Chapter 39 Countdown

Yun Bai felt as if his heart were being twisted by a knife; he dared not hesitate a moment longer.

He leaned down swiftly yet with extreme gentleness, pulling his sister's trembling little body tightly into his embrace.

His arms, like the toughest vines yet filled with immense tenderness, held her firmly against his chest, using his own body as a barrier to prevent her from continuing to hurt herself.

He rested his chin on her cold, sweat-dampened forehead, his low, urgent voice filled with reassurance as he repeated over and over in her ear: "Qianqian, don't be afraid! Brother is here! Brother is holding you! Hold on! Good girl, just hold on a little longer! It will be over soon!"

At the same time, he unleashed a near-manic shout within his Sea of Consciousness: "Xiao Liu! Xiao Liu! Hurry! Now!"

[Command received. Attempting to establish secondary mental connection...]

[Target individual detected: Yun Qian. Vital signs: severely disordered. Severe nerve pain signals detected, accompanied by severe nausea and vomiting reactions.]

[Initiating deep biological scan (requires stable contact)...]

Yun Bai could clearly feel every painful twitch and spasm of his sister in his arms; her body was frighteningly hot.

A sour, rotten odor suddenly filled the air—Yun Qian began to retch violently, and the filth splashed onto the front of Yun Bai's robes without restraint.

Yang Peilan hurriedly brought over a copper basin to catch it.

Yun Qian's eyes were unfocused and dilated from the excruciating pain, yet she was firmly nailed to a waking Hell by that inhuman torture, unable to pass out to gain even a moment of relief.

[Deep biological scan complete.]

"Hurry!" Yun Bai roared in his Sea of Consciousness.

[Target confirmed: Successfully connected to the abnormal energy source in Yun Qian's brain—the "Number Seven" quantum auxiliary intelligent brain fragment.]

[Attempting intervention: Simulating memory write completion signal... Encoding 'Deception Protocol'... Energy frequency calibration... Launch!]

Just as Yun Bai felt his sister's weak struggles were about to exhaust her last ounce of vitality, a faint energy fluctuation carrying a strangely soothing frequency, like the softest feather, silently pierced through the barrier of violent pain and transmitted deep into Yun Qian's chaotic mind.

It was as if a manic, enraged Vicious Beast had been injected with a potent sedative.

Yun Qian's body, tensed to the limit like a fully drawn bowstring, suddenly stiffened, then shuddered uncontrollably a few times.

The heart-rending, Soul-shattering cries and frantic struggles came to an abrupt halt.

Her rapid, wheezing breaths, sounding like a broken bellows, gradually weakened and calmed down.

Her unfocused pupils, like dust-covered pearls, slowly regained a glimmer of weak light, and the daze following extreme exhaustion and pain shrouded her small face like a thick fog.

She made one last effort to look at Yun Bai's face, which was etched with heartache, and her lips moved ever so slightly, as if wanting to call out "Brother," but she lacked even the strength to emit a single breath of sound.

Her heavy eyelids, like thousand-pound gates, closed helplessly.

Her small body went completely limp in Yun Bai's arms, her breathing becoming weak but finally steady.

Sweat drenched her hair and thin clothing, as if she had just been pulled from the water. On her snow-white cheeks, lips, and forehead, the bloodstains she had scratched into herself looked particularly jarring and shocking.

The front of Yun Bai's robes emitted a sour, rotten odor, sticky and cold, yet he remained completely oblivious to it.

The room was deathly silent, save for the sound of Yun Bai's heartbeat, which thundered like a drum, the worried gaze of Yang Peilan, and the suppressed sobbing of Shen Qi.

Yun Bai held his sister tightly, feeling her faint body heat, his heart feeling as if it were being repeatedly sliced by a dull knife, the pain so severe he could barely breathe.

He carefully laid Yun Qian flat, covered her with a thin quilt, and with trembling fingers, brushed away her sweat-dampened bangs.

"Let's change Qianqian's clothes," Yun Bai said, turning his head to Yang Peilan with a hoarse voice.

"Alright," Yang Peilan replied. Although her face was a bit pale, she remained calm. She quickly fetched clothing for both Yun Qian and Yun Bai.

Yun Bai silently changed out of his filth-stained clothes and walked alone into the courtyard.

Twilight gathered, and the clear sky was gradually being dyed a deep blue, with a few early stars twinkling lonely in the distance.

"The last episode..." Yun Bai's voice was dry and hoarse as he forced himself to calm down, "...was on the seventh of last month."

He reviewed Xiao Liu's records, "The time before that was the fifteenth, three months ago... The interval was about two months and a few days... Previous cycles were always at least two months apart."

"This time! It's been less than a month since the last episode?!" Yun Bai felt a chill surge from the soles of his feet straight to his crown.

The cycle of episodes was clearly shortening.

From once every few months when first discovered, to two months, and now to less than a month!

What did this mean? It meant the frequency at which his sister endured this inhuman torture was increasing, and it meant the interval between the chaotic backlash of her broken Sea of Consciousness was growing shorter.

It meant... the time left for him was slipping away rapidly.

At this moment, Yun Bai had a clear understanding of the root cause of his sister's headaches.

They were born into this strange world relying on the auxiliary intelligent brain implanted in their brains to awaken memories of their past lives. However, Yun Qian's "Number Seven auxiliary intelligent brain" had clearly suffered devastating damage during the Transmigration process, retaining only a tiny, chaotic portion of its functional modules.

Yet it was precisely this chaotic wreckage that had become the source of her pain.

The core module responsible for restoring memories had been completely destroyed.

But the surviving underlying logic of "Number Seven" still stubbornly detected that the "memory program had failed to write successfully" (meaning it failed to restore past-life memories), and thus it repeatedly attempted to execute that impossible task.

This fatal logic error constantly piled up and clogged Yun Qian's fragile brain, eventually triggering the excruciating pain that was enough to tear her Soul apart.

He could not cure it.

Every time, he could only rely on "Xiao Liu" to send a special "deception signal," simulating the illusion of "memory write successful" to temporarily appease the broken intelligent brain fragment and let it return to silence.

This was merely drinking poison to quench thirst.

Especially after he joined the State Religion, his Cultivate tasks were heavy, and the risks of going out to execute missions increased day by day; he simply could not be by his sister's side at all times.

"The soul-stabilizing pill..."

Yun Bai's fists were clenched tightly at his sides, the stinging pain of his nails digging deep into his palms far less than one ten-thousandth of the scorching fire burning in his heart.

That heavy debt of Spirit Stone weighed on his heart like a shackle.

He had received 10,000 from passing the State Religion assessment, Magistrate Hu Qian of the Black Prison had "contributed" 50,000, and Zhao Xiang had "contributed" 100,000—which meant he was still short by an astronomical figure of over one million!

He had to be faster! Faster to achieve a Breakthrough in his Realm, faster to earn that 1.2 million Spirit Stone, and faster to obtain the soul-stabilizing pill that could temporarily stabilize his sister's Divine Soul!

"If these headaches keep recurring like this, her mental state..." Yun Bai dared not think any further; the image made him suffocate. "Xiao Liu, evaluate this: how much longer can Qianqian... hold on?"

[Based on the damage data of the "Number Seven" auxiliary intelligent brain fragment obtained during the last few successful connections, combined with the acceleration trend of Yun Qian's recent episode cycles, performing model projection...]

Xiao Liu's voice sounded.

[Conservative estimate: the target individual's neural tolerance limit collapse point... is in approximately three months.]

Three months!

A heavy weight of frustration and gloom settled in Yun Bai's chest.

His sister's life was entering a countdown at a speed he could clearly perceive!