The forbidden area of the Sword Washing Pavilion is called the "Moon Gazing Tower."
Legend has it that the tower has twelve stories, corresponding to the twelve Earthly Branches, and was the place where successive sect leaders secluded themselves to comprehend the Dao of Heaven. Every full moon night, a waterfall of rich spiritual energy flows from the top of the tower, nourishing the entire floating immortal mountain.
But in Shen Qingqiu's eyes, this tower is crooked.
Late at night, midnight. The pale moonlight casts a long shadow of the Moon Gazing Tower onto the cliff edge.
Shen Qingqiu stands in the shadow of the trees, looking up and counting the eaves of the tower.
"One, two...twelve." There are indeed only twelve stories.
She looks down at the dark shadow on the ground.
"One, two...thirteen." An extra story has appeared in the shadow.
That extra story is extremely blurry, like a patch forcibly pasted on, trembling slightly in the night wind, occasionally revealing a few horizontal black lines—tears caused by insufficient refresh rate.
"As expected, there was something hidden." Shen Qingqiu's lips curled into a cold smile. In this world full of images, shadows are often more honest than the real thing.
"Are you cold?" Seventeen, standing behind her, suddenly spoke. He seemed to have learned a new way of showing concern, though still clumsy. He took off his black outer robe and draped it over Shen Qingqiu's thin shoulders.
The robe still carried his unique, chilling aura, like the frost of deep winter, yet surprisingly, it made Shen Qingqiu feel at ease.
"Not cold." Shen Qingqiu pulled the robe tighter, glancing back at him. His silver mask gleamed coldly in the moonlight. "Seventeen, tonight we're going to 'steal' something. Are you scared?"
Seventeen shook his head.
In his logic, there was only the difference between "can be erased" and "cannot be erased," not the option of "scared."
"Hold me tight." Shen Qingqiu stretched out her arms.
Seventeen hesitated for a moment, then expertly wrapped his arms around her waist, lightly touching the ground with his toes.
*Whoosh—* The two moved like black owls, silently darting past the guards towards the top of the tower.
A pale golden barrier enveloped the Moon Gazing Tower. To ordinary cultivators, this was a death trap.
But in Shen Qingqiu's [Overclocked Vision], it was nothing more than a series of geometric puzzles composed of red lasers.
"Three inches to the left, stop. Turn right, two steps forward. Dive down." She whispered instructions in Seventeen's ear, her warm breath brushing against his cold mask.
Seventeen completely trusted her judgment, his body contorting in bizarre, anatomical movements, precisely navigating the gaps that could incinerate a person.
Finally, they landed lightly on the twelfth-floor corridor.
It was empty, save for dust and a few peeling statues.
"There are no more stairs," Seventeen said, surveying his surroundings.
"Yes." Shen Qingqiu looked up at the star-painted ceiling above her. "It's just that our eyes have been deceived."
She activated her vision.
The dazzling star map above instantly crumbled, revealing a black, swirling vortex. It wasn't a passage, but a **"teleportation loading point"**.
"Jump up." Seventeen didn't hesitate, grabbing her and leaping, crashing directly into the solid ceiling.
There was no pain from the impact.
Only a nauseating feeling of weightlessness, as if she had been stuffed into a washing machine, shredded, and reassembled.
Buzz— Her eardrums bulged, and the world went silent instantly.
When her feet touched the ground again, the scene before her caused Shen Qingqiu's pupils to contract sharply.
The thirteenth floor.
This was no longer the antique-style attic.
This was a huge, smelly…boiler room, filled with the stench of fish and machine oil.
The four walls were covered with writhing chunks of flesh, a sickly pinkish color, interspersed with countless thick bronze pipes. A glowing green liquid flowed from these pipes, gurgling loudly.
And in the very center of the room hung a gigantic heart.
It was not a biological heart.
It was two stories high, stitched together from countless gears, pistons, levers, and some unknown, rotting flesh. Each beat was accompanied by a surge of steam and the deafening clang of gears meshing.
Thump—!
Crack—Hiss—
Thump—!
The sound was deafening, yet strangely, it couldn't travel outside the tower.
With its beat, thick plumes of white mist (what cultivators called "spiritual energy") gushed from the vents of the bronze pipes, dissipating into the outside world through the cracks in the tower's roof.
"This is… the source of the spiritual energy resurgence?" Shen Qingqiu covered his mouth and nose, suppressing the churning in his stomach.
The so-called sacred land of cultivation, the so-called spiritual energy, was actually just the "exhaust fumes" of this enormous, half-biological, half-mechanical monster.
How ironic.
"...It hurts." Seventeen suddenly groaned beside her.
Shen Qingqiu turned sharply and saw Seventeen kneeling on one knee, his hands pressed tightly against his masked head.
His entire body was trembling violently. Blue data streams, which had been flowing freely from his normally dark eyes, erupted like a runaway flood, even overflowing their sockets and forming crackling currents in the air.
"Seventeen? What's wrong?"
Shen Qingqiu panicked. She rushed over and hugged him, only to find his body burning hot, no longer the usual cold, but like a red-hot iron.
Seventeen raised his head, his eyes unfocused and filled with pain as he stared at the enormous mechanical heart.
He felt it.
The frequency of this heartbeat was resonating with his core code.
[Signal detected...Attempting a handshake...]
[Error! Error!] "The other party's version is too low... The other party has been corrupted..." His mind was filled with a shrill noise, as if countless voices were screaming simultaneously.
"It... is crying." Seventeen managed to squeeze out a few words, his voice hoarse as if it contained grit.
"Who's crying?" Shen Qingqiu gripped his hand tightly, trying to rouse him with his own body heat.
"It." Seventeen pointed to the enormous heart, "It said... it was for... purification... but it... is broken." Shen Qingqiu looked at the heart.
As Seventeen reacted, the mechanical heart, which had been beating methodically, suddenly became frantic.
The pinkish flesh began to writhe violently, and the bronze tubes creaked under the strain.
Suddenly, a piece of iron peeled off the surface of the heart.
Revealing a line of inscriptions deeply engraved beneath. That wasn't the language of this world, but a universal language Shen Qingqiu knew all too well—the language of a long-destroyed, high-tech civilization:
[Atmosphere Filtration Unit - Type 03 (Ruined)]
[Atmosphere Filtration Unit - Type 03 (Destroyed)]
[Warning: Filter clogged. Current emissions: Toxins (concentration 99%).]
Shen Qingqiu was struck dumb.
In that instant, all the clues connected.
This wasn't the cultivation world.
This was a wasteland.
After the destruction of the ancient civilization, these massive environmental modification machines were left behind. They were originally meant to purify the air and rebuild homes. But due to years of neglect and clogged filters, they began to spew toxins in reverse.
And these "toxins," in this mutated world, were mistaken for "spiritual energy" by ignorant humans, who inhaled them and cultivated themselves into so-called "immortals."
Drug-induced immortality cultivation.
"Ha...haha..." Shen Qingqiu couldn't help but laugh out loud, tears streaming down his face. This was truly a huge dark comedy.
Roar—!!! Just then, the mechanical heart seemed to sense the spying.
The countless vents on its surface suddenly opened, transforming into countless rotating eyeballs, locking onto Shen Qingqiu and Seventeen.
A terrifying pressure (radiation) capable of crushing souls swept over them.
"Seventeen! Go!" Shen Qingqiu shouted, trying to pull Seventeen up.
But Seventeen couldn't move. The resonance had frozen him in place.
Several thick, vascular tentacles extended from the mechanical heart, dripping with slime and steam, and stabbed towards the two with lightning speed!
There was no way to dodge!
Shen Qingqiu's pupils constricted sharply.
Just as the tentacles were about to pierce Shen Qingqiu's body,
a glimmer of clarity suddenly flashed in Seventeen's eyes, which were filled with blue light. It was a forced awakening caused by the "protection command" taking priority over the "system resonance."
"Get lost!" he roared.
This time, he didn't use his sword.
He abruptly ripped off the silver mask, revealing a stunning face covered in blue data patterns. He opened his mouth, facing the enormous heart, and let out a silent roar.
It was the suppression of low-level privileges.
[Stop Command: Administrative Override]
Boom— The several menacing tentacles stopped abruptly an inch from Shen Qingqiu's nose.
Not just the tentacles.
The entire room, the enormous heart, the flowing fluids, all fell into a deathly silence in that instant.
Like a movie scene paused.
Only Seventeen's heavy breathing echoed in the silence.
He turned to look at Shen Qingqiu; the blue patterns on his face were gradually fading, and the madness in his eyes was slowly subsiding, returning to the wet, puppy-dog-like gaze.
"Qingqiu...are you... hurt?"
He reached out, wanting to touch her face, but then saw the grime and grime from his earlier struggles on his hands and withdrew them.
Shen Qingqiu looked at him, then at the massive machine he had brought to a halt with his shout.
She suddenly realized that the man she had picked up might be more than just a sword.
He might be...the **"key"** to this crumbling world.
Or perhaps the god who created these machines.
"I'm fine." Ignoring the filth on his hands, Shen Qingqiu grabbed his hand and pressed it tightly against her cheek.
"It seems this so-called 'Heavenly Way' is not only blind, but also corrupted."
She looked at the ugly mechanical heart, her eyes blazing with fury.
"Seventeen, we're not just going to kill a god."
"We're going to tear down this broken world and rebuild it." Seventeen didn't understand what tearing down and rebuilding meant.
But he understood "we."
So he put the silver mask back on, concealing his peerless beauty and the power that could shake the heavens and earth.
He grasped Shen Qingqiu's hand, shielding her behind him.
"Okay."
"Disassemble." Before the enormous, malfunctioning mechanical heart, the two smiled at each other.
Outside the window, a shooting star streaked across the night sky, plunging into the endless abyss.
It was the tear of the old era, and also the spark of a new one.