Chapter 41: The Mystery of the Wound: The Same Source Code in the Blood Drop

Shen Yan’s left arm was still dripping blood, each drop hitting the corridor floor tiles and seeping into the rune crack he had altered. The phone screen had just recovered from blackout, the interface stuck in a half-loaded state, green text scrolling line by line: 【System Restart Completed】【Active Source Code Segment Detected, Source: Host Blood】【Suggest Immediate Isolation】.

He wanted to raise his hand to shut it down, but as his fingertip touched the screen, his entire arm felt like it was pierced by electric current, with a crawling sensation under the skin, as if something was running code in his blood vessels.

“Don’t move.” Ye Zhao pressed down on his shoulder, her voice cold as frost.

She tore off a sleeve soaked in ice water and applied it to his forehead. As the chill pierced through, Shen Yan’s mind buzzed, like a server forcibly cooling down and restarting.

“You’re not repairing magic right now, you’re burning yourself.” She said, taking a needle from her waist, a flash of silver light, about to pierce into the meridians of his wrist.

But just as her fingertip brushed past the edge of the wound, a drop of blood lightly bounced up and landed on her fingertip.

In an instant, green light exploded.

That drop of blood seemed alive, drilling into her skin along it. Ye Zhao trembled violently, her knees weakened, directly kneeling to the ground.

“Ye Zhao!” Shen Yan wanted to rush over, but was pulled back by a strange force inside his body, sliding down against the pillar.

The phone suddenly vibrated at this moment, the terminal interface popping up with a prompt box never seen before:

【Soul Resonance Detected】

【Initiate Bidirectional Binding? Yes／No】

“What the hell…” Shen Yan gritted his teeth, reaching to tap “No,” but the word “Yes” lit up on its own, as if selected by someone.

The countdown began: ten, nine, eight…

Ye Zhao suddenly raised her head, her eyes vacant, lips slightly parted: “Fire… burning heaven… sword monument collapsing… they separated the children… one taken away, one… implanted with light.”

Shen Yan’s heart shook.

This wasn’t her voice, nor her memory.

But every word she said seemed like fragments dug out from the deepest part of his Source Code Spiritual Root.

The day of the car accident seven years ago, the first illusion he saw upon waking—was a burning palace, two clusters of light floating in the air, one taken away by a black-robed person, the other… pierced into his chest, transforming into countless green characters, sinking into his heart.

“Stop!” Shen Yan fiercely pinched his tiger’s mouth, forcing himself awake, long-pressing the power button to forcibly restart the terminal.

The screen went black.

The world quieted for a second.

Then, an extremely faint mechanical sound drifted from the residual current: “…Protocol… irreversible…”

Ye Zhao slowly regained her breath, her forehead covered in cold sweat, fingers trembling slightly. She looked up at Shen Yan, her gaze changed, no longer looking at a strange cultivator, but like looking at something lost and recovered.

“I saw.” Her voice was very light, “Two infants, one taken away, the other… implanted with light in the heart. That light… exactly the same as the code in your phone.”

Shen Yan’s throat felt dry.

He looked down at his hand, that drop of blood had clearly flowed out, yet beneath his skin it faintly glowed green, as if a program was running in the background.

“So… my blood, never was ordinary blood?” He smiled bitterly, “I was ‘written’ out?”

Ye Zhao didn’t answer.

Footsteps approached from afar, growing closer, likely patrol disciples.

Shen Yan took a deep breath, bit his right index finger, and quickly drew a talisman on the ground—not a traditional talisman, but a “Blocking Protocol.” As his fingertip blood smeared across the floor tiles, the rune flashed, generating a faint Barrier that enveloped the two of them, cutting off all sight and sound from the outside world.

He leaned against a pillar, breathing heavily. “That notice just now… ‘Bidirectional Binding’—it doesn’t sound like a defense mechanism. More like… a successful match.”

Ye Zhao looked down at her finger, where the drop of blood had entered. A faint glow still lingered there, completely different from her Sword Qi, yet somehow resonating with Shen Yan’s aura.

“It’s inside me,” she said. “Not an invasion, but… a recognition.”

Shen Yan froze.

Recognition?

His Source Code Spiritual Root was a Heavenly Programming Core left behind by a Celestial Clan Outcast, theoretically unique. But now, his blood could activate programs, infiltrate others’ bodies to trigger memories, and even automatically bind souls—this was no golden finger; it was clearly an Activation Key buried for twenty years.

“Are you saying… I was pre-programmed from the start?” He stared at his phone. “No matter where I run, there will always be someone or something waiting to ‘connect’ with me?”

Ye Zhao fell silent for a moment, then suddenly drew the Frost Soul Sword and laid it across his knees.

“I don’t understand your programs,” she said. “But I know that in the battle just now, you saved me with Code. You shed blood and stood in front of me. No matter where you come from, with this sword, I recognize you as a comrade-in-arms.”

Shen Yan was stunned.

He wanted to laugh, but his throat felt clogged with Code Cache, and no laughter came out.

Just then, his phone suddenly vibrated.

The Interface lit up again, no longer the black-background, green-text Terminal. Instead, an image appeared—a blurry palace outline, two floating orbs of light, and a broken chain between them. The scene then shifted, displaying a line of Chinese text:

【Local Cache Restored】

【Memory Fragment: No. 0723】

【Read? Yes／No】

Shen Yan stared at the date.

0723—the very day he woke up from the car accident.

Before he could react, Ye Zhao suddenly gasped, clutching her chest.

“It’s happening again…” she panted. “This time, it’s clearer… a person in a black robe, holding a child… another… lying on a stone platform, a beam of light piercing their chest… They’re saying… ‘Source Code separated, Twin bears the Tribulation’…”

Shen Yan’s mind exploded.

Twin?

He wasn’t an only child?

But Ye Shi’er’s matter… he couldn’t think about it. Not now.

He clenched his phone tightly, his nails almost digging into the Screen. “System… just how many secrets have you hidden from me?”

Ye Zhao slowly steadied her breathing, but her expression grew increasingly grave. “What’s inside you… isn’t just power. It’s a Key, but also a curse. And I… might have been set up as the ‘Receiver’ long ago.”

Shen Yan looked up sharply. “What do you mean?”

“This isn’t the first time I’ve seen this kind of light,” she whispered. “When I was little, before my mother died, she held a piece of broken jade in her hand, and it had green patterns like this. She told me that if I ever met someone whose blood flowed with Code… I must protect them.”

Shen Yan froze completely.

Mother? Broken jade? Code blood?

This was no longer a coincidence.

His Source Code Spiritual Root, Ye Zhao’s Sword Sect Bloodline, Pei Yue’s Medicine Valley Ancient Texts records, Luo Li’s Demon Clan Teleportation Array resonance, Yu Xiaotang’s accidental Talisman Paper touch… Everyone, everything, was converging toward the same answer.

He did not awaken by chance.

He was designed.

“So…” his voice was hoarse, “I’m not a genius, I’m just a… Factory Machine with a Pre-Installed System?”

Ye Zhao didn’t speak, only pushed Frost Soul Sword forward half an inch.

The sword tip was only a finger’s distance from his knee.

“The System can be pre-installed,” she said, “but the will to choose to fight is your own.”

Wind passed through the corridor, scattering the last trace of Binary Rhythm.

The Runes on the floor tiles gradually dimmed, only from the gaps of Shen Yan’s arm wrappings, a faint green glow seeped out, like a Terminal left open in the deep night, still silently running some unknown Process.

He lowered his head to look at that gleam, suddenly asking, “If one day, I discover every piece of Code I wrote was someone else’s pre-written Script?”

Ye Zhao quietly looked at him, word by word, “Then start from now, write one that belongs only to you.”

Shen Yan laughed, his laughter a bit shaky.

He raised his hand, tapped “Yes” on his phone.

The Image flashed, Memory Fragments began loading.

Palace, flames, infant, chains of light—

Suddenly, his arm throbbed with intense pain, the green patterns beneath his skin wildly scurrying, as if responding to some summons.

At the same time, the faint glow at Ye Zhao’s fingertip abruptly intensified, spreading along the sword body, actually carving an unfamiliar Rune on Frost Soul Sword’s surface.

That Rune was exactly the same as the Array Eye Node Shen Yan secretly modified last night.

(End of Chapter)