cage
Xiang Jinyang's steps didn't falter in the slightest at the pointed question, as he continued to tread steadily on the white jade-paved mountain path, his cloud-patterned boots unstained by dust. However, only he could sense that the power of the laws of heaven within him, as vast as the sea of stars and always flowing unimpeded, had just experienced a momentary, extremely subtle pause.
It's like a hard grain of sand suddenly jumping between precision gears. Although it does not cause any actual damage, it makes an unsettling friction noise.
"The string is too tight...will it break?"
This absurd thought, like a virus, attempted to infiltrate his perfectly rational core computing process, but his even stronger will forcibly isolated, compressed, and temporarily stored in the underlying processing area of the logic analysis module. His current priority wasn't to analyze this nonsense, but to address the anomaly.
He looked straight ahead, yet the chill emanating from his body practically froze the spiritual energy in his path. Sect disciples who happened to encounter him along the way, upon seeing Daozu from afar, hurriedly knelt on the ground, their heads bowed deeply, not daring to breathe. And when they caught a glimpse of He Yuan behind Daozu, dressed in a dazzling shroud, his hands and feet dangling silver chains of rules, yet walking with a swagger and even glancing around with curiosity, their fear and astonishment nearly shattered their basic understanding of the world.
Is this... that good-for-nothing Taoist companion? Wasn't he dead? Those chains... are they chains of heavenly punishment? But why does he look so relaxed? Why did the Daoist Ancestor bring him out?
Countless questions attacked the disciples' Dao hearts, but no one dared to ask. They could only suppress the endless fear and confusion in their hearts and let the Taoist master lead the strange "prisoner" through the numerous palaces and pavilions, heading towards the forbidden area on the back mountain of the main peak.
He Yuan truly felt like a tourist. He "read" everything about the Tianyan Sect with great interest. He saw the mountain protection array as a vast protective code covering the entire mountain range, constantly looping and self-checking, yet with several old loopholes that he could see through at a glance. The spiritual herbs and flowers planted by the roadside were small data nodes emitting faint energy fluctuations. The spiritual energy circulating within the disciples' bodies was an internal loophole with varying degrees of efficiency.
"Hmm, the overall architecture is fine, but the O&M is a bit lacking. So many obvious vulnerabilities remain unpatched," he muttered, his fingers unconsciously tapping the air a few times. A protective rune on the eaves of a distant side hall, weakened by age and neglect, flickered briefly, its operating efficiency instantly increasing by three percent, but quickly returned to normal due to insufficient energy supply. This subtle change, unnoticed even by the disciples on duty, was clearly visible to Xiang Jinyang.
Once again, he casually changed the rules right under his nose.
Xiang Jinyang's fingers curled slightly in his sleeves. He suppressed the urge to try again. Previous failures had proven that conventional restraints were ineffective against this person. Instead, they might be exploited or even countered, adding to the uncertainty.
We have to find another way.
Finally, they arrived at a secluded cliff in the mountains behind the main peak. Clouds and mist gathered here, and below lay a bottomless abyss. Ordinary disciples dared not approach this place because it was the sect's forbidden area and the entrance to the Jintian Realm, where the Taoist ancestors practiced in seclusion.
Xiang Jinyang raised his hand, and pure Heavenly Dao power flowed from his fingertips, like entering a complex dynamic code. The clouds and mist ahead surged, rewriting the laws of space. A light gate, barely wide enough for one person to pass through, quietly emerged. The aura emanating from within was pure and cold, completely out of place.
"Go in." Xiang Jinyang leaned sideways, his voice cold and unquestionable.
He Yuan peered into the light portal, his eyes flashing with silver codes, as if analyzing the parameters of the environment behind the portal. "Oh? An independently developed subspace? A private server, then? The environment is quite sophisticated, but the access permissions are too rigid, lacking a sense of sharing."
He teased, but without hesitation, he stepped into the light gate. His attitude didn't sound like he was being escorted into a prison, but rather like he was being invited to visit a friend's private laboratory.
Xiang Jinyang's eyes were calm as he followed closely behind him.
The light gate closed silently behind him, completely cutting off contact with the outside world.
The scene within the door suddenly opened up. It wasn't the cave or palace I'd imagined, but rather a vast, empty world. The sky was pure silver, devoid of sun, moon, or stars, yet flowing through it was a clearly visible, vast, and extremely complex chain of laws. Like living things, they operated, intertwined, and evolved, forming the very foundation of this world. The ground, smooth as a mirror, reflected the rhythmic light from the dome, yet it was completely empty. The spiritual energy here was so rich it was almost liquid, yet it flowed in a perfectly fixed pattern, without the slightest dissipation or confusion.
Absolute order, absolute rules, absolute coldness and silence.
This is the Jintian Realm, the original realm of Xiang Jinyang, where the rules of heaven are manifested in the most intuitive way.
"Wow." He Yuan whistled, breaking the eternal silence. The sound seemed particularly abrupt in the empty world. "It really is your core database mirror. How cold! They didn't even design a user interface. Bad review."
He stepped onto the mirror-smooth ground, and immediately a circle of tiny silver ripples spread beneath his feet, a normal reaction to the rules being disturbed by an outsider. However, the chains of rules on his hands and feet, condensed by Xiang Jinyang, seemed to be nourished and strengthened the moment he entered this place, and the light became more condensed.
Xiang Jinyang's figure emerged not far away, merging with the entire Jintian Realm. He was the master of this place. Here, his power was amplified to the greatest extent, and he would exert a strong suppression on all existences not permitted by the rules.
"The rules here are set by me." He spoke to Jinyang, his voice resonating in the air, growing increasingly majestic and cold. "Any unusual behavior of yours will be instantly recorded, analyzed, and subjected to corresponding suppression."
He tried to re-establish dominance and define the rules of this "observation environment".
"Really?" He Yuan smiled. He raised his right hand which was entangled in chains, spread out his five fingers, and then slowly clenched them.
Buzz——!
The entire Jintian Realm shook slightly.
Above the dome, several massive chains of rules that had been flowing steadily suddenly twisted and trembled violently, as if pulled by an invisible force. They emitted an unbearable humming sound! The smooth mirrored surface on the ground rippled violently, and the reflected light and shadow became fragmented!
It wasn't an attack, but rather a disturbance. He Yuan seemed to have simply "grasped" the "virtual interfaces" of several key rule chains that formed the foundation of this place, inflicting an extremely small, yet precisely targeted "disturbance" on the operating nodes!
It's like gently touching a high-speed spinning top. Although it doesn't stop it, it instantly destroys its balance.
Xiang Jinyang's face paled slightly (if that could be called a face), and the light of the rules around him flickered violently. As the core of the Jintian Realm, any abnormalities here would be directly reflected back to him. He immediately mobilized a massive amount of computing power to forcibly stabilize the disrupted rule chains.
The vibration subsided and the rule chain returned to stability, but the suffocating feeling as if the heart was being squeezed hard remained.
"Look," He Yuan released his hand, his tone as relaxed as if nothing had happened, "'Making the rules' and 'completely controlling the rules' are two different things, right?" He shook the chain on his wrist. "This thing has become stronger here, but it seems... it's also more closely connected to me? Thank you for helping me strengthen my 'authority'."
Xiang Jinyang remained silent. He realized that bringing He Yuan into the Jintian Realm might not be an entirely wise choice. The rules here were powerful, but that also meant they were more concentrated and manifest, making them more susceptible to the other party's strange abilities. This was tantamount to introducing a virus into the core database!
But he had no choice. The outside world was more fragile and more easily destroyed.
"Stay here." He suppressed the surging power of rules within Jinyang, his voice becoming increasingly cold. "Without permission, you are not allowed to violate any rules."
He needs time, needs analysis, and needs to find the opponent's weaknesses.
"Okay, anyway, your internet speed here... uh, the flow of spiritual energy is quite fast, so it's not uncomfortable to stay here." He Yuan shrugged indifferently, and actually sat down on the spot, and even lay down leisurely, looking at the flowing rule codes on the dome, as if he was looking at the starry sky.
Xiang Jinyang no longer paid attention to him. His figure gradually faded, as if he was about to merge into this world and began to perform in-depth calculations and analysis.
However, he soon discovered that he could not fully enter that absolutely rational operating state.
Because the presence of that "abnormal variable" is too strong.
Even if He Yuan did nothing but lie there quietly, he himself was a massive source of instability, constantly emitting strange waves. These waves constantly interacted with the laws of the Jintian Realm, producing extremely weak but inescapable interactions, like dropping small stones into a calm lake, creating ripples and disrupting Xiang Jinyang's absolute concentration.
What made Xiang Jinyang even more unbearable was that he felt the other person's "gaze".
That wasn't just any ordinary gaze, but a cold, analytical one, a "scan" that seemed to penetrate all appearances and reach the essence. This gaze recklessly swept back and forth over him (and the entire Jintian Realm), analyzing his composition, his operating logic, everything about him.
Xiang Jinyang felt like an object stripped of all its protective shields and placed on a lab bench for observation and analysis. For the supreme incarnation of Heaven, this experience was an unprecedented humiliation and... a sense of loss of control.
He tried to block this perception, but to no avail. The other party's "scan" seemed to be based on an underlying principle he couldn't understand, acting directly on the rules themselves, and could not be blocked by conventional means.
Time passed slowly in this extremely strange and tormenting atmosphere.
After an unknown amount of time, He Yuan, who had been lying quietly, suddenly sat up again.
"Hey," he began, breaking the suffocating silence once again, "I have a question."
Xiang Jinyang's figure gathered not far away, looking at him coldly, without saying a word, expressing his refusal to communicate with silence.
But He Yuan obviously didn't need his consent.
"You maintain such a large 'system,'" he pointed to the vast chains of rules in the dome, then gestured across the entire space. "You're constantly processing massive amounts of data and running so many complex rules... What about you?"
Xiang Jinyang's eyes moved slightly, as if he didn't understand the question.
"Yourself," He Yuan repeated, his gaze fixed on Xiang Jinyang's eyes, which were filled with rules. "Where is your 'self'? Is it the rules themselves? Or are you just... an 'administrator account' responsible for enforcing the rules?"
He tilted his head and asked a question that went straight to the core of Jin Yang's existence.
"Where are your joys, sorrows, anger, and happiness? Where are your desires? Besides upholding these cold and impersonal rules and regulations, what exactly are you? Or, in other words, are you still considered a 'living' thing?"
Every word was like a cold chisel, trying to pry open the flawless shell of rules and touch the void that might exist underneath, which even Xiang Jinyang himself was unaware of.
Xiang Jinyang was completely frozen.
For the first time, the regular runes circulating around the body fell into a complete and chaotic stagnation not because of interference, but because the internal core calculation encountered an unsolvable logical dead loop.
In the Jintian territory, the eternal, unchanging, orderly and regular flow of light suddenly flashed violently for the first time without any warning, over a large area.
Like a blue screen of death.
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