Chapter 157: The Unexpected Iteration of Data Puppets

Shen Yan’s finger was still hovering in mid-air, the afterglow of the letter “Y” on his phone screen not yet faded, when the altar suddenly trembled. The Grudge Energy that had just been suppressed not only didn’t dissipate but instead grew wildly like sprouted mycelium in the stone crevices.

The first Mechanical Beast stood up.

It wasn’t driven by the Script Core, but rather a crack opened in its chest, directly absorbing the Sword Qi Ye Zhao had just unleashed. Black flames crawled along its Meridians, covering its entire body, and the red light in its eye sockets turned a ghostly green.

“This isn’t right!” Shen Yan slammed the Terminal. “The Infinite Loop I wrote was supposed to freeze it, not evolve it into a spirit-devouring monster!”

Before his words faded, the second and third Mechanical Beasts rose one after another. Dozens of eyes locked onto the five of them, emitting low roars that sounded like electrical static.

Ye Zhao’s sword tip trembled, a cold light flashing: “They’re learning from us.”

She slashed at the nearest beast with her sword, but the moment the Sword Qi entered its body, the creature opened its mouth and spat it back out, sending it straight toward Yu Xiaotang’s face along with black smoke.

“Holy shit!” Yu Xiaotang rolled away like a donkey, her Candied Hawthorn smashing to the ground, caramel sticking everywhere.

Pei Yue flung out three Silver Needles, accurately striking the Acupuncture Points on the beast’s neck in an attempt to sever its Energy circuit. But as soon as the needles pierced the flesh, they were melted into molten iron by a surge of heat, dripping to the ground and emitting white smoke.

“It’s no use. The Meridians are all reverse-direction spirit-guiding arrays,” she gritted her teeth and withdrew her hand. “However much Spiritual Power we attack with, it’ll bounce back the same amount.”

Luo Li spread her Nine Tails, Demonic Fire gushing forth, distorting the air. But when the flames struck the beast’s body, they were all sucked inside like a waterfall flowing backward. She groaned, and one of her tails instantly dimmed, hanging limply.

“What kind of Puppet is this?” Yu Xiaotang picked up a half-burnt piece of Candied Hawthorn, her face filled with despair. “Is this the result of a failed Cultivation Realm antivirus software uninstall?”

Shen Yan stared at the frantically scrolling Log on the Terminal, his pupils suddenly contracting—a familiar logical structure clearly appeared in the Code Bottom Layer.

“Damn it… this is the Fireball Spell Infinite Loop I wrote in Chapter 154.”

He nearly spat blood onto the Screen. Back then, to overload the Mechanical Beast’s computing power, he had deliberately buried an infinite recursive call. But not only did Ye Shi’er reverse-engineer the Code, he also used it as the core Algorithm, pairing it with a Grudge Energy carrier to create these “Data mutants.”

“What do we do now?” Ye Zhao retreated to his side, her sword held horizontally in front of her chest. “If we keep fighting, we’re just feeding it.”

Shen Yan took a deep breath and traced a Virtual Keyboard in the air with his fingers. “Don’t fight head-on. Let’s change our approach.”

He quickly called up the Decoy Protocol and released a faint strand of Spiritual Energy, like a fishing line with bait, swaying in front of the beast horde.

Sure enough, several Mechanical Beasts immediately turned and lunged toward the Spiritual Energy source.

“Xiaotang!” Shen Yan shouted. “Vermilion sand and glutinous rice, now!”

Yu Xiaotang reacted swiftly, tearing open her Cosmic Bag and grabbing a handful of vermilion sand mixed with glutinous rice, hurling it into the beast pile. The powder exploded like festive confetti scattered during the New Year. The moment it stuck to the beasts’ faces, their movements froze, and the green light in their eyes began to flicker, as if the System was Lagging before a Blue Screen.

“It works!” she jumped up. “These things only recognize Spiritual Power input. Mundane substances are like garbled Code to them!”

A smile curled at the corner of Shen Yan’s mouth. “Then let’s give them a ‘forced shutdown.’”

His fingers flew across the interface, and the terminal popped up a hidden callback function—the very backdoor he had casually buried back when writing that infinite loop. It would automatically trigger a shutdown command upon detecting any anomalous data packets.

“Ready… fire!”

Yu Xiaotang’s last talisman paper, wrapped in glutinous rice, shot out and struck the center of the beast horde.

The next second, all the mechanical beasts froze in their tracks. Their script cores trembled violently before erupting from within with blinding flames.

Boom—!

A chain of explosions tore through the altar, shrouding it in a cloud of black smoke. Charred fragments of vengeful spirits scattered like gray butterflies.

Shen Yan let out a sigh of relief and was about to wipe his sweat when Ye Shi’er’s voice sounded in his ear.

“Just as Father said… you are the perfect vessel.”

He jerked his head up.

Ye Shi’er stood at the edge of the high platform, the cracks in his mask deeper now, revealing half of his pale cheek. His voice was no longer icy; instead, it carried a hint of… nostalgia?

Shen Yan’s heart clenched. His fingers slid imperceptibly over the terminal, activating a background monitoring program to record the other’s voice frequency.

Ye Zhao stepped forward, her sword tip aimed straight at his throat. “Who is Father? What exactly is your relationship?”

Ignoring her, Ye Shi’er kept his gaze fixed on Shen Yan, a slow smile spreading across his lips. “Brother, don’t you remember the lullaby? ‘Zero one, zero one, one zero, twin stars fall to the mortal realm’… That was our boot password.”

Shen Yan’s breath hitched.

That string of numbers… was the rhythm that had haunted his dreams repeatedly.

Before he could speak, Ye Shi’er suddenly raised a hand and tore open the robe at his shoulder. The flesh split apart, revealing flowing blue patterns beneath—a code flow identical to Shen Yan’s terminal interface, slowly coursing through his blood vessels.

“This wasn’t gained through cultivation,” he said softly. “It’s an implanted spiritual root interface. You have one, and so do I.”

Shen Yan’s pupils contracted sharply.

So the so-called source code spiritual root wasn’t a talent at all—it was factory settings.

“Then who are you?” he asked, his voice low. “A clone? A backup? Or… a discarded beta version?”

Ye Shi’er laughed, like a child who had finally received a response. “What do you think? I’ve borne the seal of malevolence for you for twenty years, while you lived like an ordinary code farmer—wearing grid shirts, fixing bugs, even bringing milk tea for your colleagues.”

Shen Yan froze.

“You investigated the forbidden texts of Medicine Valley, looked into the Shadowbone Valley massacre, even dug up Mother’s recordings,” Ye Shi’er said, descending the high platform step by step. “But you never once wondered, why you? Why can your code alter the Heavenly Dao?”

He stopped three paces away from Shen Yan, his voice as light as a whisper. “Because neither of us is human. We are two clones of ‘HeavenlyDao.exe’—you are the vessel of benevolence, and I am the container of malevolence. Father separated us, releasing one into the mortal world and locking the other away in the Shadow Erosion.”

A ringing filled Shen Yan’s mind.

Suddenly, a red warning popped up on his terminal: 【High-level memory encryption packet detected. Source: Ye Shi’er’s consciousness field.】

He fought back the dizziness, not letting anyone notice anything amiss.

Pei Yue quietly approached, the tip of her silver needle gently touching an acupuncture point on the back of his neck. Her other hand pressed against his back, channeling a gentle medicinal energy. “He’s waiting for you to break down emotionally.”

Shen Yan nodded, but his eyes grew colder.

Luo Li retreated half a step silently, weaving a ring of demonic fire around her feet as a blockade. Meanwhile, Yu Xiaotang crouched on the ground, her brush swiftly drawing a silencing talisman, which she secretly stuck to her own lips.

“You say I’m perfect?” Shen Yan suddenly laughed. “Then what about you? Are you defective? After all… you don’t even have a heartbeat.”

Ye Shi’er’s expression froze.

“You think I didn’t know?” Shen Yan raised his phone. “Your heartbeat frequency is fixed, sixty times per minute, like a mechanical pendulum. Normal people have slight variations due to emotional fluctuations. You’re not alive, you’re a Data Puppet—and moreover, a failed iteration.”

Ye Shi’er remained silent for a moment, then suddenly laughed, lifting his head.

The laughter was eerie, like two audio clips spliced together.

“Fine.” He slowly removed his mask, cracks extending all the way to his mouth. “Then you can see if this ‘failure’ can tear apart your perfect shell.”

The mask fell to the ground, revealing his entire face.

Shen Yan’s breath caught.

It was a face almost identical to his own, except the left eye glowed with a faint blue Data light, and instead of dimples at the corners of his mouth, there was a scar resembling suture marks.

“Do you believe it now?” Ye Shi’er whispered softly. “We are two sides of the same person. You can’t escape.”

Shen Yan didn’t move, but his phone grew slightly warm in his palm.

The Terminal silently ran a new Program—【Biometric Signal Comparison: Similarity 98.7%, Emotion Module Missing, Judged as Artificial Refactor】.

He suddenly remembered something and asked quietly, “You said earlier… father? Where is he now?”

Ye Shi’er’s eyes flickered. “He’s no longer here. But he left a message—’When Twin Stars reunite, the Abyss Gate will open.'”

Shen Yan narrowed his eyes. “So you’ve stirred up all this trouble just to see me?”

“No.” Ye Shi’er shook his head. “To save her.”

“Who?”

“The woman who should have become our mother.” His voice softened unusually. “She’s trapped in the deepest part of the Abyss, only a thread of consciousness remains. Only Twin resonance can Restart the channel.”

Shen Yan froze.

Everyone else was stunned too.

Ye Zhao’s sword tip lowered slightly, Pei Yue’s hand paused mid-air, Luo Li’s Demonic Fire quieted down, Yu Xiaotang forgot to nibble her Candied Hawthorn.

In this brief silence, Shen Yan suddenly noticed a line of small text appearing at the bottom of the Terminal Interface:

【Hidden Protocol Unlocked: Twin Resonance Mode (Requires Voluntary Access from Both Parties)】

Before he could examine it closely, Ye Shi’er suddenly raised his hand, pointing the Blood Scythe toward the stone tablet.

“Time is running short.” His voice returned to its cold severity. “If you don’t choose, I’ll dismantle this tablet myself, turning the entire Demon Clan Legacy into Data dust.”

Shen Yan gripped his phone tightly, his knuckles turning white.

He knew this round was no longer about fighting.

It was a choice—to acknowledge brotherhood, or to turn blades against each other?

(End of Chapter)