiang felling the last tree demon, the little girl placing the wild flowers into the stone urn—a thin strand of pale gold mist would rise above their heads, as if drawn away by an invisible hand, merging into the churning cloud layer of data in the sky.

"That is..." Xiao Tao's voice trembled, "Is that a soul?"

Chen Fan's throat tightened.

He recalled the blurry figures inside the chip when he was at the bottom of the Tower, and now he finally saw them clearly—every wisp of mist carried an undissipated emotion. Old Horse Head's mist strand was tinged with comforting warm yellow, A Qiang's stained with the dark red of unwillingness, and the little girl's wrapped in the light pink of innocence. Ultimately, they were all shredded by red tentacles reaching out from the cloud layer and dissolved into the torrent of data.

The illusion suddenly twisted, and the scene jumped to a blood-red Tower.

The runes Chen Fan had seen at the bottom of the Tower were carved on the spire, and deep within, the ball of light wrapped in black mist suddenly cracked open, revealing a familiar face—Su Shuang.

No, it was a younger Su Shuang.

She was wearing a moon-white dress, with a golden-red teardrop mole at the corner of her eye, cocooned by red light.

Chen Fan watched as blood seeped from her fingertips, drawing a Fox Clan rune in the void, tearing a thin seam in the data stream!

But the next second, black chains shot out from the red light, piercing directly through her heart. The faint golden-red glimmer was instantly extinguished.

"Sister..." Su Shuang appeared at the table without anyone noticing.

Her hand hovered above the illusion, her fingertips trembling slightly, as if she wanted to touch that crushed glimmer. "So she didn't fail to resist... the System sealed her bloodline with chains..."

Chen Fan turned to look at her.

Moonlight leaked through the window lattice, illuminating the redness around her eyes. The tea in her cup had long gone cold, yet she hadn't touched it.

He remembered the calmness when Su Shuang said last night that her entire clan had been erased by the System, and only now did he understand the knife-like pain hidden beneath that tranquility.

"Brother!" Xiao Tao's startled cry pierced the atmosphere like a needle.

Chen Fan subconsciously rolled up his left sleeve. The mark where decaying flesh intertwined with the fox tattoo had already crawled to his shoulder. Every fissure glowed with a faint dark red light, like a wound stitched up with blood threads.

Su Shuang gently stroked those fissures. The warmth transmitted through her fingertips sent a chill down Chen Fan's spine. "This time, the tea can only suppress the pain." She took out newly roasted Longjing from the tea cabinet, and the tea leaves made a faint rustling sound in the porcelain jar. "The soul fissures are too deep, unless..."

"Unless I stop using critical hits," Chen Fan finished, his voice as light as a sigh.

He recalled the warning in the System notification: 'Every time a critical hit is triggered, the soul fissure deepens,' remembering the expression on Old Horse Head's face when his soul was drawn away, and remembering the final crushed glimmer of Su Shuang's sister. "If I stop, who will seek justice for Old Horse Head? Who will overthrow this damned System for your sister?"

A harsh electronic sound suddenly rang out in the Teahouse.

Xiao Tao fumbled for her phone. The red dot on the forum interface looked like bursting blood beads: "Signal Tower mission failed, but Chen Fan took the chip!" "Did he discover something?" The top post was from Brother Dao, accompanied by a screenshot of Chen Fan rushing out from the bottom of the Tower. "Chen Fan is suspected of stealing System resources. All New Players may initiate a pursuit against him."

"Brother, they are going to encircle and suppress you!" Xiao Tao's hand gripping the phone trembled violently. "The forum is currently broadcasting your coordinates, saying the System is offering double rewards to pursuers..."

Chen Fan did not reply.

He pulled out the last class token from his embrace—ten Bronze-tier class tokens. He had previously used nine to determine that 'Warrior' was the most compatible with the critical hit system. This last one felt searing hot in his palm.

The moment his fingertip pressed against the class token, a golden light shot up his arm along the palm lines: "[Class conversion successful! Acquired [Warrior Class] exclusive passive: Critical Echo (Within 5 seconds after every critical hit, the next attack is guaranteed to trigger a critical hit!)]"

The porcelain shards on the tea table suddenly floated up.

Chen Fan clenched his fist, and the wind from his punch swept up the scattered tea powder, forming a golden vortex around him.

He looked out at the deepening night beyond the window, pulling his lips into a blood-tinged smile: "The System wants to lock me down with class tokens? I'll use them instead to fight my way to freedom."

He pushed the chip toward Su Shuang. "Your clan's bloodline can read souls. Help me see how many people are still trapped inside."

Jasmine fragrance drifted from the Teahouse's backyard late at night.

Chen Fan squatted by the old well. The lingering bell jingled softly at his waist—Old Horse Head had stuffed it into his hand before dying, saying, "If you encounter a life-or-death hurdle, shake it three times."

Red light suddenly surged from the well, and the water surface reflected a blurry face—it was Master Shi from the Newbie Village.

"...Don't trust the chip..." Master Shi's voice sounded like crumpled paper. "It's reverse-locating you..."

Before he finished speaking, Chen Fan's wristband vibrated violently.

The wristbands of all New Players in the city simultaneously lit up red. The System announcement, sounding like a puppet with electrical static, flooded from all directions: "[S-rank threat source detected... Coordinates locked... Purge procedure... Initiated]"

Chen Fan looked up sharply.

Above the city, seven beams of faint blue light from the monitors sliced through the night sky, like seven suspended swords, their tips all aimed at the flying eaves of the Frost Moon Teahouse.

Su Shuang appeared behind him without anyone knowing, tightly clutching her sister's leg bone in her hand.

The moonlight made her fox ears faintly visible, but her voice was steady as a mountain: "They've arrived."

Chen Fan pulled out the lingering bell and wiped the engraved marks on its body with his fingertip.

He looked at the silver hairpin swaying in Su Shuang's hair, at Xiao Tao's worried little face peeking out from the window, and suddenly smiled: "Good, they've come. This time, I'm not hiding."

The blue light of the monitors grew brighter and brighter, casting a faint blue net on the ground.

Chen Fan turned and saw the flickering golden-red glimmer in Su Shuang's eyes—the same as her sister's in the illusion.

He reached out and shoved hard, causing Su Shuang and Xiao Tao to stumble backward into the inner room.

"Guard the chip," he said, his voice torn apart by the increasingly loud engine noise. "Wait for me to return."