Chapter 111: Ye Shi'er's Children's Rhyme Trap

The Blood Moon hung high in the sky. The black cube on the hotel’s outer wall was cracking inch by inch, with crimson Data Streams seeping from the fissures like wounds slowly bleeding. Yu Xiaotang stood before the window, her purple pupils reflecting the entire night sky, her Blood Blade raised high as she murmured incantations that had yet to finish—but in the next instant, her body suddenly stiffened, the blade halting mid-air.

Shen Yan’s heart sank. His fingers were still tapping the final Firewall Command in the void when he saw the Terminal Interface go dark with a “snap,” all Code vanishing without a trace.

It wasn’t a crash—it had been silenced.

He bit the tip of his tongue, the taste of blood rushing to his head, his consciousness barely holding on. The Black Pattern on his left arm had already spread to his neck, as if an iron chain were tightening around his nerves from within. Struggling to lift his head, he saw Yu Xiaotang’s body slowly go limp, caught by Luo Li.

“She’s disconnected,” Luo Li’s voice was tense. “It’s not unconsciousness—it’s… someone cut her off.”

Before her words faded, a soft, gentle Children’s Rhyme drifted from the Blood Moon, unhurried and soothing like a lullaby:

“Stars fall, brother leaves, at twelve o’clock the soul won’t stay…”

Shen Yan shuddered.

He had heard this tune before—in dreams, in the deepest corners of his Memory Fragments. Two children huddled in the ruins, one holding the other, humming this song to lull them to sleep.

“Ye Shi’er…” His throat was dry, barely able to form complete words.

The ground trembled as a figure stepped out from the Blood Moon’s Projection. A Bronze Mask half-covered his face, his Black-Gold Combat Attire fitting his form without a sound. The Blood-Colored Scythe in his hand lightly tapped the ground, and with each step, fine Code Fragments appeared in the air, scattering like ashes.

“Brother, you finally listened to me sing,” Ye Shi’er chuckled, his voice seeming to come from a great distance. “I practiced for so long, afraid that if I sang one line wrong, you wouldn’t recognize me.”

Shen Yan stared at him intently, his mind racing. The Terminal was offline, his Source Code Spiritual Root suppressed—now he couldn’t even summon the most basic Spell Protocol. But he knew this person hadn’t come to kill him.

He had come to awaken something.

“You tampered with my Memory,” Shen Yan rasped. “Using a Children’s Rhyme as a Trigger? Quite clever.”

“I didn’t tamper with it,” Ye Shi’er tilted his head, his tone carrying a hint of grievance. “You sealed it away too deeply, not even daring to look back in your dreams. I just… pressed play for you.”

He raised his hand, the scythe slicing through the air as a screen of light appeared—it was actually Shen Yan’s past logs of failed spells, each line marked, archived, and even annotated:

【37th Fireball Spell Debug: Parameter Overflow, blew off the roof. Reason for saving: First attempt at independent compilation.】

【Automated Sword Control Script V2.1: Logic confusion, crashed into a tree three times. Reason for saving: Clumsy, but kept revising until 4 a.m.】

Shen Yan’s breath hitched.

These records—even he had deleted them, cleared the Backups. How could…

“The logs you forgot to delete were my only light,” Ye Shi’er whispered, gently stroking the screen with his fingertips. “You said Code was just a tool, but I think it was the letters you left behind.”

Shen Yan closed his eyes.

He was empathizing—not attacking, but invading. Using memories as a Virus, slowly corrupting his judgment Logic.

“Don’t listen.” Luo Li suddenly spoke, her fox tail sweeping up several pieces of broken talisman from the ground into her palm. She bit her finger, letting blood drip onto the talisman paper, which instantly ignited with an eerie blue flame, revealing a line of twisted devil script:

“Go to the East Suburb Power Plant. Only I can shut down the puppets.”

Shen Yan opened his eyes, staring at the words, and sneered, “He says he’s my brother, yet he wants me to save another girl? This script is too fake.”

“But the talisman paper is real.” Luo Li frowned. “Yu Xiaotang’s lingering aura is still here, mixed with the Shadow Erosion Curse Seal, but… it’s not entirely forced.”

“She’s bait.” Shen Yan narrowed his eyes. “What Ye Shi’er wants isn’t for us to die. He wants us to ‘willingly’ walk into a certain place.”

“Clever.” Ye Shi’er clapped, the corner of his mouth lifting beneath his mask. “But don’t you find it strange? Why the East Suburb Power Plant, of all places? That place has been abandoned for ages, not even connected to the power grid.”

“Because there’s something there.” Shen Yan said coldly. “Something that can connect to the Heavenly Dao Foundation Protocol. You don’t dare force your way in, so you need me, the ‘legal key.'”

Ye Shi’er fell silent for two seconds, then suddenly laughed. “You know what’s most ironic? Our source code genes are completely identical. In theory, our terminals should be able to unlock each other. But your system has never recognized me.”

He raised his scythe, pointing it at Shen Yan’s forehead. “Unless… you actively input biometric verification now.”

Shen Yan didn’t move.

He knew that once confirmed, it would mean handing over half his permissions. But if he didn’t do something, the terminal would never restart, and they wouldn’t even have a chance to escape.

“Wait.” Luo Li suddenly crouched down, her fox tail sweeping over the spot where Yu Xiaotang had fallen. From her sleeve, she pulled out a partially burned fragment of talisman paper. On it was a tiny mark, like a string of encoding.

She squinted. “This isn’t devil clan runes… it’s some kind of verification code.”

Shen Yan’s pupils contracted.

He recognized this format.

It was a hidden protocol he had written early on, a verification mechanism used to mark “trusted command sources.” Its codename was “Little Bear Patch.”

This thing, only he in the entire world knew about it.

“When did she…” he murmured.

“She’s helping you.” Luo Li looked up. “Even while controlled, she’s leaving a way out.”

Ye Shi’er watched them and suddenly sighed. “Do you really think I’m the only one who wants to use her?”

He turned, his scythe slicing across the ground, turning over the soil to reveal drag marks. At the end was a puddle of undried devil blood, spelling out four words:

East Suburb Power Plant

“She went there.” Ye Shi’er said with his back to them, his voice lowering slightly. “I know you don’t trust me. But if you don’t go, all the city’s data puppets will synchronize and initiate at exactly midnight. By then, no one will be able to stop them.”

Shen Yan stared at the line of blood characters, his fist clenching.

Going was a trap.

Not going meant the entire city would fall.

“You’ve calculated that I’ll go.” He sneered.

“I don’t need to calculate.” Ye Shi’er turned back, his mask reflecting the blood moon. “I know you’ll choose the hardest path. Even as a child, you were like this—preferring to shoulder things yourself rather than watch others get hurt.”

Shen Yan didn’t speak.

He knew the other was playing the emotional card, but this card happened to strike the soft spot he least wanted to touch.

“We have to go.” Luo Li suddenly stood up, gently placing Yu Xiaotang in the corner of the wall. “The Data Fortress won’t hold for more than three minutes. If it collapses, we’ll be buried.”

Shen Yan nodded, bending down to pick up the shattered remains of his phone and stuffing them into his pocket. Though the screen was black, he could trace the path of that crack with his fingers—just like the unhealed fissure in his heart.

“Are you really going?” Ye Shi’er stood where he was, neither blocking the way nor moving closer.

“What else?” Shen Yan tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Wait for you to sing another Children’s Rhyme and dig up all my childhood memories?”

“Then remember this,” Ye Shi’er said quietly. “In the power plant, don’t trust any ‘familiar’ voices.”

The wind rose, the lingering echoes of the Children’s Rhyme not yet faded.

Shen Yan leaned on Luo Li’s shoulder to steady himself as he stood up. The two exchanged a glance, said nothing more, and turned to leap out of the window just before it collapsed.

The night wind rushed against their faces. The road stretched out beneath their feet, and in the distance, the outline of a rust-stained power plant slowly emerged under the Blood Moon.

As he ran, Shen Yan silently wrote a piece of Minimalist Code in his mind—only three lines, unnamed, without a single Comment, not even encapsulated in a Function.

This was the final Command he had secretly hidden deep within his Source Code Spiritual Root, codenamed “Reverse Heartbeat.”

Once triggered, it could briefly awaken core Permissions, regardless of whether the Terminal was online.

He didn’t know if this trick would work, nor did he know whether what awaited them in the power plant was Yu Xiaotang or another meticulously crafted illusion.

But he knew that in this round, he could no longer be a passively executed Program.

He would be the one to rewrite the rules.

At the end of the road, a half-open iron gate stood, its rusted sign bearing five faded characters:

East Suburb Power Plant

Shen Yan’s footsteps didn’t falter as his right hand quietly reached for the Programming Pen in his pocket.

The tip of the pen felt slightly warm, as if responding to some kind of call.

(End of Chapter)