The golden line beneath Leng Yao’s skin pulsed again.
Pain travelled from his wrist to his chest.
A cold voice followed it.
Deviation detected.
Correction protocol initiated.
Three lines of pale gold appeared in front of him.
Affected events:
Zhao Syndicate alliance.
Dragon’s Vein acquisition.
Intelligence asset Xue Lihua.
The car continued through morning traffic.
Feng Baoshu glanced at him through the mirror.
“What is it?”
“Something is inside my meridians.”
“Your core?”
“No.”
Leng Yao focused on the words.
Identify yourself.
The answer came at once.
Access denied.
What are you correcting?
Causal sequence.
More text appeared.
Required action:
Withdraw from the Dragon’s Vein property.
End contact with Zhao Tiankun.
Preserve Xue Lihua’s assigned function.
Deadline: 18:00.
Leng Yao looked at the thin line running beneath his wrist.
Dark energy gathered around it.
His inverted core had reacted to every spiritual pressure placed upon him that morning.
It reacted now, pulling at the foreign energy.
The golden line resisted.
Leng Yao increased the circulation of his core.
Heat burned through his arm.
The line stretched towards his palm, then split.
A thread of golden energy tore free.
It entered his meridians.
Agony followed.
Leng Yao’s fingers closed around the leather seat.
The energy moved towards his damaged core, striking every fracture along the way.
The cracks trembled beneath its pressure.
Then one of them tightened.
Not fully.
But enough to reduce the constant ache that had followed Leng Yao for six years.
New words appeared.
Mandate energy loss detected.
Unauthorized absorption.
Stop immediately.
Leng Yao drew in the remaining thread.
The golden line vanished from his wrist.
Feng Baoshu turned towards the side of the road.
“Hospital.”
“No.”
“You are bleeding.”
Leng Yao touched his nose.
Blood covered his fingertips.
“I noticed.”
“That does not make it acceptable.”
“The damage is already healing.”
Feng Baoshu looked at him through the mirror again.
“What entered your body?”
“I believe it governs the future I inherited.”
“A system?”
“Perhaps.”
“Is it helping you?”
“It just ordered me to undo everything we did this morning.”
“That would be a no.”
Leng Yao wiped the blood away.
His phone rang.
Zhao Tiankun’s name appeared on the screen.
Leng Yao answered.
“We found the first two men,” Zhao said.
“And the third?”
“Han Weiguo is gone.”
“When?”
“Forty minutes ago.”
“Did he know you were investigating?”
“He should not have.”
Zhao sent a video file.
Leng Yao opened it.
The recording showed an underground car park.
Han Weiguo emerged from a private lift with a briefcase in one hand.
A black vehicle waited for him.
The driver stepped out and opened the rear door.
The man’s face was hidden, but the licence plate was clear.
The vehicle belonged to Leng Yao’s organisation.
Zhao spoke again.
“Did you take him?”
“No.”
“The plate is yours.”
“The car is not.”
“You sound certain.”
“Our vehicles carry spiritual seals.”
The one in the recording did not.
The footage had been edited well enough to deceive an ordinary viewer.
Zhao Tiankun would not remain deceived for long.
Someone wanted him angry before he examined it properly.
“You have until six,” Zhao said.
“For what?”
“To prove you are not cleaning up your own conspiracy.”
“Keep the other two alive.”
“They are already being questioned.”
“Someone may try to silence them.”
“Who?”
“The person who took Han Weiguo.”
Zhao went quiet.
“You know who that is?”
“Not yet.”
“Six o’clock, Leng Yao.”
The call ended.
Feng Baoshu had heard the conversation.
“The correction?”
“Yes.”
“It created false evidence quickly.”
“It used people who were already moving.”
The system had not changed the past.
It had taken Han Weiguo’s escape and redirected suspicion.
That mattered.
Heaven was not rewriting reality without limits.
It needed existing pieces.
Leng Yao’s phone rang again.
Hou Shengmin.
He answered.
“My granddaughter is missing,” Hou said.
Leng Yao sat straighter.
“What happened?”
“A driver collected her from school.”
“Did she know him?”
“He played a recording of my voice.”
“How long ago?”
“Nine minutes.”
“Send the school footage.”
“You warned me this would happen.”
“I warned you too late.”
A breath passed through the phone.
“Find her.”
“I will.”
Hou ended the call.
The school recording arrived several seconds later.
A grey van had collected sixteen-year-old Hou Yuxin from the side entrance.
Its licence plate belonged to a delivery company that had gone out of business two years earlier.
The driver wore a cap and medical mask.
Nothing else was visible.
Feng Baoshu changed lanes.
“Where?”
“Do not return to the estate.”
“Houshan security can begin searching.”
“Have them do it quietly.”
“You think the kidnappers are watching our response?”
“I think they want us to react.”
Leng Yao examined the dead transmigrator’s memories.
He searched through chapters, comments and scenes until he found the event.
Hou Yuxin had been kidnapped in the original story.
It was supposed to happen eleven days from now.
The Black Tide Gang would take her to an abandoned textile mill near Suzhou Creek.
Hou Shengmin would be ordered to sign away his property.
Before he could respond, Shen Mingzhi would discover the kidnappers while making a delivery.
He would rescue Hou Yuxin.
Hou Shengmin would repay him by rejecting every offer except the one connected to Shen’s allies.
The Dragon’s Vein property would pass into the protagonist’s hands.
Leng Yao had interrupted the event before it began.
The correction had moved it forward.
His phone displayed a message from Houshan security.
They had located Xue Lihua’s work device.
She was near Suzhou Creek.
Feng Baoshu read the location.
“The old textile district.”
“Yes.”
“Xue Lihua is involved?”
“She was involved in the original event.”
The old butler did not ask how Leng Yao knew.
“Do we detain her?”
“No.”
“You still want to use her.”
“I want to know which part she plays.”
More golden text appeared.
Protagonist support event advanced.
Interference prohibited.
Lethal correction authorised.
Feng Baoshu could not see the words, but he noticed Leng Yao’s expression.
“What did it say?”
“Shen Mingzhi is going to the mill.”
“Then we send a team.”
“No.”
“Young Master—”
“A large team gives the correction more people to use against us.”
Feng Baoshu considered that.
“How many?”
“You and me.”
“The girl may be guarded.”
“She is.”
“And Shen Mingzhi?”
“Still weak.”
“For now?”
Leng Yao looked out at the road.
“For now.”
Feng Baoshu contacted the estate.
“Track Xue Lihua.
Do not approach her.
Send two teams to protect Hou Shengmin and the Zhao prisoners.
No one enters the textile district without my order.”
He ended the call.
“Anything else?”
“Find Han Weiguo.”
“We are already searching.”
“He may be at the mill.”
“Why would the Zhao traitor be involved in Hou Yuxin’s kidnapping?”
“Because the correction needs Zhao to distrust us and Hou to trust Shen Mingzhi.”
Feng Baoshu tightened his grip on the steering wheel.
“It is connecting the events.”
“Yes.”
“And it expects you to follow the role of the villain.”
A new message answered for him.
Assigned antagonist action:
Eliminate Shen Mingzhi.
Recover Dragon’s Vein property through force.
Compliance reward: five-percent core restoration.
Leng Yao read it twice.
The system knew what he wanted.
It was offering him healing in exchange for becoming predictable.
Declined.
The golden line reappeared beneath his wrist.
This time it did not stop at his forearm.
It shot towards his heart.
Leng Yao’s body locked.
His back struck the seat.
“Young Master?”
Feng Baoshu reached for him.
“Drive.”
Dark spiritual energy erupted from Leng Yao’s core.
It met the golden line inside his chest.
The collision tore through his meridians.
Blood filled his mouth.
The system pushed harder.
Role compliance mandatory.
Leng Yao forced his core to rotate in reverse.
The cracks opened.
Golden energy poured into them.
For a moment, his heart stopped.
Then the inverted core pulled.
The line bent.
A section broke away and disappeared into the darkness.
Leng Yao’s heart struck his ribs.
Once.
Twice.
The damaged fracture near its centre began closing.
The correction had tried to force his body into submission.
His core had consumed the force.
Lethal correction failed.
Anomaly recorded.
The pressure vanished.
Leng Yao breathed again.
Feng Baoshu had already drawn his phone.
“Put it away,” Leng Yao said.
“You stopped breathing.”
“I started again.”
“That is a poor medical standard.”
“The system attempted to control me.”
“And?”
“I took some of its energy.”
Feng Baoshu looked at the blood on his shirt.
“At this rate, defeating it may kill you first.”
“It only needs to fail more slowly.”
The textile district appeared ahead.
Abandoned factories lined both sides of the river.
Broken windows stared over fenced courtyards filled with weeds and rusting machinery.
Feng Baoshu turned onto a narrow service road.
Leng Yao’s core pulsed.
Spiritual energy gathered somewhere ahead.
It was weak at first.
Then gold flooded the air.
The burst passed through the district like sunlight cutting through smoke.
Leng Yao recognised it from the dead man’s memories.
Shen Mingzhi’s awakening.
The correction system displayed one final message.
Chosen host connected.
First mandate issued.
The windows of the nearest textile mill shook.
A man crashed through one of them and struck the road.
Leng Yao looked towards the broken glass.
He had intended to study Shen Mingzhi before the protagonist received Heaven’s protection.
He was too late.
The correction had awakened him early.