440: Chapter 440 has been reloaded, but not completely.

Qinling Command Center.

On the big screen, data streams were scrolling frantically.

Chen You reported what happened in the game.

Lin Miao stood quietly to the side.

Director Li Guoan stood in front of the console, his hands supporting his weight on the desk, his gaze locked onto Chen You.

"Do you feel like something is wrong?" Director Li Guoan asked.

Chen You thought for a moment. "What aspect are you referring to?"

Director Li Guoan pulled out a chair and sat down, tapping his fingers on the desk.

"I have an intuition that the Source Realm System is targeting you."

Chen You was stunned for a moment.

tactical team leader Zhang Yunhai chimed in, "Last time in the City of Gods, it deliberately wasted your time."

"Look at this time, from the changes in the tournament format to the selection of the new referee, Source Realm clearly didn't want you to win."

"You mean, the system did this deliberately to target me?" Chen You pointed at his own nose, his eyes wide.

He had also felt like he was being targeted, but he hadn't thought about whether there was an ulterior motive behind it.

Zhang Yunhai nodded, his tone firm. "Source Realm is not just a rigid piece of code; it's more like a massive conscious entity with self-correcting capabilities."

"You've been stirring up trouble in there for some time, exploiting rule loopholes to gain massive benefits, and even changing the plot trajectory of NPCs."

Zhang Yunhai paused and stared at Chen You. "The system has detected your anomalies, and it is attempting to contain you through means within the rules."

Chen You gasped.

He was just an ordinary office worker, working his heart out in the game—wasn't he just working for the country?

How did he become a thorn in the side of a high-dimensional system?

"Director Li!" Chen You turned his head abruptly. "If I go back in, won't I get struck by lightning directly?"

The corner of Director Li Guoan's mouth twitched.

This kid could still make jokes; it seemed he wasn't scared off after all.

"This incident serves as a warning for us. Source Realm is not just a game that provides resources; it is a living, hostile world."

Director Li Guoan's expression turned solemn as he looked at Chen You and Lin Miao. "From now on, you must be even more cautious in the game."

"Chen You, tone down those bug-exploiting operations of yours."

"Lin Miao, do not accompany Chen You for the time being; follow your own path."

"Understood." Lin Miao nodded seriously.

Ten minutes later, the Source Realm servers reopened.

[Welcome back to Source Realm, Lack of Virtue.]

A white light flashed before Chen You's eyes, and his figure appeared in the lobby of the Supreme Tower.

He ignored Hill and walked straight out, looking around.

The neon signs that had previously hung in mid-air were gone.

The arena, which had been paved with fluorescent materials, had reverted to a gray-white stone path.

The NPCs on both sides of the street, who had been wearing strange costumes and holding cheering signs, had all changed back into coarse linen clothes and standard armor.

The cyberpunk city had been reset to a medieval wasteland main city with one click.

"Did it roll back?"

Chen You hurriedly opened his backpack and took a look.

245,388 gold coins.

It hadn't changed.

"What the hell!"

It rolled back, but not entirely.

The gold coins spent by the acting city lord weren't refunded!

"You damn system! You can't afford to lose, can you!"

Chen You roared at the sky, his voice echoing through the empty, ruined streets, startling a few crows into flight.

"Refund! Give me back my hard-earned money!"

There was no response.

After taking several deep breaths, he pulled up his friends list and sent a private message to Lin Miao.

"Did you get the reward?"

Lin Miao replied instantly: "Got it. An epic set, a legendary weapon, and 10,000 reputation points. The system sent it directly to my mailbox."

Chen You closed the chat box.

Getting the reward was enough.

His title was still there, so this wave wasn't a loss.

Lin Miao returned to Chuxin City to continue advancing her tasks.

Chen You turned and walked into the Supreme Tower, diving straight into the training room.

He summoned a clone and finished the lottery and Destruction Mode routine first.

Only then did he head to the Cangxing City Lord's Mansion again.

The light inside the main hall of the City Lord's Mansion was dim.

The City Lord, James Sander, was not sitting on the high and mighty throne.

She was slumped on the steps below the throne.

The signature overalls she had been wearing were gone, replaced by not-so-exquisite leather armor.

Her middle-part hairstyle was also gone, and her hair was a mess.

She was holding a round ball that looked like it was stitched from animal hide, her fingers unconsciously stroking the surface.

Chen You stepped over the threshold, his footsteps echoing in the empty hall.

Sander did not look up, but stared fixedly at the animal hide ball in her hands, her voice as raspy as sandpaper rubbing together.

"Mentor... do you also think I'm a joke?"

Chen You paused his steps.

Not brainwashed?

This NPC actually still remembered!

The rules of the system's judgment flashed rapidly through Chen You's mind.

In the Art Judgment, Sander was on the player's side, which meant she was on the winning side.

The system reboot formatted the NPCs on the losing side and restored the building data.

But the winning side had not been "cleared."

Or rather, there was a data leak.

"How much do you remember?" Chen You walked to the foot of the steps.

"Everything." Sander looked up.

Those eyes, which had originally been full of ambition and fanaticism, were now bloodshot, revealing a dead silence of collapsed faith.

"I remember the lights on the stage, I remember the cheers of tens of thousands of people below. I remember the singing, dancing, and RAP, and I remember that perfect 'Iron Mountain Lean'."

Sander's hands tightened abruptly. "But now, it's all gone."

She stood up abruptly and smashed the animal hide ball in her hands hard against the ground.

The animal hide ball bounced once and rolled powerlessly to Chen You's feet.

"The world has abandoned me!" Sander pointed at the empty hall, screaming at the top of her lungs.

"Source Realm erased my stage and took back my battle robe! It's telling me that my art is trash!"

Sander covered her face, her shoulders heaving violently.

"I'm sick... Mentor, I must have been bewitched by the devil."

"All that singing, dancing, and basketball... it was all just an absurd dream."

Chen You watched Sander, who had fallen into self-doubt, his eyelids twitching wildly.

This NPC was too immersed in the role.

"You think this is a negation of you?" Chen You said coldly.

Sander lifted her eyes from between her fingers and stared blankly at Chen You.

Chen You stepped forward and stepped on the animal hide ball on the ground.

"Foolish."

Chen You's voice was not loud, but it was deafening in the empty hall.

"You think the system rebooted because your art is trash?" Chen You sneered, his hands behind his back, staring intensely at Sander. "Wrong! Dead wrong!"

Sander stopped sobbing and opened her mouth in confusion.

"It is not negating you." Chen You waved his hand sharply and pointed to the dome. "It is afraid of you!"

Sander shuddered.

Afraid?

"Your 'Iron Mountain Lean' fused the laws of the earth with physical rhythm; that is a power that transcends the version of this era!"

Chen You activated his MLM mentor mode, speaking at an extremely fast pace, giving Sander no room to think.

"Think about it, when you used that move in the arena, even Salos of the Titan God Clan stood up! What does that mean?"

Sander followed Chen You's train of thought, and her eyes gradually lit up.

"It means... I touched the threshold of the divine realm?"

"Not only that!" Chen You slapped the stone pillar next to him. "Your artistic energy is too massive!"

"So massive that this dilapidated Source Realm System simply cannot bear it! Its computing power collapsed, and its logic deadlocked!"

Chen You spoke more and more smoothly, even getting carried away himself.

"It was afraid that if you kept dancing, you would shatter the entire world! So it had to use its highest authority, forcibly roll back, and erase your stage!"

Chen You gritted his teeth, his eyes full of heartbreak. "Do you know how much I paid to build that stage for you?"

"That was all cold, hard cash! That was my entire net worth! And this damn system scammed me out of all of it!"

By the end, Chen You's voice was trembling; he was genuinely heartbroken over the money.