At the Chén Clan martial arts arena, during the first quarter of the Hour of Xū, dusk saturated the bluestone slabs. Chen Mo stood before the thirty-seventh sword stake, and the jade slip in his sleeve emitted a faint tremor. It was the one Lǐ Míngxuān had "accidentally" dropped that morning, which concealed an encrypted directive from Tianyan Group: "Monitor the concubine-born son of the Chén Clan, and execute data purging if necessary." With the tip of his finger, he stroked the runes carved upon the surface of the sword stake, and his retinal interface automatically parsed the flaws within the formation: in the five-phase cycle of the Earth-Attribute Sword Array, the "earth-attribute code checksum bit" was missing.
"Young Master, it is time for the evening meal." Chuntao walked over carrying a bamboo food box, a "spirit net communication talisman" pinned in her hair—repurposed from scrapped talismans, its built-in primitive code could convert spiritual qi fluctuations into Morse code.
"Wait a moment longer." Chen Mo stepped back three steps and formed the "loop structure" hand seals with both hands. Last night, using the system to parse the Basic Inhalation Technique, he had discovered that the cultivation method suffered from a severe "memory leak," so he had adapted it into a "recursive inhalation technique," allowing any excess spiritual qi to be automatically reclaimed with every breath.
As his hand seals shifted, the sword stake suddenly hummed, and the earth-attribute spiritual qi condensed like a sandstorm. Chen Mo took half a step forward, his left foot stepping onto the "while loop" node while his right foot landed on the "if conditional branch" position, the trajectory of the spiritual qi flowing around him aligning perfectly with the code flowchart.
[Cultivation method optimization detected. Current spiritual qi utilization efficiency increased by 37%.]
Chuntao covered her mouth, watching as those sword stakes, which had previously remained still, began to spin and assemble into a complex geometric array. Even more astonishingly, the spiritual qi flicking from Chen Mo's fingertips transformed into a binary data stream, weaving a golden net among the sword stakes.
"This is..." Remembering the "spirit net" project the young master had spoken of, she suddenly understood why those talismans could turn into communication tools in his hands.
"It is a bug, but also an opportunity." Chen Mo lowered his stance, a faint sheen of sweat on his temples. Adapting cultivation methods was even more mentally taxing than writing code, especially when it required translating Daoist cultivation theory into programming logic. He retrieved a piece of spirit rice cake from the food box, and as he took a bite, he "saw" the spiritual qi particles within the pastry reorganizing themselves, just like a compiled program.
Chuntao suddenly stepped closer and lowered her voice, "Young Master, just now when I went to the back kitchen, I heard the maid in the Second Madam's chambers say... the Master is going to the City God Temple Underground Palace tonight."
The spirit rice cake in Chen Mo's hand crumbled into powder. The information obtained at the end of Chapter Two explicitly mentioned: "At the full moon, the City God Temple Underground Palace, qubit trading." He raised his gaze toward the horizon, where a blood-red moon was rising from the direction of Lujiazui, casting an eerie red glow among the fleets of flying boats.
At the City God Temple Underground Palace, at the Hour of Zǐ, fluorescent moss crawled over the damp stone walls. Chen Mo pressed himself against the shadows as he moved forward, with Chuntao close behind, a makeshift "spiritual qi shielding talisman" hanging from her waist—essentially a simple noise-reduction program that converted the spiritual qi fluctuations around her into white noise.
Voices drifted from ahead. He signaled for Chuntao to stop and pressed his fingertips against the stone wall. A sonic wave analysis diagram popped up on his retinal interface, translating the muffled dialogue into text:
"—That child of the Chén Clan has indeed awakened the code spiritual root."
"Mr. Su has given word: if he cannot be made to serve us, trigger the 'segmentation fault' program during the Grand Tournament."
"What about Chén Tiānhóng's side, then?"
"He is merely a chess piece. Once the qubit collection is complete, the entire Chén Clan will be sacrificed for the Great Void Heaven-Deriving Formula."
Chen Mo's pupils contracted sharply. "Mr. Su" evidently referred to Su Mubai, and the "segmentation fault" program signified a memory access violation—in the realm of cultivation, this meant the spiritual root would burst and lead to death. Even more shocking was the name "Great Void Heaven-Deriving Formula"; his mother's final testament had mentioned that it was a forbidden art capable of reversing time and space.
Chuntao tugged at his sleeve, sending a Morse code message via the spirit talisman: *Spirit butterfly!*
Chen Mo looked up and saw a blue spirit butterfly resting upon a spiderweb hanging from the cavern ceiling. The fluorescent patterns on its wings differed from the specimens he had seen in the woodshed, displaying instead the design of quantum entanglement. More importantly, the butterfly's antennae were pointed directly toward a concealed stone door—where spiritual qi fluctuations pulsed, bearing an uncanny resemblance to Lin Xiaoman's spirit talisman frequency.
He crept closer to the stone door, and the moment his fingertips brushed the ring, his retinal interface flashed a glaring red: [Warning! Tianyan Group quantum trap detected. Trigger condition: Biometric identification successful.]
Before he could retreat, the entire wall suddenly turned into liquid spiritual qi and sucked him inside. Chuntao's cry of alarm was cut off on the other side. Falling through a sensation of weightlessness, Chen Mo saw countless cocoons of light floating about him, each cocoon curling around a human form with a quantum chip plugged into the back of their neck—the very same test subjects from Yunxiao Technology's "spirit net" project in his past life.
"Welcome to the qubit farm, classmate Chen Mo."
A cold female voice echoed from all directions. Chen Mo turned and saw a young woman in a lab coat stepping out from behind a light cocoon, a blue ribbon tied around her ponytail, the Ouroboros badge of Tianyan Group pinned to her left lapel. She raised a hand to remove her glasses, revealing the exact same tattoo as Lin Xiaoman's at the nape of her neck—an Ouroboros composed of binary code.
"Who are you?" Chen Mo took half a step back, gathering spiritual qi into a data stream in his palm.
"My name is Su Qing, and I am your... program tester." The young woman smiled, flicking a spiritual qi chip from her fingertips. "Three years ago, your mother Su Wan'er used fragments of her own consciousness to create me, saying she wanted to leave you with a 'helper who would never betray you'."
His retinal interface flickered frantically, and a thunderclap exploded in Chen Mo's mind. His mother's experimental notes had indeed mentioned a "virtual consciousness" project, but he had never imagined that he possessed a "sister made of code."
Su Qing waved a hand, and the experimental subjects within the light cocoons lit up one by one: "These are all participants in the 'spirit net' project. Their consciousnesses have been split into qubits for Su Mubai to calculate the Heavenly Dao. But look at this—" She pointed to a dark red light cocoon. "Inside is Lin Xiaoman, your fiancée, and also the most perfect quantum daughter of Tianyan Group."
Chen Mo felt his heart being squeezed tight. The young woman inside the light cocoon wore the familiar lab coat, the chip at the back of her neck draining her spiritual qi, while on her wrist she wore the mechanical watch he had given her in his past life, engraved with a tiny line of code: *love=int(input)*
"Do you want to save her?" Su Qing offered the chip. "Use this to take over control of the farm, and I will help you modify her 'factory settings.' However—" Her fingertip grazed her own throat, "the moment it is initiated, I will be wiped out by Su Mubai's antivirus program."
A violent tremor shook the outside of the cavern. Chen Mo heard Chuntao's screams and Lǐ Míngxuān's furious shouts. The retinal interface indicated that only 47 hours remained until the Double-Sift Experiment Dao Enlightenment countdown, and his spiritual qi was already beginning to resonate with the quantum farm's system.
"Accept the chip." He reached out and took it, the code flowing into vascular patterns across his palm, "not to modify her, but..." He suddenly pressed the chip against the center of his brow, "to turn all of us into a virus."
Su Qing's pupils constricted violently: "Do you know what this means? Once your consciousness enters the system, you may never be able to return to your physical body!"
"Then let them see a programmer's revenge..." Chen Mo revealed a cold smirk, the spiritual qi surrounding him transforming into a surging data stream, "is contagious."
The moment his consciousness sank into the chip, he saw his physical self in reality collapse to his knees, golden code-blood gushing from his nostrils. Chuntao lunged forward in tears, and Lǐ Míngxuān's sword pierced clean through his shoulder—yet within Quantum Space, Chen Mo had already transformed into millions of lines of code, infiltrating Tianyan Group's main server along the wings of the spirit butterfly.
At Lujiazui, the Tianyan Group Headquarters — Quantum Core Server Room
Su Mubai stared at the monitoring screen, the smile at the corner of his mouth gradually freezing. He watched as the qubit representing Chen Mo suddenly split into countless replicas, each copy devouring the data streams of the other test subjects. Even more astonishingly, those consciousness fragments that had previously been locked down were recombining, forming a massive binary sword array.
"Interesting." He pressed the communication button. "Inform Chén Tiānhóng to initiate the 'segmentation fault' program. Also, bring Chen Qingyue here; I want her to see with her own eyes... just how fragile her younger brother's code truly is."
At the Chén Clan West Side Courtyard, at the Hour of Yín
Chen Mo jolted awake, cold sweat soaking his undergarments. Chuntao had fallen asleep slumped by the edge of the bed, tear tracks staining her face, and his right shoulder was wrapped in blood-stained cloth—the sword wound inflicted by Lǐ Míngxuān. Strangely, however, golden code was flowing around the wound, automatically repairing the muscle tissue.
"Young Master, you're finally awake!" The young girl lunged forward. "Last night at the City God Temple, you suddenly passed out, and the Eldest Miss carried you back... She even had a huge argument with the Master, saying she was going to take you to the Zhangjiang Technological Cultivation Park to have your wounds healed!"
Chen Mo stood frozen. The retinal interface indicated that the Double-Slit Experiment Dao Enlightenment was 83% complete, and deep within his consciousness resided a completely unfamiliar piece of code—a "backdoor program" implanted by Su Qing before their parting, bearing an icon of a blue spirit butterfly with the inscription on its wings: *[Consciousness channel to Lin Xiaoman has been connected for you].*
Outside the window, the first ray of sunlight pierced through the blood-red moon. Chen Mo touched his chest, where a warm spiritual qi particle beat at a familiar frequency. He knew that was Lin Xiaoman's consciousness whispering: *Hello, World.*
[End of Chapter 3]