Chapter 170: Truth Revealed in the Talisman Storm

Shen Yan’s phone was still hot, the red light trajectory on the screen like a living snake, twisting on the map and pointing toward the distance. He stood at the entrance of the ancient tomb, stepping on shattered stone slabs, with Yu Xiaotang’s hurried breathing beside him.

“Brother, the Talisman Paper burned again!” She tore off the yellow talisman stuck to her forehead, and as soon as it left her skin, it turned into ashes, scattering in the wind.

Shen Yan looked down at the Terminal, the progress bar stuck at thirty-seven percent, a Notice popping up: 【Signal Interference too strong, tracking Protocol cannot maintain stable connection】.

He frowned, “Something’s wrong, the spiritual network here has been tampered with.”

Yu Xiaotang bit the Candied Hawthorn stick, eyebrows raised: “What should we do then? We can’t rely on smelling to find someone, right?”

Shen Yan suddenly remembered something, looking up at her: “Don’t you have a Devil Clan talisman mark inside you? When Ye Shi’er attacked you last time, my Terminal Detected an anomalous frequency—same rhythm as your heartbeat now.”

Yu Xiaotang froze: “You mean… I can be a human-shaped signal tower?”

“More or less.” Shen Yan pulled out his phone, opened the Code Interface, “Drop your blood on the Talisman Paper, I’ll modify a underlying Protocol, letting it reverse-lock Ye Shi’er’s spiritual anchor point.”

Yu Xiaotang didn’t hesitate, biting her fingertip, a drop of blood fell on the newly drawn Talisman Paper. Shen Yan’s fingers tapped rapidly, lines of Command scrolling past.

【Blood Pact binding… resonance frequency matching successful】

The Talisman Paper rose into the air, not burning, instead emitting a faint blue light, pointing like a compass toward the depths of the tomb passage.

“Let’s go.” Shen Yan put away his phone, stepping forward.

Yu Xiaotang followed closely, muttering as she walked: “What do you think Ye Shi’er is trying to do with such a big scene? Making Puppets? Building robots? Or wanting to start a Cultivation Realm live-streaming sales?”

Shen Yan didn’t laugh, lowering his voice: “Whatever he wants to do, he’s using my Code.”

As soon as he finished speaking, the passage ahead suddenly lit up.

Countless Talisman Papers surged from all directions, swirling and flying like a snowstorm, forming a huge spherical Barrier. Each talisman was engraved with intricate patterns, glowing faintly green.

“Talisman storm?” Yu Xiaotang stared wide-eyed, “This is too absurd! Who plays with fireworks so recklessly?”

Shen Yan stared at those talismans, pupils contracting: “This isn’t a normal Talisman Array… this is my spell template.”

He recognized it. Those basic Function structures were clearly content from his private Code Library backed up at the company before the car accident—Fireball Spell initialization, Spiritual Energy scheduling Loop, automatic Sword Control Script… all copied over, and even Iterated and upgraded.

“Someone replicated my programming Logic.” He murmured.

“Can it be remotely invoked?” Yu Xiaotang was shocked, “Then you’ve become… someone else’s cheat?”

“No.” Shen Yan’s eyes cooled, “The only person who could access my private Library—he knows my writing habits, uses the same origin thought pattern.”

Before he could finish, the storm center suddenly cracked open.

Ye Shi’er stood inside, half his face intact, the other half still charred remains. He held a human-shaped Puppet in his hands, face blank, features slowly appearing.

“Welcome back, brother.” He said softly, “I’m waiting for you to see firsthand what true resurrection technology is.”

Shen Yan stepped forward: “You cultivate these puppets just to restore memories?”

“Not just restore.” Ye Shi’er caressed the puppet’s face. “I want to make dead people come back to life. Once enough memory data is gathered, a soul model can be reconstructed.”

Yu Xiaotang angrily said: “You’re insane! Dead people can be revived? This is creating evil!”

Ye Shi’er smiled: “Humans always say love transcends life and death, but when that day truly comes, who doesn’t weep at the funeral? I just don’t want to kneel begging heaven anymore.”

After speaking, he raised his hand and waved.

Hundreds of talisman papers instantly rushed forward, straight toward Shen Yan’s face. Each talisman, upon touching the air, would extract a strand of his memory, transforming into a data stream injected into the puppet’s body.

Shen Yan frantically pressed his phone, initiating the defense program.

【Warning: External memory read request, authorize?】

“Deny!” he roared, simultaneously inputting a string of interrupt commands.

But there were too many talismans; the system couldn’t respond fast enough. One talisman attached to his wrist, intense pain surged, and a childhood image flashed in his mind—the orphanage’s iron gate, cries on a rainy night, the teacher’s face cursing him as “bastard.”

The puppet’s face immediately displayed the same expression.

“See?” Ye Shi’er whispered. “Your past is becoming my material.”

Shen Yan gritted his teeth, sweat dripping. He knew he couldn’t keep passively defending.

“Xiaotang, can the silence talisman still be used?”

Yu Xiaotang nodded: “There’s one kept as a last resort, but after using it, I might temporarily malfunction.”

“Use it!” Shen Yan shouted decisively. “Just give me three seconds of buffer time!”

Yu Xiaotang clenched her teeth, pulled a dark golden talisman paper from her cosmic bag, and tossed it into the air.

“Silence!”

The entire talisman storm abruptly paused, all talismans suspended mid-air, their glow extinguishing.

Now!

Shen Yan wildly typed on his phone with both hands, calling up the decompilation module, forcibly accessing the talisman array’s underlying layer.

【Parsing core protocol… Found master control command source: unknown node A7】

Following the data chain backward, he finally found the vulnerability—these talismans’ learning mechanism depended on mimicking the host’s behavior, and the object they mimicked was actually his own abandoned script written years ago.

“So that’s it… You’re using my bug as evolutionary nourishment?” Shen Yan sneered. “Then today I’ll give you a genuine antivirus.”

He wrote a purification code, named it “Cleaner.exe,” ready to inject it into the spirit network.

But just at the upload moment, Ye Shi’er opened his eyes and softly recited an incantation.

The talismans revived, faster and denser than before.

A dark shadow lunged straight toward Shen Yan’s chest.

At the critical moment, he pressed enter.

The code erupted, transforming into a translucent shield blocking before him.

Boom—

The scythe struck the shield, sparks flying. That barrier didn’t crack; instead, it rebounded the attack, shaking Ye Shi’er back three steps.

“Impossible!” he snarled. “You don’t have this kind of defense algorithm!”

Shen Yan gasped, looking at the new notice flashing on the screen:

【Dynamic simulation defense module activated, possesses preliminary self-learning capability】

He grinned: “You think only you can evolve? My system is now writing code by itself.”

Ye Shi’er remained silent for a moment, then suddenly smiled.

He raised his hand, a holographic image appearing in his palm.

In the Image, a Celestial Clan elder held two infants, whispering something softly. One was handed over to a mortal cultivator, while the other remained by his side.

“Do you recognize them?” Ye Shi’er asked.

Shen Yan stared at the child who was kept, his heart wrenching violently.

The child’s features were identical to his own.

“Twenty years ago, you were swapped,” Ye Shi’er said coldly. “The true discarded one is me, and you—are merely an interference, a substitute deliberately sent to the orphanage.”

The air froze.

Shen Yan stood still, his fingers frozen on the phone Screen.

“You don’t believe it?” Ye Shi’er sneered. “Then tell me, why can you use the Source Code Spiritual Root? Because that belongs to me! It’s the fate you stole!”

Shen Yan’s throat tightened, unable to utter a single word.

Yu Xiaotang rushed forward to support him: “Don’t listen to his nonsense! Substitute or not, I only know that the person right here is my brother!”

Ye Shi’er looked at her, his tone suddenly low: “You’re also about to collapse, aren’t you? The Devil Clan Bloodline inside you is starting to backlash.”

Yu Xiaotang’s face paled, her hand unconsciously touching her chest.

Shen Yan took a deep breath and finally spoke: “Even if I am a substitute… what does it matter?”

He raised his phone, where streams of light surged on the Screen.

“Code can be copied, identities can be swapped, but the runtime environment—has always been defined by me alone.”

He pressed the confirm key.

【Redefine Host Permission: YES】

The shield expanded again, more stable than before, with intricate Runes even appearing at its edges, like traces of self-evolution.

Ye Shi’er stared at that layer of light, his gaze complex.

“Now, it’s your turn to face the truth,” he whispered, his figure slowly dissipating at the end of the collapsing passage.

Shen Yan slumped beside the Server wreckage, his phone still flickering, unresolved Memory files continuously popping up.

Yu Xiaotang leaned against a stone pillar, clutching the Talisman Paper that recorded the truth, the Candied Hawthorn already melted, sticky and dripping on the ground.

She looked up at him, her voice very soft: “Brother, whether you’re some discarded one or not, you’re my only brother.”

Shen Yan didn’t speak, just lowered his head and continued typing.

A new Command was being generated.

His fingers were steady, unlike someone who had just been stunned by fate.

He knew some things had to be investigated.

For example, who wrote the original Program?

For example, what did his father’s last words—”Don’t trust living Shadows”—really mean?

He looked toward the depths of the tomb passage.

There, an old Server was still running, its blue light flickering on and off, like a heartbeat waiting to be awakened.

Shen Yan stood up and walked toward the light source.

Yu Xiaotang struggled to follow but was stopped by his raised hand.

“You stay here,” he said. “What comes next might drive you mad if you see it.”

He stepped forward, his footsteps crunching faintly on shattered Talisman Paper.

The Server panel slowly opened, revealing a line of text:

【Please enter the administrator password】

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

(End of Chapter)