Soul Enshrined
Above the clouds, Xiang Jinyang looked down indifferently at the mourning hall in the lower world.
The subtle movement of white banners and the flickering candlelight made the nanmu coffin in the center of the hall seem even more desolate. Within lay his nominal Taoist partner, a mortal youth whose spiritual roots had decayed and whose lifespan had expired. This marriage was a debt owed to the Tianyan Sect in his early years, a destined yet insignificant stroke in the trajectory of his destiny. To Xiang Jinyang, it was merely a routine in the workings of Heaven, to be carried out on time.
At this point, the program should come to an end.
He sensed that the soul within that body had completely dissipated, returning to the spiritual energy of heaven and earth. All he needed to do was to send down a soothing thought, as usual, to help the body peacefully return to dust, and that would complete the cause and effect.
Just as he raised his fingertips slightly, a wisp of extremely pure Heavenly Dao aura containing the power of rules was about to fall—
In the coffin, the body that should have been dead suddenly sat up!
The movements were stiff, but with a strength that was definitely not what a dying person should have, and even caused the coffin to make a dull sound.
The mourning hall suddenly fell silent. All sobs and groans ceased abruptly, replaced by a chorus of gasps. The disciple standing guard stumbled back in fear, knocking over the candlestick beside him, spilling wax all over the floor.
Xiang Jinyang's raised fingertips stopped in mid-air.
For the first time, a hint of stagnation clearly appeared in his glass-colored eyes that reflected the movement of stars and the trajectory of all things.
Rules are broken.
The soul dissipates, the body withers, and this is the end. This is one of the iron laws that form the foundation of this world, and it is unchanging from time immemorial.
But right now...
The "young man" looked around blankly. His eyes, initially hazy for only a moment, quickly focused with startling sharpness. He glanced down at his glaring shroud, then raised a hand to his chest. His face was free of fear, but instead one of extreme... confusion and scrutiny.
"Interesting..." A very low, strangely-toned murmur clearly penetrated the noise and fell into Xiang Jinyang's ears.
That was not the language of any known region in this world. But the power of rules allowed Xiang Jinyang to instantly understand its meaning.
interesting?
Coming back from the dead... interesting?
Xiang Jinyang watched as the "young man" attempted to move his fingers, his joints making subtle, crackling sounds. His movements were extremely uncoordinated, as if he was completely unsuited to this body. However, during these clumsy movements, the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, which had previously flowed smoothly around him, was slightly disturbed by this act of resurrection, like a stone thrown into a calm lake, causing ripples to spread and disrupting the inherent order.
What made Xiang Jinyang's eyes darken even more was that he sensed an extremely weak and strange fluctuation that was definitely not spiritual power emanating from the fingertips of the "young man". The fluctuation carried a cold and analytical meaning, and it actually caused the vast power of the Heavenly Dao in his body to produce an extremely subtle, almost undetectable resonance and... rejection?
abnormal.
A huge, unprecedented anomaly.
Xiang Jinyang's indifferent aura suddenly turned icy and sharp. He was the embodiment of Heaven's Way, the most direct enforcer and defender of the rules. Eliminating anomalies and correcting errors were his innate core instructions.
He should have taken action immediately and completely wiped out this existence that defied common sense.
However, when the "young man" suddenly raised his head, his gaze piercing through the swirling white incense banners, and met his gaze hidden in the clouds with incredible precision and even a certain provocative understanding, Xiang Jinyang's heart, which was condensed by the pure power of rules, or the part of his power core that simulated the human heartbeat, suddenly skipped a beat.
Those eyes… were clear and bright, yet in their depths, countless tiny silver runes that he couldn't understand flashed by at a rapid speed. With an almost brutal and cold analytical power, they made him feel as if he was completely seen through, as if his core essence had been touched by an invisible hand… a sense of horror and throbbing.
What is he?
The rules screamed silently in his body, urging him to carry out the cleansing immediately.
But Xiang Jinyang, for the first time in billions of years since his birth, went against the innate instinct engraved in the deepest part of his soul.
He just stood there, looking back at the "interesting" anomaly that had crawled back from death with a cold, scrutinizing look and a hint of curiosity that he himself was not aware of.
His Taoist companion.
Or rather, the unknown variable that occupied his Taoist partner's body.
---
Inside the coffin, He Yuan felt a splitting headache, and a large amount of memory fragments rushed into his core of consciousness like a data stream attacked by a virus.
The world of cultivation? Tianyan Sect? A useless Taoist companion? Xiang Jinyang, the child of destiny?
He, He Yuan, the hacker ranked number one on the world's most wanted list in the 22nd century, was thrown into this incredible world by an inexplicable force the moment he successfully hacked into the core database of "Ark", and turned into a cannon fodder boy with the same name and surname who had just died?
"Monster...monster!" Finally, a disciple reacted and his screams broke the silence of the mourning hall.
More people had pale faces and retreated one after another, as if some peerless devil had risen from the coffin.
He Yuan rubbed his swollen temples and ignored the horrified gazes. His attention was completely drawn to his surroundings, or more precisely, to the energy that permeated the air.
In his "vision," the world was no longer an ancient palace, but a vast, yet crude, operating system interface. The drifting "spiritual energy" appeared to him as streams of shimmering, primitive code, exquisitely structured yet riddled with flaws. The monks' breathing seemed to him like inefficient, redundant data exchange instructions. And the runes carved on the banners and coffins looked more like ancient, incompletely compiled defensive scripts.
"Primitive... too primitive..." he muttered to himself, his hacker instincts instantly exciting him. "This world's 'firewall' is pitifully fragile, and the allocation of permissions is even more chaotic... huh?"
He suddenly raised his head and looked towards the void somewhere outside the dome of the hall.
There, there is an "existence" that is extremely eye-catching.
Amidst countless crude streams of code, that "existence" resembled an absolutely pure, perfectly structured super-server running a core process with the highest authority. It was cold and vast, representing the absolute order and rules of this "world system."
But precisely because of its absolute "perfection" and "rules," He Yuan felt it was... out of place, even a bit jarring. It was like the appearance of an absolutely static, absolutely orderly node in a real network environment filled with dynamic change and potential risks. This, in itself, was a major "anomaly" and "vulnerability."
Their eyes met.
He Yuan could "see" that because of his gaze, the regular code flow on the surface of the "super server" showed signs of extremely slight disorder and recompilation for a moment.
Oh? Not only can it detect me, but it can also respond to my "scan"?
The corners of He Yuan's mouth curled up slightly, a hint of interest like a hunter discovering interesting prey.
It seems that the administrator of this "world system" is quite interesting.
---
Xiang Jinyang clearly received that look.
It wasn't awe, it wasn't fear, it wasn't even curiosity. It was... evaluation. A cold, condescending assessment, like someone examining a tool to see if it was working properly.
absurd.
He is the Way of Heaven, the law of all things, and the ordinance that all living beings must follow.
How could an ant-like alien soul dare to look at him with such eyes?
The power of rules surged again, more violent than before. Eliminate him. Eradicate this mistake. Maintain balance.
The air around Xiang Jinyang began to condense, and an invisible pressure seeped down like a substance. The candles in the mourning hall instantly went out, plunging the hall into darkness. Every disciple felt a fear deep within their souls, and they fell to their knees, trembling and unable to even lift their heads.
Only the "young man" in the coffin seemed unaffected. He even tilted his head slightly, the silver codes flowing in his eyes faster, as if he was fully analyzing the source of this oppressive feeling.
Xiang Jinyang no longer hesitated.
He had to figure out what this was and...why it could affect or even challenge the rules.
A thought, invisible and intangible, yet imbued with the absolute will of Heaven, like a supreme system-formatting instruction, was precisely directed towards He Yuan within the coffin. This was not an attack, but an investigation, an analysis, an attempt to fully incorporate this "abnormal variable" into the scope of understanding the rules. If it could not, it would be immediately eliminated.
However, the Heavenly Dao Thought that was enough to shatter the soul of a Nascent Soul cultivator, the moment it touched He Yuan's body...
It was like a drop in the ocean, disappearing without a trace.
No, not disappearing.
Xiang Jinyang's pupils suddenly shrank.
He felt that the moment his thought touched the other person's body, it was twisted and broken down in a way he couldn't understand... and then it was like being thrown into a bottomless black hole, breaking all connections.
He could even "hear" a very faint, mocking electronic noise in feedback.
[Insufficient permissions, access denied.]
What? !
A crack finally appeared on Xiang Jinyang's cold face.
At the same time, He Yuan in the coffin let out a soft "tsk," as if annoyed by some low-level cyberattack that had interrupted his thoughts. He raised his hand and swiped it through the air in front of him with incredible naturalness—the movement was as casual as sliding to unlock on a touch screen.
A barely perceptible silver light flashed across his fingertips.
The next second, all the extinguished candles in the mourning hall were rekindled with an unbelievable stability of the flames.
It's not a spell, nor is it spiritual power.
In Xiang Jinyang's perception, it was more like... an extremely concise and efficient low-level instruction, which directly modified the instantaneous state of the "flame burning" rule parameter in this area!
He...changed the rules?
Although it is just the most insignificant point, the nature is completely different!
At this moment, a crack was completely broken in the balance of the world. On the other side of the crack, a visitor from another world, his eyes gleaming with code, smiled a lazy yet dangerous smile at the "administrator" of this world.
Xiang Jinyang stood in the clouds, and for the first time, huge waves rose in his heart, which had remained cold for thousands of years.
He couldn't clear up this "mistake".
Maybe even...uncontrollable.
He had to get close to him, observe him, and understand him.
Until... he can be brought back under the control of the rules, or a way to completely delete him is found.
Xiang Jinyang's figure slowly emerged from the clouds, like a god descending from the sky, cold and lonely, with an inviolable majesty, falling towards the chaotic mourning hall.
His gaze, from beginning to end, was fixed only on the person in the coffin.
His variables.
His Taoist companion.
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