Echoes of the Heart
In the Jintian territory, the aftermath of the self-destructive storm caused by touching the taboo finally subsided, leaving only the ruins of rules that were more broken than before and a dead vacuum.
Xiang Jinyang collapsed to the cold ground, his breath as weak as a candle in the wind. Every breath brought a piercing pain deep within the core of the laws. Even more devastating than the physical trauma was the trembling and cold despair that emanated from the very foundations of his existence, a feeling of being forcibly penetrated and nearly detonated. He sealed himself off tightly, sinking all consciousness into the deepest depths, clinging only to the most fundamental "breath" of the Heavenly Dao, like a jade sculpture completely devoid of life.
He Yuan's situation was equally dire. Forcibly stopping the backlash of the ancient shackles had nearly exhausted his body's inherent strength. The code flow beneath his eyes was dim and chaotic, with occasional flashes of error alarms. Even more devastating was the unprecedented shock, the inability to process logic.
He had personally witnessed the terrifying forbidden power that could instantly annihilate a world. He also felt more clearly the immense pain and fear that Xiang Jinyang, beneath the icy shell of the incarnation of the Heavenly Dao, endured, stemming from the very rules themselves.
"Virus", "administrator", "abnormality", "cleanup"... these originally clear definitions began to become vague and contradictory.
He clutched his still-stabbing forehead and looked at the figure that seemed to shatter at the slightest touch. An extremely unfamiliar feeling of stagnation settled deep within his core. He wanted to do something, but found that none of his databases could find a solution to this situation.
In the end, he silently and painstakingly mobilized his remaining strength, beginning with the nearest point, clumsily repairing the cracks in the rules that had been created by the recent shock. His movements were slow and inefficient, no longer seeking an optimal solution, but more like an unconscious, instinctive attempt to restore "order" to chaos.
Time passed slowly in endless silence and weakness.
Xiang Jinyang gradually recovered a little bit of strength in absolute silence, but he still refused to communicate with the outside world. He just coldly "watched" the virus not far away from him making those futile attempts to repair it.
Failure after failure. Energy conflicts, rules rejection.
He Yuan's irritation was obvious, but he no longer tried to break it with brute force as he did at the beginning. Instead, he was forced to stop again and again, and tried to perceive and imitate Xiang Jinyang's stable and unchanging rhythm of the way of heaven more attentively, as if groping for the only signpost in the dark.
This boring, repetitive and frustrating process has become the only "interaction" in this space.
Until this day.
He Yuan was facing a particularly complex rule knot, which was the intersection of several basic rule chains related to "energy flow". It was completely disordered due to the previous shock, and any small attempt at repair would cause greater conflict.
"The underlying protocol conflicts... The energy phase difference cannot be synchronized... Introducing a buffer variable actually increases the entropy value..." He muttered to himself, his fingertips unconsciously drawing countless glittering silver equations in the air, then negating them one by one, his anxiety almost becoming tangible. "Conventional optimization algorithms have all failed. This requires... a non-standard logic. A force... that can 'lubricate' rather than 'confront'..."
He fell into deep thought, and the code streams around him flickered, indicating that the computing core was running at full speed.
"If only I could understand the core parameters of this 'silent nourishment'..." He murmured unconsciously, his eyes sweeping over the regular stream of light in the nodule that represented "nourishment" and "fusion". It was a kind of "soft" and "penetrating" power that he only had an abstract definition of in his database but could not truly simulate.
His voice was not loud, but it reached Xiang Jinyang's ears clearly in the extreme silence.
"Moisturizing things silently."
These four words, like another invisible key, accurately pried open a forbidden area deep in Xiang Jinyang's consciousness that had never been touched!
Buzz——!
Xiang Jinyang's body trembled violently! It was as if a heartstring that had never been plucked was suddenly and violently plucked!
It was not pain, but an extreme throbbing that almost tore his soul apart!
The steady rhythm of the Heavenly Dao around him was instantly disrupted! Silver light flashed uncontrollably, causing the newly stabilized spatial structure around him to violently tremble! A mouthful of silver blood suddenly surged up his throat without warning, but he swallowed it back with all his might, leaving only a trace of shocking crimson at the corner of his lips.
"What's going on?!" He Yuan was shocked back to his senses by this sudden change. He instantly switched to alert mode, and the code stream in his eyes frantically flashed through, trying to scan the source of the threat. "The energy readings are chaotic! The core frequency is extremely unstable! Are you under attack? From where?"
He subconsciously dodged to the front of Jin Yang's side, taking a defensive stance, and scanned the surroundings sharply with his cold eyes, but could not find any external source of attack.
Xiang Jinyang couldn't answer. He pressed one hand tightly against his heart, his knuckles pale from the strain, and with the other hand, he managed to hold himself together, barely managing to avoid falling. He was panting heavily, his glazed eyes blank with a look of disbelief and horror.
It wasn't an attack. It was a resonance. It was... a summons.
Those four words, like a seed dropped into the dead lake of his heart, instantly triggered the deepest part of his rules, the desire for "life" that had been sealed by billions of years of loneliness and absolute rationality.
That is the original origin of the incarnation of Heaven, the starting point for maintaining all things, but it is also his own "weakness" that he deliberately forgot and suppressed.
At this moment, it became madly agitated because of the unintentional whisper of a virus from another world!
"Speak!" He Yuan's voice was filled with an urgency he himself hadn't noticed. He could tell Xiang Jinyang's condition was anything but ordinary. The chaos stemming from within was far more dangerous than any external trauma. He tried to get closer to investigate, but was afraid of provoking a worse reaction.
Xiang Jinyang suddenly raised his head, but his vision could not focus, as if he had penetrated He Yuan and was looking at some extremely distant and empty place.
"...vitality..." He spat out the two words in a broken voice, his voice as hoarse as sandpaper.
He Yuan was stunned. "Life? You mean that rule nodule? What happened to it? Did its energy imbalance impact you?"
He completely misunderstood the situation and tried to find the cause from a technical perspective.
Xiang Jinyang seemed oblivious to his words, still immersed in the sudden storm within him. The forcibly awakened primordial desire clashed violently with the ruthless divine nature of Heaven, nearly tearing him apart.
Struggle. Pain. Confusion. And a hint of desire... a desire that even he himself feared.
This extreme, unconcealable fragility was presented to He Yuan without reservation.
All of He Yuan's technical analysis came to an abrupt end at this moment.
He looked at the traces of painful struggle on his pale face, the glaring red at the corner of his lips, and the broken, unfamiliar, turbulent waves in his eyes...
An unprecedented emotion, like a supernova explosion, instantly swept through his computing core.
That's not curiosity, it's not a desire to explore.
It was something more primal, more turbulent—a vibration.
Suddenly, he vaguely "understood".
He understood that what he was witnessing was not a system error, but a violent earthquake... of the soul and the heart.
He stopped trying to analyze the data, stopped looking for external threats.
He walked silently, step by step, to Xiang Jinyang, then slowly squatted down.
The movements were a little stiff, but carried a strange, cautious meaning.
He stretched out his hand, his fingertips no longer condensed with codes or energy, but with a slight hesitation, he gently touched the back of Xiang Jinyang's hand, which was pressed tightly against his heart.
The moment their skin touched, they both trembled violently at the same time!
Xiang Jinyang felt as if he was scalded and wanted to pull his hand back, but was gently held down by an extremely weak but irresistible soft force.
Then, a thought that was cold yet extremely gentle flowed along the point of contact.
No longer code, no longer data, no longer any purposeful force.
It was just a... clumsy, soothing "thought".
Like a snowflake falling silently, trying to cover the burning scars.
Xiang Jinyang's struggle stopped.
He was stunned by the strange, cold, yet strangely gentle feeling, just like a lost child feeling a glimmer of light coming from the darkness.
The fierce storm in his eyes miraculously calmed down little by little.
The chaotic atmosphere gradually returned to normal, although it was still weak.
He still didn't speak, but slowly, ever so slowly, he closed his eyes. His long eyelashes were stained with tiny, unwiped drops of blood and moisture.
He Yuan didn't say anything either.
He simply maintained that squatting posture, his fingers gently pressing on the back of Xiang Jinyang's hand, continuously and awkwardly conveying that purely instinctive soothing thought that had no technical content.
In the broken Jintian territory, the two rules were still struggling to adapt, making subtle sounds.
But beneath that silent, clumsy touch of fingertips,
Some deeper,
Beyond language and logic,
From the echo deep in my heart,
It's happening quietly.
The ice is not melting,
But there was a crack.
As if there is a spring breeze,
Finally got a glimpse
Under the frozen soil,
Deeply buried seeds.
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