Chapter 100 Mirror Image and Purgatory
Once a breakthrough appears, subsequent progress will be like a flood breaking through a dam.
According to Huo Shen's hint and the activated environment variable comment, Su Yan led the remote technical team to follow the clues and found an independent data sector that was multiply encrypted and physically isolated in the redundant backup area in the deepest layer of the "Echo" architecture.
The cracking process was like walking on a knife's edge. Any wrong attempt could trigger an unknown defense mechanism, resulting in permanent data corruption. Su Yan worked almost non-stop, repeatedly simulating and testing with his team, keeping everyone's nerves on edge.
Huo Shen turned down all non-essential meetings and social engagements, spending most of his time in his apartment's study. He didn't get involved in the specific technical details, but like a silent mountain, he stood guard behind Su Yan, providing unconditional resource support and the final decision-making power. His presence itself was a powerful pressure and spiritual support—although Su Yan was reluctant to admit it.
The air was filled with a tense, almost frozen feeling, mixed with the heat from caffeine and electronic devices. Su Yan could feel Huo Shen's gaze on his back, more focused and more... complicated than ever before.
Finally, at the approach of another dawn, the last encryption barrier was successfully bypassed.
The core data packet named "Initial Sequence: Mirror" slowly appeared before everyone.
There is no expected earth-shattering core technology code. What is stored inside are highly compressed and encrypted... records of biological consciousness stream signals.
"This is..." a senior neuroscientist connected remotely said, his voice trembling with disbelief. "Is this like... some kind of 'snapshot' of conscious activity... based on extreme emotional stimulation? No, it's more like... a primitive imprint of a thought process."
Su Yan's heart sank. He retrieved a section of the signal record that, after preliminary decompression, could be vaguely interpreted.
The record is labeled: [Axiao - Extreme Fear - Final Moment (Clip)].
The data cannot be directly restored into images or sounds, but the analog signal waveform converted by the algorithm, the violent and distorted fluctuations, the cliff-like drop that suddenly stops after reaching the peak, silently tell the unimaginable horror and pain experienced by the recorder in the last moments of his life.
This is not technical information.
This was Xiao's most authentic conscious reaction, which was forcibly recorded in some way before his death.
"Prometheus"... its original purpose, or rather, its most hidden fangs, wasn't to create any auxiliary system, but rather "consciousness capture" and "mind purgatory"?! Zhou Mingchen and the others were conducting extremely inhumane consciousness experiments on living people!
Su Yan felt a wave of physical nausea, and cold sweat instantly soaked his shirt. He subconsciously looked at Huo Shen.
Huo Shen stood there, his face a terrifying, deathly pale. He stared intently at the waveform on the screen that represented Ah Xiao's final agony. Initially, his eyes were filled with great shock and bewilderment, but then, that shock was swallowed up by surging, devastating rage and... overwhelming pain.
He always thought that Xiao died in a "cleansing" of a business conspiracy.
He never imagined that the truth was so bloody, so inhumane... a massacre.
And he, Huo Shen, the "Prometheus" he single-handedly promoted and had high hopes for, the bright future he once thought of, was actually built on the pain of the person he loved most (perhaps he was not willing to admit it until this moment) being so cruelly deprived of consciousness and experiencing mental purgatory!
"go out."
Huo Shen's voice was hoarse, like sandpaper rubbing against his throat.
The remote team members could feel the terrifying pressure threatening to burst through the space even through the screen, and they instantly severed the connection. Chen Mo quietly and swiftly exited the study, gently closing the door behind him.
Only Su Yan and Huo Shen were left in the room.
Su Yan watched Huo Shen's chest heave violently, his clenched fists trembling violently from the extreme force, his knuckles turning bluish-white. Those eyes, always bottomless and in control of everything, were now filled with crimson bloodshot and overwhelming pain, as if they would bleed at any moment.
He had never seen Huo Shen like this before. Fragile, crazy, on the verge of collapse.
Su Yan opened his mouth and wanted to say something, but found that any words were pale and powerless in the face of the truth at the moment.
"You get out too." Huo Shen didn't look at him, his voice squeezed out from between his teeth, with a violent attitude that was trying hard to suppress but was still on the verge of losing control.
Su Yan hesitated for a moment. He knew Huo Shen was in extreme danger at the moment. But he did not move.
"Huo..." He just uttered a word.
Huo Shen turned his head abruptly, his crimson eyes like a wounded beast instantly locking onto Su Yan. He took a step forward at alarming speed and grabbed Su Yan's wrist with such force that it nearly crushed his bones.
"I told you to get out! Don't you understand?!" He growled, his breath hot and chaotic, spraying on Su Yan's face, "Or do you want to see how I go crazy?! See how I, the idiot who indirectly killed him... collapse?!"
His voice was filled with self-loathing and destructive madness.
Su Yan felt a sharp pain in his wrist, but he endured it and did not cry out. He just raised his head and looked clearly into Huo Shen's eyes, which were almost broken with pain.
"It wasn't me who found the 'initial sequence,'" Su Yan said in a remarkably calm voice, seemingly out of place in the center of this storm. "It was 'we' who found it. It was you who gave me the authority, it was your resources that supported me, and it was your judgment that guided me in this direction. Huo Shen, don't run away."
"Shut up!" Huo Shen seemed to have been hurt by these words. He pressed Su Yan hard on the cold desk, pressing his body against him. Their noses almost touched, and their breaths blended together chaotically.
"What do you know?! You know nothing!" Huo Shen's eyes were frantic, filled with despair and self-destructive tendencies. "It's me! I gave him permission to conduct research! It's me who failed to protect him! It's me... I even used the things he left behind after his death. I..."
His words were choked, and the immense pain made it almost impossible for him to breathe. He looked at Su Yan's clear eyes, which reflected his miserable state at the moment, and an indescribable emotion, a mixture of anger, despair, and some kind of twisted attraction, surged in his chest like magma.
He suddenly lowered his head, not giving Su Yan a kiss, but biting her lips hard like a beast, with a sense of punishment and catharsis.
There was no tenderness, only the smell of blood lingering between their lips and teeth.
Su Yan didn't resist, didn't even close his eyes. He endured the pain and violence that almost crushed him, and clearly felt the uncontrollable trembling coming from Huo Shen's body.
This kiss was Huo Shen pulling him into his own purgatory.
He was punishing himself by hurting Su Yan.
It was unknown how long it took before Huo Shen, seemingly exhausted, suddenly let go of him, staggering back a few steps and leaning against the bookshelf, gasping for breath. His lips were stained with Su Yan's blood, and his eyes stared blankly at the ceiling, like a body with its soul taken away.
Su Yan slowly stood up from the desk and wiped the blood from the corner of his lips with the back of his hand. The burning pain reminded him of what had just happened.
He looked at the man who seemed to be defeated in an instant. There was no joy of victory in his heart, only a cold sadness.
The truth of the "initial sequence" is like a cruel mirror, reflecting Huo Shen's most unbearable wounds, and also revealing the twisted and profound bond between them that can no longer be defined by simple emotions or exploitation.
From the edge of purgatory, he glimpsed the true abyss in Huo Shen's heart.
And Huo Shen, on the verge of collapse, subconsciously held on to him tightly - the "accomplice" who was the only one who knew all the secrets and faced the cruel truth with him.
The purgatory fire that burned away past pretenses and conceit has descended at this moment because of this bloody truth.
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