30: Chapter 30 The sticker is on fire; you'll only believe it if it's burning your hand.

Inside the abandoned pipe, the fishy, rusty scent mingled with the faint glow of dispersed spiritual energy, weaving a tapestry of dead silence in the darkness.

Chen Fan knelt on one knee, his palm tightly pressing the cold 'Bronze Core,' his eyes bloodshot as he stared at the unconscious Xiaolin.

The gruesome wound on the youth's chest had nearly split him in two. The flesh around the edges of the cut was already beginning to show an ominous, ashen pallor, and the protective array runes circling him flickered like a candle in the wind, on the verge of extinguishing.

Can't wait any longer!

Chen Fan's gaze sharpened, without the slightest hesitation remaining.

He precisely embedded the Bronze Core, covered in ancient patterns, into the bizarre indentation on Xiaolin's chest.

The moment the two touched, it was as if a key had been inserted into an ancient lock sealed for a thousand years.

"Hold on!"

With a low shout, Chen Fan poured his remaining spiritual energy into the core without reservation!

Buzz—!

The core suddenly erupted with a brilliant bronze light. This light was not dazzling; instead, it carried a sense of heavy antiquity and vitality, like that of the primordial world.

The light instantly illuminated the entire pipe as bright as day. Countless thread-like bronze light streams, like living things, surged from the interface between the core and the indentation, madly pouring into every part of Xiaolin's body.

A miracle occurred.

The ashen, lifeless flesh, which had lost its vitality, actually began to regain a vibrant crimson color at a speed visible to the naked eye under the scouring of the bronze light streams.

At the edges of the gruesome cracks, new flesh buds began to grow wildly, intertwining and merging, slowly but firmly closing the wound.

The flickering array runes, nourished by this pure life energy, stabilized once more, emitting a gentle halo.

Just then, a sound transmission talisman in Chen Fan's embrace suddenly materialized on its own. Su Shuang's voice, tinged with urgency and trembling, came through it, echoing in the enclosed pipe: "Chen Fan! You used that core? It... it can activate bloodline resonance... That is an heirloom of our Fox Clan, stolen by Mo Thousand Hands a long time ago!"

Chen Fan was stunned.

Fox Clan heirloom?

No wonder!

No wonder Old Cripple's eyes looked so strange—filled with shock, greed, and a hint of... fear—when he saw this Bronze Core during the gamble that day.

So that's how it is. The origin of this thing is far more complicated than he imagined!

"Brother..."

A weak voice interrupted Chen Fan's thoughts.

He looked down. Xiaolin had slowly woken up. Although his face was still pale as paper, his breathing had stabilized, and his eyes had regained clarity.

The first thing he did upon waking was not to worry about his own injuries, but to laboriously raise his hand and point behind Chen Fan.

"There are words on your back..."

Chen Fan paused, quickly taking off his outer shirt, which was already soaked with sweat and bloodstains.

Using the remaining light from the Bronze Core, he turned his head to look at his right shoulder blade.

On his smooth skin, an obscure, dark red, strange pattern had appeared at some unknown time. The pattern was one he was intimately familiar with—it was the 'Broken Chain' that Stone Skin had given him!

Even stranger, this tattoo-like pattern was emitting faint wisps of subtle heat, as if a sleeping brand had been awakened, responding across endless time and space to some ancient summons.

A thought flashed through Chen Fan's mind like lightning!

He suddenly remembered that when he devoured that memory fragment during the gamble, he had caught a glimpse of a list.

On that list, written in blood, the very first name was 'Stone Skin'!

The night grew deeper.

Chen Fan had just settled Xiaolin when a dark shadow appeared silently behind him, like a ghost.

It was Stone Skin.

He was still in his usual slovenly state, a cheap, unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth. Without a word, he merely cast one look at Chen Fan with his cloudy eyes, then turned and walked toward a deeper alley.

Chen Fan asked no questions, simply clenched his fist and followed silently.

After passing through three secret doors disguised as walls, the path underfoot turned into downward steps.

Cold, damp air rushed toward them, and finally, they arrived at a spacious underground secret room.

The walls of the secret room were covered with at least a hundred photographs of newly ascended players. Beneath every photo were annotations listing their names, abilities, and the time they entered the 'Game.'

Countless crimson threads crisscrossed between the photos, connecting to form a terrifying giant web.

In the very center of the secret room was a massive three-dimensional city map, marked with different colored indicators showing the spheres of influence of various factions in different areas.

"This is the 'Resistance Network.'"

Stone Skin finally spoke, his voice as hoarse as two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together.

His withered finger pointed to the center of the map, "We are all waiting, waiting for someone who can break the rules."

Chen Fan's gaze swept over the dense web of photos, his brow tightly furrowed: "Why me?"

Stone Skin grinned, revealing his signature broken tooth. His smile carried a hint of madness and approval: "Because you won a game you shouldn't have, killed people you shouldn't have, and took... something you shouldn't have.'"

His gaze flickered meaningfully toward Chen Fan's chest, as if he could see through his clothes and spot the Bronze Core that had temporarily merged with Xiaolin.

"This is only the beginning."

Stone Skin pulled a copper token, scalding hot to the touch, from his embrace and handed it to Chen Fan. "The next stop is the Old Power Plant in the west of the city. There are clues to the 'Silver Core' there.'"

Chen Fan took the copper token, which was also branded with the 'Broken Chain' pattern.

Leaving the secret room and returning to the surface, the cold night wind blew against Chen Fan, but it could not cool the burning heat of his thoughts in the slightest.

Just as he was rapidly moving through the alleys, preparing to find a place to digest all this, a tearing, splitting pain suddenly shot through the area in his mind where the critical hit system was located!

[Warning! Critical Overload Risk: 61%!]

[System is undergoing adaptive evolution based on host behavior patterns... Evolution will intensify mental load!]

In an instant, countless chaotic illusions rushed into his vision.

He saw himself standing atop a sky-piercing tower, clad in a black robe, possessing supreme majesty, with a sea of tens of thousands kneeling beneath him.

And behind him, Su Shuang's figure was gradually becoming transparent, finally dissolving into countless cold data streams, silently vanishing into the wind.

"No!"

Chen Fan jolted awake from the vision, drenched in cold sweat.

He gasped for breath and found himself standing at a crossroads. In his palm, the broken bell he won from the gamble was faintly warm, echoing the tattoo on his back.

He subconsciously looked up, and a cold blue light swept past the top of the alley just then.

It was a hovering monitor.

And in the shadows of a nearby rooftop, a figure in a white suit and a white mask stood silently. He seemed to have just completed some operation, uploading a segment of recorded data to an unknown terminal.

Almost simultaneously, the communicator on Chen Fan's wrist vibrated, and a voice familiar enough to chill his bones emerged, laced with a hint of playful laughter.

It was Mo Thousand Hands.

"Chen Fan, stop struggling, you can't escape. Every critical hit you make, every time you break convention, the system is learning you, imitating you. And I... am waiting for you to return, waiting for a perfect you.'"

As soon as the words fell, the communication was cut off.

Chen Fan clenched the copper token in his hand, his knuckles turning white from the force.

He looked up toward the direction of the Frost Moon Teahouse. That was his stronghold, and where Su Shuang was located.

However, the moment he prepared to step forward, the sound transmission talisman Su Shuang had given him burst into spontaneous combustion in his embrace, emitting a faint glow. Su Shuang's anxious voice came through again, but it was only a short sentence: "Don't go back to the Teahouse... It is waiting for you.'"

It? Not 'He'?

Chen Fan's steps froze rigidly in place.

He looked down at the sticker with the 'Broken Chain' pattern that Stone Skin had originally given him, tucked in his pocket.

This ordinary paper sticker was now spontaneously combusting, just like the sound transmission talisman, igniting with a pale green flame.

Ashes drifted from the green flame, but instead of falling, they condensed in the air into a line of small, pitch-black characters:

"Life can be lost, but trust cannot be abandoned."

Looking at these words, a defiant arc suddenly curved across Chen Fan's tightly drawn face.

He muttered to himself, as if speaking to Stone Skin, or perhaps to himself: "I don't gamble my life, I only gamble on trust."

The night wind howled, sweeping up the line of characters formed by the ashes and scattering them into the deep night.

Chen Fan no longer looked toward the Old Power Plant, nor did he hesitate about whether to heed Su Shuang's warning.

He abruptly turned around and strode resolutely toward the direction of the Frost Moon Teahouse.

Stone Skin's message was for him to go to the Old Power Plant. Su Shuang's message was for him not to return to the Teahouse.

But Chen Fan chose to gamble on a third option—gambling on himself, gambling on his trust in Su Shuang, gambling that 'It' would absolutely not dare to play any tricks in broad daylight, at the moment he chose to face it directly!

[Perception Enhanced (From Memory Devouring)]

A line of cold system prompts flashed past his eyes, as if it were some kind of response to his decision.

His five senses became unprecedentedly sharp at this moment; he could even hear the faint sound of a wild cat crushing a roof tile a hundred meters away.

Ahead in the darkness, the alley entrance where the Frost Moon Teahouse was located was already visible in the distance.

For some reason, the wind at the alley entrance stirred up the residual ash on the ground, carrying a desolate chill that made the corners of his clothes snap loudly.