133: Chapter 125 Saving All Suffering Beings

Lin Sa's hand hadn't even retracted from the collar of her jacket.

The monitor's waveform flickered.

It wasn't a cliff-like drop like a cardiac arrest—it surged upward sharply.

Like something from the bottom of a lake suddenly pushing against the ice.

She lowered her head and stared at the screen.

The peak was higher by a few tenths of a millivolt.

The interval changed from one second to 0.98 seconds.

A difference of 0.02 seconds.

In an ordinary hospital, a nurse on duty wouldn't even bother to look twice at such a fluctuation.

But Shen Ruocheng's heartbeat hadn't changed for three years.

Three years.

Now, it had changed.

Lin Sa's muscles tensed, her hand suspended in mid-air with fingers spread.

The waveform flickered again.

This time the movement was even greater—the peak rose by nearly a millivolt, and the interval shortened to 0.95 seconds.

It wasn't an improvement.

Lin Sa took a sharp step back.

The intuition she had honed over three years in horror instances sounded an alarm—the exact same frequency as dodging a fatal blow on the battlefield.

It wasn't that the heartbeat was recovering.

It was that something was pushing up from the ground along an invisible line.

She looked down at the floor.

The floor tiles on the sixth floor were clean and white; she had checked just now—no silver threads, no formations.

But from the crack at the edge of the tile under her right foot—a sliver of light seeped out.

Extremely faint.

It wasn't the dark gold of the West, nor the black-silver of the Underworld.

It was an indescribable transparent luster.

Like a layer of oil film floating on water, reflecting colors that didn't belong to any known spectrum.

Pei Duo had mentioned it downstairs—the patterns that finally emerged on the fragment, which Xu Mo had identified.

The language of the rules itself.

Older than the Greek pantheon, deeper than the ancient talismans of Huaxia.

The bottom-most line of code before all laws became one.

This light was the same thing as those patterns.

The entire floor of the sixth floor began to vibrate.

The frequency was extremely low, too low for the human ear to hear. But Lin Sa could feel it through the soles of her shoes—the arches of her feet felt numb, as if she were standing on a war drum being struck by a heavy hammer.

The frequency of the vibration was changing.

Shifting from chaos to order.

Like hundreds of people tuning their strings at the same time. After a long while of creaking, finally, with a "click"—

It locked.

All frequencies became one.

Shen Ruocheng's lips moved.

Lin Sa saw it clearly.

It wasn't the slight tremor caused by breathing.

It was her lips genuinely closing and opening, closing and opening.

Rhythmic.

She was speaking.

No sound.

Lin Sa didn't hesitate.

She leaned over, pressing one knee against the edge of the bed, and turned her head, bringing her left ear less than five centimeters above Shen Ruocheng's lips.

Breath brushed against her ear.

It was warm.

Carrying a hint of sweet rot—not the smell of the mouth. It was forced up from deeper down, from the lungs, the chest, and the depths of that invisible offering line.

The sound came.

Very soft.

So soft it didn't sound like a noise a human vocal cord could produce.

The frequency was completely wrong—too low, so low that a living person's throat physically shouldn't be able to vibrate such a sound.

Like something that shouldn't exist was using these vocal cords, which had been dormant for three years, to utter a word that belonged to no language.

A single word.

Repeated twice.

It wasn't "Muyu."

Lin Sa heard every syllable clearly.

She didn't recognize it. She had never heard it before.

It wasn't Chinese, wasn't Greek, and wasn't any kind of Divine Language from any mythological system she had encountered in the past three years.

But she remembered it all.

Because the moment that word was uttered from Shen Ruocheng's mouth—

The transparent light in all the floor tile cracks on the sixth floor flared up simultaneously.

It shone for less than a second.

Then it went out completely.

As if the entire building had been called upon by some entity.

Like something that had been banned for three years had heard someone call out its true name for the first time.

Then Shen Ruocheng's lips closed.

Her breathing returned to steady.

It took about ten seconds for the monitor's waveform to slowly, bit by bit, return to its previous standard interval.

As if nothing had happened.

Lin Sa slowly straightened her back.

She stared at Shen Ruocheng's face for a long time.

Twenty-two years old.

Hadn't had a single dream in three years.

Had just uttered a name that even gods wouldn't understand.

Lin Sa pulled the chair closer to the bed.

She sat down heavily.

She stretched out her legs, her heels clicking against the floor tiles with a dull thud.

The dagger lay across her knees.

The blade slowly turned in a different direction.

She wasn't leaving.

It wasn't an order from Pei Duo. Pei Duo hadn't even requested her to guard to the death.

This was purely her own business.

Three years ago, "Rainy Night Orphanage," a D-rank instance.

That nine-year-old boy had huddled in the corner.

She had taken off her jacket to cover him.

The body under the jacket had turned cold bit by bit; she had held that small hand from beginning to end, unable to do anything.

She hadn't been able to protect him.

But today was different.

This person was still breathing. Her heart was still beating. She could even utter a true name that made the underlying rules tremble.

Even if she had to throw her life away here today, she had to protect this breath.

All kinds of suffering, all living beings cross over.

Those she couldn't protect—she accepted that.

This one she could protect—she would not let go.

Lin Sa closed her eyes.

A dull thud came from deep and far below.

She didn't know if it was Pei Duo taking action or Xu Mo causing trouble.

She opened her eyes, took her phone out of her tactical pants pocket, and sent a message to Xu Mo in plain text.

Three words:

"She spoke."

After sending it, she thought for a moment and added another:

"It's a name. Not human speech. Can't be spelled. But I've memorized every syllable."

The screen lit up for two seconds, then went dark.

The half-dead light tube at the end of the corridor flickered again, as if clinging to its last breath.

Shen Ruocheng's white bedsheets were pressed into a shallow crease by the tactical jacket.

Lin Sa glanced at it but didn't smooth it out.

The monitor beeped rhythmically in the empty room.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

As steady as a massive lie.

---

Sixth-floor corridor.

The lights flickered intermittently.

The fire door was pushed open.

Pei Duo walked in.

She held the silver fragment in her hand; the heart inside beat rhythmically, at a steady frequency.

Lin Sa stood by the hospital bed. Seeing Pei Duo, she spoke immediately, her speech rapid:

"She just made a sound. She uttered a name. Not a known language."

Pei Duo walked to the side of the bed and looked down at Shen Ruocheng.

"It's the language of the rules itself."

She said.

"It's waiting for a response."

Pei Duo held the fragment over Shen Ruocheng's chest.

The heartbeat within the fragment collided with the green waveform on the bedside monitor.

Sounds synchronized.

Frequencies synchronized.

The moment the two beats overlapped—

The ward changed.

It wasn't a gradual transition.

It was as if someone had twisted the room's gravity switch out of alignment.

Large chunks of plaster fell from the walls. The underlying bricks detached from the wall, suspended in mid-air, rotating slowly.

Chen Muyu's soul core, carrying the lingering mark of the God of Death, crashed through Shen Ruocheng's mental barriers that had been stagnant for three years.

Space twisted.

A vortex contracted inward from the center of the distortion.

The center of the vortex was aimed at the fragment in Pei Duo's hand.

Lin Sa's tactical jacket was still covering Shen Ruocheng's abdomen.

The moment the gravitational field exploded, the amulets in the jacket pocket—Lin Sa's life-saving gear accumulated over three years of instances—vibrated simultaneously, as if gripped by something.

The jacket carried Lin Sa's aura.

Pressed against Shen Ruocheng, it also carried hers.

The traces of two people overlapped on the same piece of clothing.

The vortex found its medium.

Lin Sa didn't retreat.

She drew the dagger from behind her waist, lunged forward, and grabbed her jacket with her left hand—wanting to pull Shen Ruocheng, along with the person and the blanket, away from the bed.

Just as her fingers touched the jacket's fabric.

The ward in front of her exploded.

It wasn't an explosion.

It was all the images shattering like broken glass and flying outward, the field of vision swallowed clean by absolute blackness.

Weightlessness.

Falling.

---

Her back slammed onto the hard road.

The impact traveled harshly along her spine.

Lin Sa rolled on the spot, her right knee hitting the ground, her center of gravity pressed as low as possible.

She held her dagger in a forward grip across her chest.

She looked up.

There was no sky above.

Gray-white mist covered the entire world.

Beneath her feet was an asphalt road, the paint of the zebra crossing mostly faded.

Three meters straight ahead—

A heavy box truck was suspended in mid-air.

The tires were half a foot off the ground.

The front of the truck was caved in significantly.

The windshield was shattered, and thousands of tiny glass shards were suspended in the air, each one frozen at the moment of impact.

Time had stopped here.

Everything was stuck on the same frame.

This was the dream Shen Ruocheng hadn't had in three years.

The negative of the dream was the second the car accident happened three years ago.

Lin Sa stood up straight.

Her leather boots stepped on the asphalt; the sound of friction was real.

A puddle of something hung beneath the truck's chassis. It wasn't blood—the color was dark gold, emitting an aura of decay.

Residue of the Authority of Death.

Lin Sa walked toward the rear of the truck.

The air was as thick as paste. Every step felt like wading through water, the resistance more than twice that of reality.

Behind her, a sound came from the mist.

The sound of flesh hitting the ground.

Dull, dense, and getting closer.

Lin Sa stopped. She turned around.

Something rushed out of the gray mist.

Over two meters tall. A layer of smooth, gray-white skin on its head—no eyes, no mouth. Its limbs were thin and long, with nails curved into hooks.

There was no ghostly energy on it.

It wasn't a ghost.

It was pure despair, piled into a solid form.

The monster lunged, tearing through the viscous air, aiming straight for her face.

Lin Sa met it head-on.

She pushed off with her left foot, sliding half a step to the right. The sharp claws missed her shoulder.

Her right hand swung diagonally upward—the dagger sliced through the ribs. It felt hard, like cutting dry wood. There was no blood. A large amount of gray mist sprayed from the wound.

The monster's left arm swept back.

Lin Sa raised her knee to strike its wrist joint. The bone snapped.

Following the momentum, she flipped her wrist and stabbed the throat. It sank in. She pulled across.

The neck was severed.

The entire body lost its form, dissolving into gray mist and merging into the surroundings.

Something dropped to the ground.

A rectangular plastic card.

Lin Sa bent down to pick it up.

"Deji Hospital Emergency Room Access Card."

The memory of the car accident overlapped with the memory of the emergency treatment.

The dreamscape had kneaded the two most painful fragments together.

Deep in the thick mist, the dense slapping sounds rang out again.

There were dozens of them.

Lin Sa didn't stop. She turned, bypassed the suspended truck, and ran toward the other side of the zebra crossing.

The mist thinned.

A white light appeared ahead.

A bus stop.

The light box was lit. A person was sitting on the bench.

Shen Ruocheng.

Her white dress was covered in blood.

But her legs hung perfectly intact by the side of the bench.

Lin Sa stopped three meters in front of the platform.

The sound of the monsters' pursuit behind her stopped abruptly five meters away.

They didn't dare enter this light.

This was the deepest part of the dream, the only safe zone.

Lin Sa stepped onto the platform tiles.

Shen Ruocheng had her head down.

Her hands were folded on her knees. She was holding a phone with a shattered screen.

"Shen Ruocheng."

She didn't look up.

Lin Sa walked to the side of the bench and looked down.

A line was wrapped around Shen Ruocheng's left wrist.

It was three times thicker than the silver threads in the ward outside.

It had a solid metallic texture.

The other end of the line disappeared into the asphalt road beneath the platform.

An Anchor Chain.

Something belonging to Thanatos.

It locked her consciousness, cutting off all contact with the outside world.

If this line were broken, the dream's timeline could start running again. Chen Muyu's soul frequency could then be transmitted in.

Lin Sa gripped her dagger and aimed at the thick metal line.

She struck down.

The sound of metal hitting metal exploded, vibrating from her eardrums all the way to her back teeth.

The dagger was sent flying.

The webbing of Lin Sa's right hand split open, and blood flowed down between her fingers.

A notch appeared on the blade, large enough to fit half a finger.

There wasn't even a white mark on the line.

Shen Ruocheng slowly raised her head.

Her eyes opened.

There were no whites in her eyes.

Her eye sockets were filled with pure blackness.

She opened her mouth.

There was no airflow in her oral cavity. Only her vocal cords were rubbing and vibrating.

That ancient word that didn't belong to human language—

It was squeezed out of her throat.

The light box on the platform flickered wildly.

The asphalt road beneath her feet surged violently, as if something were turning over underground.

The suspended truck moved.

The shattered glass lost its control and crashed onto the ground.

Time restarted.

But the direction was reversed.

The truck was reversing.

The gray mist formed a giant vortex, pouring back toward the center.

Folds and cracks began to appear in the space of the dreamscape, like a piece of paper being crumpled from both ends toward the middle.

Shen Ruocheng's eyes returned to normal.

The blackness receded.

The whites and pupils returned.

She looked at Lin Sa.

Her voice became normal.

But it was trembling.

"He is watching from above."

She reached out and tightly gripped Lin Sa's clothing.

Her knuckles were so white there wasn't a trace of color.

"I can't wake up. If I wake up, this line will drain her dry—Muyu will die."

Lin Sa grabbed her wrist in return.

Her strength was not small.

Shen Ruocheng gasped in pain; her fingers loosened for a moment, then desperately gripped back.

"Chen Muyu has already dug out her heart and given it to you."

Lin Sa stared into her eyes.

"If you don't wake up—she will die right now."

Shen Ruocheng froze completely.

Like she had been punched in her most painful spot.

Tears fell.

No sound.

They just fell.

The light box behind the platform exploded.

From the debris of flying shards, a hand reached out.

Dark gold.

Massive.

Each finger was as thick as Lin Sa's forearm.

It grabbed the metal chain wrapped around Shen Ruocheng's wrist and yanked upward.

The force was so great that a black crack was torn across the sky of the entire dreamscape.

It split all the way from the top of the head to the horizon.

Lin Sa turned sideways, shielding Shen Ruocheng behind her.

She pressed down on Shen Ruocheng's shoulder with her left hand.

Her right hand—

She glanced at her hand with the split webbing.

Then she glanced at the notched dagger.

She threw it away.

The dagger hit the platform tiles with a "clatter."

Lin Sa freed both hands and directly grabbed the metal chain, which was stretched tight like a steel wire.

The wound in her palm touched the cold metal surface.

The pain made her teeth ache.

But she stood her ground.

Her feet were nailed to the ground.

She pressed her center of gravity back to the limit.

Her thighs, abdomen, shoulders, and back—all her muscles exerted force at once.

Using a human body to play tug-of-war with the hand of a God of Death.

The chain pulled taut.

Lin Sa was dragged forward half a step. The soles of her shoes scraped harshly against the platform tiles.

She stood her ground again.

She gritted her teeth.

"Pei Duo—!"

---

Sixth-floor ward.

Lin Sa's voice came from the deepest part of the vortex.

Pei Duo heard it.

Not with her ears.

The voice crashed through the barrier between two dimensions and slammed directly into her consciousness.

The fragment in her left hand exploded with blinding silver light.

Pei Duo gripped the jade pendant around her neck with her right hand.

Without hesitation.

She yanked the cord—it snapped.

She slammed the jade pendant onto the fragment.

Nine Black Dragons simultaneously erupted with black-gold beams of light, shooting straight toward the void vortex in the middle of the ward.

---

The dreamscape.

At the edge of the crack in the sky, a black-gold light split open.

The silhouette of a dragon, accompanied by a dragon's roar, rushed in.

It wasn't an illusion.

It was a materialized shadow of a Great Qin dragon, wrapped in two thousand years of Imperial Authority Law.

It opened its jaws and bit down on the dark gold giant hand pulling the chain.

Black flames burned up along the dragon scales.

The dark gold skin of the Authority of Death trembled violently in the fire, and the pulling force of the giant hand suddenly weakened.

Lin Sa felt it.

The chain loosened slightly.

That was enough.

Her arms bulged with power.

"Break—for me!"

Taking advantage of the moment of paralysis caused by the dragon shadow's bite, she crossed her hands and violently twisted the chain at its node.

Not a hard cut.

A twist.

Just as Meng Tian had taught—

"Strength divided is weak; focus it on one joint, and ten thousand catties can be broken."

A crisp snap came from the node of the chain.

Crisp. Clean.

Like a string that had been stretched for three years finally snapping.

The thick metal line burst from the center.

Debris from both ends of the break scattered.

The chain on Shen Ruocheng's wrist fell off, hitting the platform tiles with a "ting."

The entire dreamscape stopped.

One second.

Two seconds.

Then everything—

The asphalt road, the truck, the shattered glass, the gray mist, the platform, the remains of the light box—

Simultaneously turned into points of light.

Scattering in all directions like fireworks.

The world shattered.

But it shattered gently.

As if a three-year nightmare had finally ended.