Chapter 43: Beneath the Mask: The Similar Half-Face

Shen Yan hovered his thumb over the word “No,” hesitated no longer, and pressed down firmly.

The System Popup Window instantly dimmed, like being forcibly unplugged. The incomplete character formed by the drop of blood beside his feet twisted violently, akin to plastic scorched by high heat, crackling as it transformed into a black line that burrowed into the ground fissure. The air throughout the entire forest seemed slapped, temperature plummeting sharply, even breathing produced white mist.

His heart tightened, and just as he thought to retreat, his phone suddenly vibrated with scorching heat.

【Warning: External Debug Request Converted to Physical Invasion】

【Detected High-Dimensional Spiritual Power Fluctuation】

【Recommend Immediately Initiating Defense Protocol】

“Who gave you the Permission to infiltrate here?” Shen Yan gritted his teeth, the Tip of his Finger swiftly sliding across the screen, calling up the recently unlocked “Cross-Cultivation Technique API Interface.” This thing was still fresh, he hadn’t even finished reading the manual, yet now had to deploy it into production environment.

He stuffed the original Source Code Protocol wholesale into the Dust-Severing Sword, the sword body immediately emitting an unstable green glow, like the screen distortion of an old-fashioned monitor upon startup. Low-frequency scanning waves rippled outward in circles, fallen leaves in the forest moved without wind, swirling to adhere to tree trunks, piecing together broken Data chains.

“Will this work…” he muttered, staring at the sword edge, “Don’t Blue Screen now.”

Before the words finished, a crack exploded in the dense forest northeast.

Not the exaggerated scene of Spatial Folding, more like… the red border popping up when Code Error Reporting occurs. A slender “error404” floated in the air, then was cleaved by a Blood-Colored Scythe.

Ye Shi’er stepped out from the fissure, his stride steady unlike a person, more like a preset animation frame. He raised his hand and struck with a single slash, aiming straight for the throat, speed so fast there was no afterimage—only that trajectory like an error code, leaving a burning sensation on the retina.

Shen Yan reacted instinctively, tapping on his phone: “Spatial Folding!”

His body teleported three meters away, yet his left shoulder still burned with sharp pain. Looking down, his shirt was torn open, blood already seeping out. Damn, this skill Latency was too high, nearly sending himself off.

Just as he steadied himself, Ye Shi’er’s second slash arrived.

The Dust-Severing Sword horizontally blocked, two weapons colliding, no metallic clang, instead erupting with large Data turbulence, like two incompatible Programs forcibly interfacing. Green light and black energy intertwined and exploded, shockwaves violently spreading.

At this instant, Ye Shi’er’s half Bronze Mask “cracked” shattered, fragments landing on the ground, emitting a crisp sound.

Shen Yan’s pupils sharply contracted.

That half-face…

The brow bone contour, nose bridge curvature, that faint upward curve at the corner of the mouth, all mirrored symmetrically with his own. The only difference was, beneath the other’s skin crawled dark patterns, like Virus Code running within blood vessels.

He subconsciously raised his phone, the Terminal automatically popping up a window:

【Detected Direct Relative Gene Segment】

【Match Rate: 99.7%】

【Recommend Initiating Bidirectional Verification?】

“You…” his throat dried, “Who are you?”

Ye Shi’er stared at him, gaze like wanting to nail him dead within the Code heap. Mask fragments still reflected light on the ground, yet he didn’t glance at them, only slowly raising his hand.

The Data Scythe transformed into black chains, serpent-like entwining toward Shen Yan’s neck.

“Who do you think I am?” The voice was hoarse, like a tape recorder with poor signal quality. “While you were sleeping, I crawled through the data abyss for eighteen years! While you were eating cafeteria food and writing code, I was being sliced apart and reassembled as an experiment!”

The chains tightened further, Shen Yan staggered backward, the Dust-Severing Sword pressed firmly against them but was forced to bend inch by inch.

“You stole everything—my mother’s embrace, my father’s name, and… the Source Code Spiritual Root that should have belonged to me!”

A buzzing sound echoed in his mind.

The Source Code Spiritual Root… should have belonged to him?

Shen Yan flashed back to the scene from the car accident seven years ago: blinding headlights, shattered windshield, and that sudden string of green characters that popped into his mind. At the time, he thought it was a hallucination, but now, thinking back, it wasn’t a hallucination—it was the last frame before his memory was formatted.

The Terminal issued another warning:

【Anomaly detected in soul resonance frequency】

【Risk level: Critical】

【Recommend immediate termination of connection】

He didn’t shut it down.

Instead, he stared into Ye Shi’er’s eyes, trying to dig out something else from that hatred—like the milk powder they drank together as children, or who learned to write the character ‘person’ first.

But there was nothing.

Only pain, and the fury of abandonment.

“So… we’re twins?” His voice was raspy.

“Twins?” Ye Shi’er sneered. “You dare say that? You lived a good life, why did I have to soak in an experimental chamber for twenty years? Why did you awaken your Spiritual Root smoothly, while I had to survive by devouring data scraps?”

He suddenly exerted force, the chains creaked, and the Dust-Severing Sword nearly slipped from Shen Yan’s grasp.

Shen Yan gritted his teeth and held on, sweat trickling down his forehead: “Then why didn’t you come find me earlier? Why did you have to kill me?”

“Find you?” Ye Shi’er’s gaze faltered, then grew even fiercer. “Do you understand what ‘being deleted’ means? I didn’t even have a name! They called me ‘Backup,’ called me ‘Failure!’ And you—you’re the fucking original!”

Wind rustled through the treetops, leaves rustling softly, like countless lines of code refreshing wildly in the background.

Shen Yan suddenly realized something.

This guy wasn’t insane, nor was he purely an enemy. He was another version of himself—one who wasn’t rescued, wasn’t adopted, never had the chance to wear a Grid Shirt and write code.

If the car hadn’t crashed that year, if he hadn’t awakened, would he have become like this too?

His grip on the sword loosened momentarily.

Ye Shi’er noticed immediately and increased his output, black energy surged, and dense small characters appeared on the chains—all variations of “404NotFound,” like curses compiled from pain.

“You think you can pity me?” he roared. “You think you know my suffering? You didn’t even know I existed!”

Shen Yan was forced to kneel on one knee, his shoulder wound reopened, blood dripping from the tip of his finger.

But at that moment, his phone suddenly vibrated.

Not a warning, not a notice, but a new message.

From an encrypted folder, titled: “Family Tree_Final Version.”

He glanced sideways at it. In the center of the tree were two infant photos side by side, with a line of small text below: Shen Yan Shen Ying, birth time: Seventh month, ninth day of the Guiwei year, genetic match: 99.7%

Shen Ying.

He had a name.

“You stole everything from me!” Ye Shi’er roared, the scythe chains tightened abruptly, as if trying to crush him completely.

Shen Yan looked up at the face that was almost identical to his own and finally spoke:

“Have you ever considered… that I might also know nothing?”

Before his words finished, he abruptly thrust the Dust-Severing Sword into the ground, frantically typing on his phone with both hands.

“Since you say I’m the original—this time, I’ll grant you Administrator Permission.”

Green light erupted from the sword tip, flowing backward along the chains.

Ye Shi’er’s pupils contracted sharply as he tried to break free, only to discover his Data was being read in reverse.

“What are you doing?!”

“Fixing a Bug.” Shen Yan grinned, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. “Brothers, no distinction between you and me.”

Black energy surged violently, Ye Shi’er’s body began flickering like an unstable Signal Projection.

The air between them twisted into a torrential Data waterfall, rushing endlessly.

Shen Yan’s phone Screen cracked a fissure, yet it continued to Run.

The final Command clearly emerged:

Merge Twin Spiritual Roots?

(End of Chapter)