Chapter 23: Twin Mystery Shadows: The True Face Beneath the Mask

Everything went dark, as if he had been stuffed into an old-style printer and crushed back and forth three times.

Shen Yan felt every bone in his body being recompiled, his internal organs as if taken to be used as a cache pool. He wanted to vomit, but couldn’t even locate his stomach. His ears were filled with noise, like someone tuning a radio, interspersed with intermittent humming of a children’s rhyme and the crackling sound of Data Streams washing over his nerves.

“Still alive?” he muttered to himself, his voice as dry as an error reporting notice.

His wrist grew warm—something was coiled around it. It was Luo Li’s tail. She was still there, her Demon Power shield flickering weakly, like a Wi-Fi signal light about to die.

He couldn’t move, but his mind automatically started running programs. The residual image of a Terminal Interface floated at the center of his vision, green text scrolling:

【System Status: Partially Offline】

【Core Protocol: Heartbeat Synchronization v0.9】

【Detected sustained physical contact—Binding Anchor: Half-Demon vital signs stable】

“Good thing you didn’t let go,” he grinned, only to pull on his facial nerves, gasping in pain.

His consciousness was finally dragged back to reality. He opened his eyes to see a massive spatial rift splitting open above him, pulsing with blue light like a heartbeat. The ground beneath his feet was shattered stone slabs, carved with familiar Demon Script and… green Code?

“This place isn’t right,” he murmured. “The Spiritual Energy frequency is too clean, the Star Map has shifted by twelve degrees, and the Star-Shattering Token fluctuation value is absurdly low.”

A thought popped into his mind: write a verification program.

He closed his eyes, fighting the dizziness, and typed a command in his thoughts: “Initiate timestamp comparison module.”

A few seconds later, the Terminal returned the result:

【Local timestamp match successful: Seventh day after the end of the Divine War】

“What? Transmigration back twenty years?” He nearly jumped up from the ground. “Whose Teleportation Array doubles as a time machine?”

Before the words fully left his mouth, the air ahead distorted, and a figure slowly solidified.

Black-Gold Combat Attire, a Blood-Colored Scythe held horizontally, half of a Bronze Mask cracked and spreading, revealing an eye identical to his own.

Ye Shi’er.

This time, it wasn’t a residual shadow, but a solid, tangible entity. He walked forward step by step, his footsteps like Enter Keys pounding against Shen Yan’s heart.

“You shouldn’t have come back,” his voice was low, devoid of emotion. “This isn’t a world you should see.”

“Who are you to tell me whether I come back or not?” Shen Yan sneered. “You’re quite good at arranging the plot, huh? Car accidents, pursuits—all just to have me stand here today?”

Ye Shi’er didn’t answer, merely raised his scythe, its blade pointing directly at the heart of the Teleportation Array.

“As long as I destroy the starting point, I won’t have to be your Shadow anymore.”

As the words fell, the scythe cleaved a dark rift through the air, Data ripples shimmering around it. The entire ancient array hummed and trembled.

“Hey! You’re trying to Delete Database and Flee!” Shen Yan roared.

But it was already too late to stop him. Luo Li suddenly struggled to her feet, her purple-red hair flying, cat ears bristling, hands forming seals as she bit the tip of her tongue and spat out a mouthful of vital blood.

“Fate-Reversing Light-Weaving!”

The blood mist transformed into threads, weaving into a glowing net in the air, blocking the array’s heart. The scythe struck the net, emitting a piercing grating sound, sparks flying everywhere.

“Can’t… hold… much longer…” Her teeth chattered, face deathly pale.

Shen Yan panicked, wanting to call up a program, only to find his Mental Power depleted, his phone Terminal screen black.

Just as he thought it was all over, the screen suddenly lit up on its own.

A never-before-seen encrypted folder popped up, titled: “Twin Protocol·Initial Backup.”

“What is this?” He had just reached out when the folder automatically opened, its internal code frantically compiling, generating an unfamiliar program — 【Star-Shattering Token Fusion Program】.

“When did I write this thing?” He was stunned.

But the program was already running, and a massive flood of memories poured directly into his mind.

A snowy night, the Celestial Clan Altar, two infants lying on an ice-cold platform. One was infused with a Source Code Spiritual Root and sent to the human race; the other was marked as a “discarded copy” and thrown into the wilderness.

That abandoned child was Ye Shi’er.

“So… we really are twins?” Shen Yan’s mind exploded. “I’m not an only child? I never even paid social security for him!”

Memories continued to flash: the car accident seven years ago was no accident. It was Ye Shi’er remotely triggering the “Fate Reconnection Protocol,” attempting to awaken the sealed spiritual root within him.

The wall he had crashed into back then never existed. It was a data projection.

“So you’ve been looking for me all along…” he murmured.

But now was not the time for sentimentality. The resonance of their twin spiritual roots caused the surrounding space to begin collapsing. The ground peeled away in chunks, as if pixels were disappearing, and the distant mountains twisted into garbled lines.

Luo Li coughed up blood, her shield on the verge of shattering.

Shen Yan gritted his teeth and input a command deep within his consciousness: “if(twin_exist)thenmerge_identity();”

The program received it and began synchronizing partial memories.

But he knew he couldn’t trust it completely. What if this was a trap?

So he made a bold decision—temporarily sharing terminal permissions with Ye Shi’er.

“Take a good look!” he shouted. “This is my life! See what you’ve missed!”

The phone interface instantly projected into the air, displaying his spell records and interpersonal relationship logs.

Ye Shi’er froze.

He saw the strawberry talisman paper Yu Xiaotang had stuck on his backpack, with a note that read: “Eat this to get stronger, I swear on my dog.”

He saw the handwritten prescription Pei Yue had hidden in her medicine pouch, with a smiling face drawn on it, saying: “Don’t stay up late, or I’ll poke you.”

He saw the sword code synchronization algorithm Ye Zhao had secretly copied, with the filename: “Auto Sword Flight Patch for Someone (Don’t Tell Anyone).”

Line by line, page by page, all of it was emotional data that couldn’t be forged.

Ye Shi’er’s hand slowly loosened.

The scythe dropped, hitting the ground and stirring a ripple of data.

He stood there, his gaze shifting from icy cold to wavering, to… something indescribable.

“So… you really have lived as a ‘human,'” he said softly, as if acknowledging this fact for the first time.

The children’s rhyme began to play again, the one he used to hum as a child. Soft, hoarse, and slightly off-key.

Shen Yan gasped for breath, leaning against a cracked stone tablet. The phone screen flickered: “Fusion Progress: 47%.”

Blood seeped from the corner of his eye, his mind feeling as if half-formatted, but he was still conscious.

Luo Li’s tail slid weakly, falling onto his shoulder, her breathing faint.

He raised his hand, using the last bit of code to wrap around her, maintaining her body temperature.

Ye Shi’er neither left nor approached. He sat cross-legged outside the formation, his mask completely shattered, revealing a face identical to Shen Yan’s, except for an old scar on his left cheek.

The wind blew through the abandoned garden, sweeping up a few scattered pages of code.

Shen Yan stared at him, his voice hoarse: “You said… she’s not what?”

Ye Shi’er didn’t answer, just continued humming the Children’s Rhyme.

In the distance, the spatial rift still pulsed, the blue light flickering on and off.

Shen Yan lowered his head and saw his fingers trembling slightly, as if wanting to tap something.

He raised his hand, tracing empty strokes in the air.

A blood-red mark appeared, like an unfinished line of Code.

Before the final character could fall, the wind suddenly stopped.

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”web.js”></script>

(End of Chapter)