18: Chapter 18 Spend 15,000 to fix a leak

The system continued to add:

[The four flaws the host currently needs to fix, if to be completely repaired—]

[Modify the Hoover Dam's historical hydroelectric data, Mr. Gore's life background and cause of death, the whereabouts and reason for the disappearance of that missing reporter, and the bankruptcy reason and death record of the newspaper owner, all to perfectly match the script settings—]

[This already involves a Level 5 correction, requiring a comprehensive modification of the physical records of the Hoover Dam's historical operating data, as well as alterations to relevant historical documents and existing structures.]

[Therefore, the total repair cost is 3 million Emotion Points.]

Zhang Yi leaned against the tent's support pole and read the Level 6 explanation from beginning to end.

"Three million,"

He repeated the number, his tone a bit calmer than before, but it still carried an inescapable sense of absurdity.

"I have, at most, 30,000 in my pocket right now."

"You're asking me to come up with three million. Even if you killed me and sold my organs, I still couldn't scrape that amount together."

"A kidney on the Lighthouse Country black market only sells for a little over a hundred thousand dollars, which probably isn't even enough to cover the fraction of a Level 1 correction when converted into Emotion Points."

[Host, there is no need to worry,]

The system's tone remained meticulous.

[Matters have their own priorities; the host does not need to complete all corrections at once.]

[The system supports tiered, batch repairs—]

[For example, by only repairing the Level 1 text record content without modifying Level 2 or higher reality objects or personal memories, and capping the repair level at Level 1, the cost will be significantly reduced.]

[Of course, whether to do so is for the host to decide.]

[However, this method of repair leaves behind many flaws, and the probability of being discovered will also increase significantly.]

[It just depends on how the host chooses.]

Zhang Yi looked at this prompt without answering immediately.

He sat cross-legged in the tent, his right hand resting on his knee, his fingertips tapping rhythmically against his kneecap.

The world outside the tent was as normal as ever.

In the distance, a few children were playing soccer on the grass, and a middle-aged couple was walking a golden retriever along the lakeside, the sun evaporating the dew on the lawn into a thin, almost invisible layer of water vapor.

No one knew that under this quiet shade,

a young man wearing a black T-shirt was making a decision that would affect the causal structure of the real world.

After a while, he stopped tapping his knee.

"Tiered repairs... fine," he said, his tone carrying the certainty of someone who had already weighed the options,

"This is the only way for now."

Although he said this, he was very clear in his heart:

Tiered repairs meant the flaws were still there; they were just covered up, not eliminated.

It's like a leaking pipe; you wrap it with tape, and it stops dripping on the surface, but the water is still seeping inside.

However...

The corners of Zhang Yi's mouth moved slightly.

A flaw, while called a flaw, also depends on who is using it.

There is a saying in the Art of War: "Those who are skilled in war have no brilliant victories,"

the reason a true master is called a master isn't because they have no flaws—even gods can't achieve that—

but because a master knows where their flaws are, and then uses a hundred ways to protect, hide, or even disguise that flaw as a trap.

When an opponent thinks you've revealed a flaw and pounces, they end up stepping right into a pit you've already dug.

As the saying goes, "Those skilled in defense hide in the deepest depths, those skilled in attack move from the highest heights."

Having flaws isn't scary; what's scary is not knowing where your own flaws are.

And Zhang Yi not only knew, but could also decide which flaws needed patching, which didn't, and which were actually better left alone.

He began to examine these four flaws one by one.

The first one that jumped out was the hydroelectric gap at the Hoover Dam.

Zhang Yi eliminated this one without almost any hesitation.

With so much of the Hoover Dam's hydroelectric resources unaccounted for every year, why hasn't anyone been able to find out for decades?

Because in the Lighthouse Country, only one thing can achieve this level of secrecy: the secrets of high-level figures themselves.

Those hydroelectric resources, nine times out of ten, flow into shady private projects belonging to one or several high-level Federal Government figures.

Zhang Yi couldn't be bothered to guess what kind of projects they were;

it could be an undisclosed military nuclear facility,

it could be a supercomputing center for some intelligence agency,

or even a doomsday bunker built underground by some big shot.

But regardless of what it was, one thing was certain: this flaw didn't need to be patched by Zhang Yi himself.

Those big shots would have countless agencies, manpower, and resources to silence people, stop mouths, destroy material evidence, and "dissuade" everyone investigating this lead.

Not only did Zhang Yi not have to spend a cent to fix this flaw, he could even borrow the power of those big shots;

since they were desperately covering it up anyway, all the distracting effects generated during that process of concealment would, in turn, reinforce Zhang Yi's script.

"Skip this one," he muttered to himself, his finger swiping away the first flaw on the interface.

The second one: Frank Gall's life history.

Same logic.

Gore died of a sudden heart attack in 1946.

How he died, Zhang Yi didn't need to know, nor did he care.

What was important was that a person who was already dead was the best shield.

Dead men cannot open their mouths to defend themselves.

And if someone wanted to investigate Gore's true cause of death, what would they find?

Either it was a real heart attack, which would mean Gore had nothing to do with Aliens, but Zhang Yi only needed to keep the point "Gore had nothing to do with Aliens" out of the Level 1 text records;

or it was tampered with, which was even better, as it would mean some force was truly covering something up, and this force would block all investigations regarding Gore for Zhang Yi.

"Eliminate."

The third one: the missing reporter.

Zhang Yi thought for a moment, tapped his knee three times, and then decided to eliminate this one too.

The reporter is missing, so let him stay missing.

In a suspense story, a missing person who is neither seen alive nor found dead is more convincing than a corpse.

Because a corpse is the end of evidence; once an autopsy report comes out, the cause of death is clear, and the rumors come to an end.

But a disappearance is different; a disappearance means infinite possibilities.

You could say he was silenced, you could say he was secretly detained, or you could even say he was taken away by Aliens.

A missing reporter is, in itself, a flame of fear that will never be extinguished, planted in the heart of everyone who wants to dig deep for the truth.

Edward and his people weren't fools.

The more they investigated, the more afraid they became, because this lead pointed to an infinitely dark abyss, and the missing person was that flickering warning light hanging on the edge of the abyss.

"Keep it."

Finally, the newspaper owner.

This person died.

Not missing, not disappeared, but jumped off a building; there was a corpse, a police autopsy report, bankruptcy records, and news reports.

The time of death, the method of death, and the financial situation before death were all public and verifiable.

If someone investigated and found that the newspaper owner's bankruptcy and suicide had nothing to do with Aliens, the logic of the entire "silencing chain" would break right there.

So, this person had to be fixed.

Zhang Yi selected the fourth flaw on the interface and began working on the repair.

He spent an entire afternoon carefully manipulating the correction options on the system interface.

The repair process wasn't complicated.

The system provided a detailed modification framework, listing item by item what could be modified, from Level 1 text records to Level 2 reality objects and material evidence.

What Zhang Yi needed to do was choose which items to modify, to what extent, and ensure the logical chain after the modification was seamless.

...

When the last modification was confirmed, the system popped up a settlement notification.

[Flaw repair complete.]

[Correction scope: Level 1 (text record content) and Level 2 (reality objects and relevant material evidence).]

[Cumulative Emotion Points consumed: 15,000 points.]

[Remaining Emotion Points: 15,000 points.]

Zhang Yi looked at the balance of "15,000 points" and the corner of his mouth twitched.

30,000 had become 15,000; the idea he just had about upgrading his living conditions now had to be significantly discounted.

But he didn't say much, because this money was well spent.

The flaw regarding the newspaper owner was patched, and the silencing chain was complete:

Gore died of a "sudden heart attack," the reporter vanished into thin air, and the newspaper owner went bankrupt and jumped off a building.

Three people who had come into contact with the secret of the Aliens, three different ways of dying, the timeline interlocking, and the logical chain seamless.

Anyone who came to investigate would only believe more and become more afraid the further they looked.

However, a question suddenly popped into his mind.

"System," he called out, "there's something I can't figure out."

"When I repaired those two flaws in the parking lot before, the Men in Black's arc weapon and the middle-aged woman's light controller also involved Level 2 reality object modifications, and that time it only cost 2,000 points in total."

"This time, it also involved Level 2, with material evidence like the newspaper owner's death record and financial vouchers, so why did it cost 15,000? That's more than a sevenfold difference."

"You aren't price-gouging me, are you?"

The system's reply remained precise and cold.

[Both the Men in Black and the middle-aged woman were prop androids created by the host using the 'Nano-Bionic Construction Unit'. ]

[Modifying the equipment configuration on the androids is essentially resetting the system props created by the host himself.]

[This correction does not involve intervention in the real world's original causal chain, so the cost is relatively low.]

[Whereas the newspaper owner was a human individual who truly existed in the real world.]

[His bankruptcy records, financial vouchers, autopsy reports, news reports, and other material evidence are all part of the real world's original causal chain.]

[Modifying this material evidence requires the system to intervene in the real world's causal structure, so the cost is naturally higher.]

[In short, modifying code you wrote yourself is almost free, while modifying code written by others costs extra.]

Zhang Yi was stunned for a moment, then nodded slowly.

"So that's how it is."

"Things you write yourself are easy to modify, while modifying things others have already written is a huge hassle; that logic is reasonable enough."

"Fine, 15,000 it is."

He closed the settlement notification on the system interface and was just about to reopen the shop to see what 15,000 could buy when the image in front of him suddenly switched automatically,

The system was tracking Edward Warren's real-time location, and the perspective had shifted from the fishing cabin at Gold Lake to a completely different place.

Lights.

Warm yellow, exquisite, and perfectly balanced lights.

Not the Nevada desert of Las Vegas, not the pine cabin by Gold Lake, but...

Washington, D.C.

In the image, night had completely fallen.

The time marker on the system interface showed 7:42 PM Eastern Time.

Zhang Yi adjusted the viewing angle and zoomed in on the image a bit.

Edward Warren was wearing a dark casual jacket, no tie, much like his attire when he was having the meeting in the fishing cabin at Gold Lake,

casual, but a measured casualness.

He was walking into the entrance of a building.

The exterior of the building was vaguely visible through the image,

it wasn't some square, cold concrete block like a Federal Government building, but a brown brick and stone structure,

the facade was not large, but the quality was excellent,

there was no sign at the entrance, only a brass-colored, low-profile, almost inconspicuous house number.

Zhang Yi watched as Edward walked through that door in the image, the corners of his mouth curling up slightly.

His script's second act had finished,

and the third act, the Washington chapter, was about to begin.