47: Chapter 47 The Suppression of the Candle Dragon's Authority: The Embryo of Changing the World!

Niannian's small body struggled desperately in Chen Miaomiao's arms, muttering "Daddy" incoherently, her face covered in tears.

Chen Miaomiao held her tightly.

At this moment, Lin Ye stood up from the sofa.

"Don't move, I'll go open the door."

Chen Miaomiao suddenly raised her head, her pupils contracting sharply, "Are you crazy?! Opening the door means... certain death, don't go, absolutely don't go!"

Lin Ye did not look back.

Step by step, he walked towards the entryway.

Chen Miaomiao's heart shrank inward with his pace, as if being tightened inch by inch by an invisible rope.

"Hey! You really will die!"

She shouted, but Lin Ye had no intention of stopping his steps.

It's over...

She closed her eyes for a moment.

The scene of what was about to happen already appeared before her eyes.

The door opens, Lin Ye falls, just like her mother, just like her family's servant, without even a chance to struggle!

The door handle turned.

Click.

The door was opened.

Chen Miaomiao closed her eyes almost reflexively.

However, a second later, she opened them again.

Because Lin Ye did not fall.

She looked over curiously.

She saw Lin Ye standing at the doorway, slightly lowering his head as if looking at something.

Outside the door stood a tiny figure.

Short, thin, looking like a little boy, barefoot, wearing an old-style cross-collared jacket from an unknown era, with no expression on his face.

His facial features were blurred, and a pair of hollow eye sockets gazed straight up at Lin Ye.

The moment the door opened, a strange force of rules descended upon Lin Ye.

He felt his heart being grasped by something and twisted hard.

And then it was gone.

It was like someone flicked his chest with a rubber band, and the force dissipated right after the flick.

This level of attack was an instant-death verdict for anyone else, but for Lin Ye, his current physique was a monster-level physical body tempered by yellow emperors essence blood, nourished by the Origin of Houtu, and strengthened by the Zhulong Divine Sense!

The little boy tilted his head up, his hollow eye sockets facing Lin Ye.

On his blurred face, a kind of expression appeared for the first time.

Confusion.

Pure, simple confusion.

It had knocked on the door countless times, and every time someone fell.

It didn't understand why this person hadn't fallen.

Its rule logic had not taught it how to handle this situation.

Lin Ye remained silent for a moment.

This thing seemed even weaker than imagined.

Without a physical entity, spiritual power perception swept across it to find only a hollow cluster of rule energy, like a piece of program code forgotten in a corner.

He reached out to grab it.

His fingers passed through the little boy's chest without touching anything substantial.

Lin Ye raised an eyebrow, and the Zhulong Divine Sense surged along his meridians onto his palm, a faint golden glow welling up at his fingertips.

He reached out a second time.

His five fingers clasped the little boy's head.

Lin Ye exerted a sliver of force in his palm, about to shatter this thing into powder directly, but suddenly stopped.

Because he suddenly remembered something.

The authorities of this world didn't even have any rating system for such pure rule-type ghost entities.

The reason was very simple; they were too special.

Without triggering the rules, they couldn't even beat the lowest-level wandering souls, and probably any random challenger could scatter them.

But once the rules were triggered, even high-tier challengers would die on the spot!

Wasn't this characteristic essentially a kind of rule power?

An absolute, unconditional rule of instant death upon opening the door.

What if he could modify this power for his own use?

"It seems worth a try..."

Lin Ye lowered his head to look at the dazed little ghost in his hand, the corners of his mouth slowly curling up into an arc.

Interesting.

The Zhulong Divine Sense surged out along his fingers, probing into the ghost's bizarre core without encountering any resistance.

As expected, the source of the rules was right here—a small, dark rune.

Lin Ye wrapped his divine sense around that rune and began trying to modify it.

The first time, the rune vibrated violently, and the little ghost's body twisted into various bizarre shapes.

"No, it can't be too forced; this guy cannot withstand the authority power of the Zhulong Divine Sense."

Lin Ye began his second attempt; cracks appeared on the surface of the rune, the little ghost let out a silent screech, and its body began to disintegrate.

Still no?

He tried a third time, adjusting the intensity of his divine sense.

Instead of violent overwriting, like rewriting a line of code, he seeped his divine sense into the interior of the rune bit by bit, replacing the old rule logic with new ones.

Zhulong was the origin of heaven and earth, the beginning of all things.

Facing such a low-tier rule entity, it was simply a dimensionality-reduction strike.

Under the infiltration of the divine sense, the dark gray rune slowly turned pale golden.

The moment the rune completed its transformation entirely, the little boy's body paused slightly, his blurred facial features gradually becoming a bit clearer, and a trace of faint light appeared in his eye sockets.

It tilted its head up, looking blankly at Lin Ye.

Then, it made a movement.

It knelt on one knee.

The movement was stiff and clumsy, like a robot with rusted joints.

Then, a trace of saliva flowed from the corner of its mouth, and two indistinct words were squeezed out from its throat.

"Master."

Chen Miaomiao's pupils shook wildly.

She opened her mouth, but in the end emitted only one sound: "...Ah?"

Did she hear it wrong?

Lin Ye didn't notice the change in Chen Miaomiao's expression.

After the rules were rewritten, the intelligence of the Knocking Ghost seemed a bit clearer than before; at least its eyeballs could focus.

Although it still had a rather low-intelligence look that droivated...

After thinking for a moment, Lin Ye looked at Chen Miaomiao.

"Do you hate this thing?"

Chen Miaomiao had not yet recovered from that scene just now, and was stunned for a moment upon hearing this: "...What do you mean?"

"If you hate it,"

Lin Ye pointed at the little ghost at his feet, "I can make it disappear forever. If you don't hate it, I can let it stay here with you as a door god to protect you and your sister."

Chen Miaomiao froze for a moment.

Lin Ye stood leaning against the wall with one hand in his pocket, nodding his chin toward the doorway, "I can modify its rules. From instant death upon opening the door, to instant death upon entering the door for anyone harboring ill intentions toward you sisters. You choose."

The living room was so quiet that only the sound of Niannian sniffing remained.

Chen Miaomiao's brain told her that this kind of thing was impossible.

The rules of rule-type ghost entities were absolute, fixed, and unchangeable—this was a conclusion written in textbooks even by the research institute of the Demon Suppression Division.

Let alone a first-test newcomer, even those high-tier challengers in the provincial capital had never heard of anyone being able to alter the underlying killing logic of ghost entities.

But her eyes told her that the Knocking Ghost that had killed her mother and servant was at this moment kneeling obediently at this young man's feet, with saliva almost dripping onto the floor.

Her lips moved, "How did you do it?"

"Want to learn? This can't be taught for now."

"...I didn't ask that."

Chen Miaomiao rubbed her brow, realizing that what she asked wasn't the same question at all.

What she wanted to ask was why he could do such a thing, but she suddenly felt that this question was very stupid.

The answer was right before her eyes.

This person named Lin Ye was completely different from the identity on his assessment certificate.

She lowered her head to glance at Niannian in her arms.

Niannian was no longer crying, nestled in the crook of her arm, her pair of eyes curiously sizing up the "little friend" outside the door.

A month ago, she was still a cheerful and lively child, but now she had become so thin that there was no light left in her eyes.

Mom was gone.

Dad was also gone with high probability.

Guarding this empty villa, how long could the two sisters survive?

This world was getting more and more chaotic; the news reported new ghost domain outbreak points every day, and the challengers in Qingzhou were so busy that no one even took up bounties anymore.

Next time something came knocking, what would she use to protect Niannian?

Let alone the future, just tonight, if Lin Ye hadn't been here, how many days the sisters could still live would be an unknown.

Was it hard to choose?

In fact, it wasn't hard at all.

Chen Miaomiao raised her head, her eyes red, "Let it stay. I hate it; it killed my mom. But at least it can protect Niannian now."

Lin Ye nodded, fine then, redeeming merits with misdeeds.

Rewriting rules was not an easy task.

Turning its core rune from gray to gold just now was essentially just violently overwriting the original rule logic with the Zhulong Divine Sense, equivalent to commenting out someone else's code and directly writing "this item belongs to me" on top of it.

What needed to be done now was more delicate.

He probed his divine sense into the little ghost's rune core and re-read the original rule structure.

Instant death upon opening the door...

The trigger condition was "the door is opened", the fatal command was "kill the door opener", and the targeted scope was "all door openers".

No wonder this thing used to kill indiscriminately.

Whether the person opening the door was a servant, the mother, or an innocent passerby, as long as it was a living creature opening the door, it triggered the killing move.

Lin Ye tried changing the trigger condition to "an intruder harboring ill intentions toward the villa owner", resulting in the rune core violently shaking and three fine cracks instantly splitting across its surface.

The little ghost's body also began to twitch violently, and its facial features blurred into a mass.

No, the change was too big.

The logical leap between the two trigger conditions "opening the door" and "an intruder harboring ill intentions toward the owner" was too large, and the original rule framework could not bear it.

He changed his train of thought.

Not changing the trigger method first, he only changed the targeted scope.

Changing "all door openers" to "those harboring malice toward the owner".

The action of opening the door was retained, but the killing move only took effect on malicious individuals.

The rune core lit up, the cracks did not expand, but they did not heal either.

The rule was swaying and unstable.

Lin Ye thought about the underlying logic of this rule.

Instant death upon opening the door was essentially a guardian rule.

Only its original guarded target was the "door" itself, and any intruder would be indiscriminately killed.

Now it needed to be guided onto a person.

Next.

He reorganized the penetration sequence of his divine sense.

Starting the modification from the targeted scope first, he made the rune core accept the basic command of "guarding the owner".

Then on this basis, he fine-tuned the trigger condition from "the door is opened" to "the door is opened by a malicious person".

Finally, he refined the judgment criteria for malicious individuals.

Three fine-tunenings, each step moving only a little bit, and the oscillation of the rune core became smaller each time.

When the third adjustment was completed...

The golden rune completely stabilized, a layer of faint radiance flowing across its surface, and the cracks automatically healed.

The little ghost's body also solidified a bit more.

New rule: guard this villa, inflict door-opening death on those who break into it and harbor malice toward the owner, and show no reaction to door-opening under all other circumstances.

"Done?"

Lin Ye felt that he was simply a genius.

Because this proved one thing: modifying rules was much more promising than expected!

What was modified today was only the lowest-tier rule ghost entity, and the scope of modification was very small—from instant death upon opening the door to only killing malicious individuals, essentially without breaking away from the core framework of "door opening - lethality".

But what if his mastery over the Temporal Law and the Zhulong Divine Sense rose to another level in the future?

Could he rewrite the rules of higher-tier ghost entities?

Could he rewrite the operating logic of the ghost domain itself?

Even... could he rewrite the underlying laws of this world?

Would he also act as a creator god?

By then, changing heaven and earth wouldn't be just a matter of a single thought of his?

Suppressing the turbulent surges in his heart, he looked at Chen Miaomiao, "Done. From now on, when the knocking sounds again, you don't need to worry about it. But if someone picks your lock in the middle of the night or climbs your window, their end will be a dead end."

Chen Miaomiao stood up, straightened her clothes, and bowed deeply to Lin Ye.

"I will repay this kindness. Every month from now on, I will pay you a reward, consider it... house-watching fees?"

Lin Ye smiled and didn't take up that remark.

He glanced at the little ghost still kneeling on the ground and casually said, "Alright, go stay at the doorway."

The little ghost stood up, taking steps with its two short legs, and wobbled out the door, squatting down beside the threshold.

Viewed from afar, it looked like a guarding puppy.

"Niannian also wants to go guard the door!"

Niannian suddenly raised her small hand.

She was pulled back by Chen Miaomiao in one haul, "No, you can't get close."

She put Niannian back on the sofa, walked quickly to the cabinet, pulled out the safe, took out three stacks of cash from the drawer and put them into the box, pushing them together in front of Lin Ye.

"Eight hundred thousand, count it."

Lin Ye didn't count it.

"No need, I trust you."

"Anyway, thank you still. Um... are you going back tonight? It's getting late, if you don't mind, you can rest here for the night. I'm really very grateful to you!"

Chen Miaomiao glanced at the night outside thick like ink, "I have many empty rooms here. You traveled such a long way and were busy all night, rest for the night and go back tomorrow."

Lin Ye hesitated for a second.

Thinking of the shabby single room he rented, with peeling wall paint, a leaking air conditioner, and even a water heater that worked only intermittently.

This was a villa after all, the bed shouldn't be bad.

"Alright."

Chen Miaomiao nodded, stood up and walked into the kitchen, "Then I'll go prepare dinner."

Soon, the sound of the faucet rinsing vegetables and the sound of cutting vegetables on the chopping board rang out in the kitchen, and the range hood hummed to life.

Niannian slipped down from the sofa, hugged her plush rabbit, and quietly moved to Lin Ye's leg.

She raised her small face, her tone very serious: "Brother Lin, are you a martial hero possessing divine power? My daddy said that powerful martial heroes must hide their skills, and I will definitely not tell anyone."

Lin Ye lowered his head to glance at this clever little girl: "What else did your dad tell you?"

"Daddy also said that dealing with evil spirits requires relying on one's own strength."

Niannian raised her plush rabbit, gesturing in the air, "Niannian's little rabbit also has divine power, it's just that it was asleep just now and couldn't come out to help you."

Lin Ye nodded very seriously: "Next time, make it wake up earlier."

Niannian agreed solemnly.

Chen Miaomiao was busy in the kitchen, sticking her head out from time to time to glance at the living room.

Her attitude toward Lin Ye had changed from initial distrust to a kind of curiosity filled with awe.

A newcomer in the first-test assessment period, not even a challenger yet.

But able to change the rules of ghost entities?

That was something written in black and white in textbooks as impossible.

This made her feel whether she had unintentionally... come into contact with some mysterious big shot?

The braised pork in the pot bubbled away, its aroma drifting through the crack of the door into the living room.

Niannian sniffed, and her belly let out a loud rumble.

Lin Ye sat on the sofa and pulled out his phone.

Originally, he wanted to browse the internal channel of the Demon Suppression Division to see what new movements there were in the provincial capital.

As a result, the moment he opened the news software, push notifications filled the screen one after another.

Homepage pinned red text:

[Emergency Broadcast] Three prefecture-level cities in the southwest simultaneously sounded red alerts; the expansion speed of the ghost domain increased by 310% year-on-year compared to last month, and the number of challenger casualties hit a new single-day high in nearly five years.

Second item:

[Breaking] The 7th Detachment of the Jiangnan Branch encountered a mutated-tier ghost entity during an encirclement mission; out of the seventeen members of the whole team, only three escaped, and Captain Shao was confirmed killed in action at only thirty-one years old.

Third item:

[Expert Analysis] This round of ghost domain outbreaks presents an abnormal trend of multi-point concurrency and simultaneous escalation; the possibility of an unknown high-ranking evil god pushing from behind cannot be ruled out, and currently no province has announced entering a safe period.

The fourth item was shorter and even more heart-tightening:

At 21:00 Beijing time, the shortage of simultaneously online challengers nationwide has reached 7,400, and the Demon Suppression Division calls on all provinces to complete newcomer assessments as soon as possible to replenish frontline forces.

Lin Ye flipped his phone over, leaned against the sofa backrest, and stared at the ceiling.

This world was being accelerated toward the abyss by an invisible hand.

He closed his eyes for a moment.

He couldn't sleep tonight.

The Power of Time Sequence had to go a step further; even if he practiced just a fraction of a second more control time, it would be enough to save his life one more time in the next battle.

After all...

With one more share of strength, there was one more share of confidence to live to the end!