Chapter 89: The Truth Behind the Shattered Mask

Shen Yan’s hand still rested on Luo Li’s shoulder, his fingertips numb as if struck by lightning three times and left to dry for three days. He had just recovered from the shock of the counterattack program, his mind still smoking, when his vision suddenly blurred.

Ye Shi’er was bending down to pick up the fallen fragment of the bronze mask.

The wind swirled with scorched leaves, and moonlight sliced diagonally through the gaps in the forest, illuminating half of his face. In that instant, Shen Yan felt as if his heart had been brutally trapped in an infinite loop by code—the curve of the brow, the line of the nose, even the twitching frequency at the corner of the mouth, all identical to his own reflection in the mirror.

The terminal interface abruptly exploded with green text: 【Warning: Biometric identification complete. Target individual DNA sequence matches host with 98.7% similarity. Common origin markers detected.】

“This can’t be…” His throat felt as dry as if scorched by a firewall. “I grew up in an orphanage eating communal meals. I don’t even know what my own father looks like.”

Before his words faded, Ye Shi’er suddenly looked up and laughed. The laughter lacked its previous mechanical coldness, instead carrying an indescribable, profound sorrow.

“Did you think you were the only container?” His voice was low, yet clear as if poured directly into Shen Yan’s mind. “A thousand years ago, the Celestial Clan Outcast split his soul in two. One descended into the mortal world bearing the Source Code Spiritual Root, while the other… was sealed within a fragment of the Star-Shattering Token, steeped in the Shadow Erosion Altar for three full centuries.”

As he spoke, he raised a hand to stroke his cheek. Beneath the skin, dense green patterns surfaced, strikingly similar to the error logs that popped up when Shen Yan’s terminal crashed, line after line embedded in flesh and blood.

Shen Yan lunged forward, fingers rapidly tapping the air, attempting to invoke the reverse compilation function to probe the other’s spiritual root structure. But the moment he entered the first line of command, the editor in his mind went berserk, flooding him with chaotic memory segments—

A kindergarten group photo with a child in a red vest standing beside him; a hospital medical record stating “twin brother Shen Mo”; and a video clip of him crying uncontrollably while clutching a broken teddy bear, comforted by a boy who looked exactly like him…

It was all fake!

He gritted his teeth and tried to delete them, but the images regenerated like viruses, multiplying the more he deleted, nearly bursting his consciousness.

Just as he was about to lose control, two warm fox tails abruptly wrapped around his wrists and ankles. A surge of pure Demon Power flowed through his meridians, forcibly constructing a barrier around the periphery of his Consciousness Sea.

It was Luo Li.

She had somehow positioned herself in front of him, her nine tails spread like an umbrella, her vertical pupils narrowed to slits. Biting the tip of her tongue, she sprayed a mouthful of vital blood into the air, where it condensed into an ancient rune. She shouted, “By the ancient oath of the Demon Clan, sever the chains of falsehood!”

The blood mist exploded, revealing a faintly visible data circuit in the air, extending from Ye Shi’er’s direction and piercing directly into Shen Yan’s crown of the head.

“Just as I thought!” Luo Li snorted coldly. “Using bloodline resonance for memory injection? Did you take me for decoration?”

Seizing the opportunity, Shen Yan closed his eyes, forcibly opened the core of the Source Code Editor, and manually located the invading thread. Amidst a screen full of garbled code, he instantly recognized the segment disguised as a familial affection module and sneered:

“Who gave you permission to call my emotional interface? Without granted permissions, you dare to run in the production environment?”

With a swipe of his finger, he executed 【Force Uninstall】.

In the distance, Ye Shi’er groaned, his body swaying violently as the mask completely shattered, exposing his entire face to the moonlight—not only were his features identical to Shen Yan’s, but even the mole behind his left ear was in the exact same position.

“It doesn’t matter if you don’t remember,” he said, his voice hoarse, like a poorly recorded tape playing back. “But I remember every breath you took, every heartbeat… We were meant to be one.”

Before his words faded, his body began to ripple with Data Ripples, flickering and distorting like an old projector’s Image.

In the final moment, he looked at Shen Yan, a nearly gentle smile curling at the corner of his mouth: “Don’t forget… we will merge in the end.”

As the light dissipated, only a bloodstained fragment of the Bronze Mask remained, lying quietly on the scorched earth.

Shen Yan staggered two steps, nearly falling to his knees, but Luo Li caught him by the waist. He gasped as if he had just processed a hundred thousand concurrent requests, sweat beading on his temples.

“Are you alright?” she asked softly, her tail still wrapped around him. Blood seeped from the burns on her palm, but she didn’t loosen her grip.

“I’m fine,” he rasped, his voice strained. “It’s just… there was an unauthorized Process running in my mind. I’ve terminated it now.”

He crouched down and reached for the mask fragment. It felt cold to the touch, its edges sharp, with faint traces of blood still clinging to it. Turning it over, he found a line of small characters engraved on the inside:

“Subject Zero Seven, Experimental Subject Shen Mo.”

His hand trembled, nearly dropping the fragment.

“Shen Mo?” Luo Li leaned in for a closer look, her brow furrowing. “Is that his name?”

Shen Yan didn’t respond. He stared at the three characters, feeling as though someone had forcibly dismantled his System’s hard drive with root Permission. Since childhood, he had believed he was just an ordinary orphan abandoned by his parents. But now, out of nowhere, he had a twin brother—and one who was some kind of experimental product of the Celestial Clan?

It was as absurd as a Bug.

Yet, all the evidence was telling him—this was no joke.

The Terminal was still flashing: 【Same-origin confirmation not revoked. Deep trace analysis recommended.】

He sneered and clicked “Ignore.”

At that moment, Luo Li suddenly tugged at him. “Wait.”

“What?”

She stared at the spot where Ye Shi’er had vanished, her ears twitching slightly. “That Data Stream just now… it wasn’t just an attack. It felt more like… some kind of Awakening Program.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like the ‘Easter egg’ you buried when teaching the little demon to write Code,” she narrowed her eyes. “Once the Trigger Conditions are met, a hidden Logic is automatically activated.”

Shen Yan’s heart jolted.

Could it be that Ye Shi’er hadn’t just come to fight? Had he come to “install an Update Package” for him?

As he pondered this, he suddenly noticed a faint scratch on the back of the mask fragment. Leaning in for a closer look, he realized it was a string of symbols arranged in an all-too-familiar pattern—

It was binary.

He immediately pulled out his phone, opened a translation tool, and input the sequence. A few seconds later, a sentence appeared on the Screen:

“Brother, don’t trust the Memories they left you.”

The phone clattered to the ground.

Luo Li bent down to pick it up, glanced at the Screen, and her expression changed. “Does this mean… your past might be fabricated?”

Shen Yan didn’t answer. He looked up at the shattered sky. The Energy Fluctuations of the Western Wastes Secret Realm had yet to settle, the charred branches of the ancient tree swaying gently in the wind. The ruins left after the battle lay in disarray.

Just then, his peripheral vision caught a glimpse of something beneath a sunken floor tile not far away—what seemed to be half of a furry corner.

Like… a teddy bear’s ear.

He was about to step forward when Luo Li suddenly pressed a hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t move,” she whispered, her voice very low. “That thing… wasn’t there just now.”

(End of Chapter)