Chapter 83: The Secret Passage Guided by the Star Map

Shen Yan’s phone screen was still lit, the battery bar like a pancake bitten into, leaving only a thin sliver. He stared at the glowing symbol in his palm, his fingertip twitching as a stream of Code Flow surged up along his meridians, tracing half a line of Command in the air.

“Are we going or not?” He looked down at the person in his arms.

Luo Li had already regained her human form, leaning against his shoulder and panting, her ears trembling slightly as if listening to some sound others couldn’t hear. She didn’t answer, only tightened her tail another half-circle around him and tapped his chest with her fingertip—there, the Source Code Spiritual Root was faintly glowing with heat.

“If you don’t move, I’ll start charging interest,” she said.

Shen Yan rolled his eyes and strode deeper into the ancient tree. The Star Map on the inner wall of the trunk was still flickering, streaks of light like hastily drawn routes with a fluorescent marker, intermittent and fading step by step.

“This navigation is trickier than my neighborhood’s underground parking garage,” he muttered, pulling up the Terminal Interface and swiping rapidly across the screen. “Recursion tracking, initiate.”

Blue light reflected off his glasses as lines of Chinese Commands cascaded like a waterfall:

【Path Completion Algorithm Loading】

【Star Map Fragment Matching in Progress】

【Error Correction: Left Deviation by Three Degrees】

Luo Li followed slightly behind him, her steps unsteady, her tail brushing the ground and stirring a faint string of silver bell-like sounds. Suddenly, she reached out and grabbed his wrist. “Stop.”

“What?”

“Three steps ahead, the floor tiles are a different color.”

Shen Yan squinted and saw it was true—the stone slabs ahead glowed with an eerie bluish-gray, starkly out of place. He sneered, pulled out his phone, and took a picture of the ground. The System automatically identified it:

【Detected Residual Spiritual Pressure of Bone-Erosion Array】

【Trigger Conditions: Foot Contact】

“Seriously? Even traps are using visual deception now?” He clicked his tongue and detoured around it. “Can’t you come up with something new next time? I’m almost memorizing your patterns.”

Luo Li didn’t laugh. Instead, she frowned and touched her earring. The Star-Shattering Token Imitation was faintly warm, as if it had been held over a flame.

“Something’s off,” she whispered. “This Star Map… it’s too familiar. I saw similar patterns in the Forbidden Land when I was a child, but that was twenty years ago.”

Shen Yan paused. Twenty years ago? Back then, he was still in the orphanage gnawing on cold steamed buns—what Star Map could he have seen?

He didn’t ask further, just pressed the phone back against his chest and continued forward. The deeper they went into the passage, the heavier the air became. The walls were no longer rough bark but a grayish-white rock of an unknown material, smooth as a mirror yet exuding an aura of lifelessness.

Suddenly, his foot slipped, and he instinctively reached out to steady himself against the wall.

The moment his palm touched it, the entire wall lit up.

Shifting light and shadows formed an Image—a shabby dormitory room, faded zodiac posters on the wall, a little boy curled up on a bed, clutching half a moldy mooncake. The scene zoomed in, revealing the boy’s profile clearly: it was Shen Yan as a child.

“What the hell?” He jerked his hand back, his heart skipping a beat.

“What’s wrong?” Luo Li leaned closer.

“That just now… was the room I lived in as a child,” he said, his voice slightly dry. “No one knows what that place looked like.”

Before the words had fully left his mouth, another image emerged: a broken fragment of a Star-Shattering Token lay in a pool of blood, beside it a pair of small, mud-stained feet. The camera slowly panned upward, revealing a blurred face—bearing a seventy percent resemblance to Shen Yan, yet with hollow eyes, as if its soul had been drained.

Immediately after, a children’s rhyme began to play.

The melody was light, fragmented, yet it was the very tune Ye Shi’er often hummed.

Shen Yan stiffened all over, instantly issuing a command in his mind:

【Memory Recall Protection Protocol, Initiate】

【Prohibit Automatic Parsing of External Data Stream】

“Don’t touch the wall!” He pulled Luo Li aside. “This is a program, not a memoir. Someone is waiting for us to enter.”

Luo Li didn’t struggle. Instead, she stared at the fragment for a few seconds before suddenly removing the Star-Shattering Token Imitation from her earring. The two objects faced each other across the space, emitting a low hum, and a fine crack even appeared along the edge of the imitation.

“The timeline is wrong,” she said, her voice tight. “The pattern on this fragment is the ‘Cycle of Reincarnation Seal.’ Only the high priest in our clan can use it, and… it requires a living sacrifice to activate.”

Shen Yan’s pupils contracted.

Sacrifice?

He wanted to ask more, but suddenly the entire secret passage lit up. At the far end, space distorted, and a figure slowly materialized.

Ye Shi’er.

He stood with his back to them, half his face concealed behind a bronze mask, idly toying with a genuine Star-Shattering Token in his hand. His fingers were slender, his movements gentle, as if caressing a treasure. The children’s rhyme continued to play, clearer this time, and as the final note faded, he slowly turned around.

His gaze shot straight toward them.

Shen Yan’s terminal instantly exploded with red warning text:

【Detected Synchronous Consciousness Wave】

【Suspected Personality Replication Module Activation】

【Recommend Immediate Disconnection of Neural Link】

“Shut up,” he gritted his teeth, directly shutting off visual feedback and switching to blind operation mode, frantically writing an isolation script in his mind. “I am not your test account.”

But Luo Li stared fixedly at the Star-Shattering Token, suddenly grabbing his arm. “Don’t look into his eyes! That’s a soul-drawing technique—it can extract the host’s memory.”

Almost simultaneously, the two crouched down, back-to-back. Shen Yan’s fingers flew, code transforming into an invisible barrier. Luo Li bit the tip of her finger, a drop of blood merging into the air. Demon Power and code intertwined, forming a circular shield that barely withstood the mental erosion.

The projection did not attack, merely standing quietly, a faint smile seeming to curl at the corner of his mouth.

Then he spoke again, his voice as if coming from a great distance:

“Welcome to my toy box.”

Shen Yan sneered, “Is your toy box this shabby? Not even a place to sit?”

Before the words had fully left his mouth, the final frame of the image popped up—a yellowed photograph.

Two young boys stood side by side at the entrance of a laboratory, wearing identical white robes, their faces bearing similar expressions of bewilderment. In the background were written a few words: Immortal Legacy Project · Twin Subject Experiment Zero Seven.

Shen Yan’s breath caught.

Twin subjects?

Before he could examine it closely, his phone suddenly vibrated violently, its battery plummeting to three percent. After a series of system alarms, it automatically entered power-saving sleep mode, the screen going black.

Luo Li leaned against his back, her breathing growing weaker. The crack on her earring had spread to the center, and the Star-Shattering Token Imitation’s glow dimmed.

“Can’t hold on anymore…” she murmured. “He’s not after us. He’s after that experiment.”

Shen Yan didn’t speak, only gripping her hand tighter. The shield trembled, like a tent in a storm, ready to collapse at any moment.

He knew there was no retreat.

Behind him was her; ahead was the truth.

Even if this truth was like an abandoned building, collapsing halfway through construction.

He bit the tip of his tongue, forcibly awakening his Source Code Spiritual Root, pouring the last trace of his Mental Power into the System:

【Forced Restart】

【Loading Backup Protocol: Emotional Variable Lock】

The Interface flickered, and a line of text popped up:

【Insufficient User Permission】

【Co-Covenant Partner Co-Authentication Required】

He tilted his head, his voice hoarse: “Do you trust me?”

Luo Li raised her hand, pressing the tip of her finger against the back of his hand. A Demon Mark appeared, intertwining with the symbol of the “Oath of Symbiosis” on his palm.

“I already am,” she said.

The Code began flowing again, and the shield stabilized for a moment.

The Projection remained still, but the Children’s Rhyme echoed once more. This time, the lyrics had changed.

The first line was “Brother.”

Shen Yan abruptly looked up and noticed that beneath Ye Shi’er’s mask, the right corner of his mouth curled upward, revealing a dimple identical to his own.

The shield began to crack, gray mist seeping through the fissures.

Luo Li’s tail drooped weakly, and the Star-Shattering Token Imitation shattered with a sharp crack, splitting in two.

(End of Chapter)