296: Chapter 296 Your life is not allowed to be entered into the loss column.

"Director Lin..."

Su Xiaonuan grabbed Lin Yuan's cuff.

"Were there any losses in the inventory?"

The treatment pod had just cracked open a slit when she propped herself up on the testing pad, trying to sit up.

Lin Yuan held down the pod cover with one hand.

"Strategic inventory, zero loss."

Su Xiaonuan's tense fingers relaxed.

"Wang Xue's Small World is permanently missing twenty-four percent."

"Your personal space has been reset to zero."

"Mirror Doppelganger is temporarily disabled."

The three losses were reported one by one.

Su Xiaonuan lifted the pod cover.

"The cold storage, crystal core, and backup energy sources in the three locations need to be re-inventoried. The spatial interface was closed, so the accounts might—"

The pod cover was pressed back into place.

Lin Yuan looked at her.

"The only thing you need to verify right now is your own life statistics."

Su Muxue brought up the test results.

"There is no zero-reset residue."

"Only nine percent of Mental Energy remains, and the spatial Origin is nearing depletion. Using Superpowers and participating in dispatching are prohibited within seventy-two hours."

Su Xiaonuan did not argue.

She took off the highest steward terminal and handed it over with both hands.

"I modified the evacuation sequence without authorization, hid the personnel roster, shielded my own coordinates, and refused the master's orders."

"And without approval, I arranged the transfer of the highest steward authority."

"I apply for a rule review."

Tang Qiqi stood by the pod, her candy stick almost bitten flat.

"Last time I only got deducted three hundred."

"This time you almost deducted yourself out of existence."

Su Xiaonuan looked at Lin Yuan.

"The result cannot offset the process."

"This is a rule that I personally executed."

The main screen of the medical area lit up.

Yu Qingyi, Liu Qing, and Captain Han Xue accessed remotely.

Four red violation records were unfolded one by one.

[Unauthorized modification of the highest-level evacuation plan.]

[Hiding risk information of core personnel.]

[Shielding personnel coordinates and blocking rescue.]

[Refusing direct orders from the supreme commander.]

Any one of them was enough to revoke management authority.

At the end of the review form, the responsibility column was blank.

Su Xiaonuan raised her hand and entered her own name.

"The authority was modified by me."

"The order was disobeyed by me."

"The punishment will be borne by me."

No one spoke for her.

Because the rules set by Su Xiaonuan never allowed core members to plead for others.

Lin Yuan opened the current regulations of Tiangong No. 1.

Disaster Response Chapter, Article 9.

[When encountering uncontrollable disasters, the person in charge shall minimize personnel and resource losses.]

There were no additions after the article.

It did not specify whether the person in charge could actively become a loss.

Nor did it specify whether core members had the right to exchange their lives for resource safety.

Su Xiaonuan used this very blank space to fill her own space, authority, and life entirely into the loss column.

"You executed the rules."

Lin Yuan looked at her.

"And you exploited the loopholes in the rules."

Yu Qingyi stopped the penalty draft.

Su Xiaonuan said in a low voice, "The loophole was utilized by me, and the responsibility still rests with me."

"The fault is not yours alone."

Lin Yuan enlarged the current regulations.

"The System gave you the authority to go die."

The medical area fell silent.

Lin Yuan did not delete any violation records.

All four files were sealed and included in the permanent records of the highest management layer.

Subsequently, he added two new rules to the top of the regulations.

[No core members may fill institutional gaps through self-sacrifice.]

[Plans involving the lives of irreplaceable personnel must be finally confirmed by Lin Yuan.]

The list of irreplaceable personnel unfolded.

Su Xiaonuan's name was written into the first column.

She looked at the screen.

"If only I can minimize the losses—"

"You cannot."

Lin Yuan interrupted her.

Three words entered the execution instructions.

[Irreplaceable personnel have no right to approve sacrifice plans on their own.]

[Even if the plan can reduce total losses, it must be rejected.]

Su Xiaonuan's hand stopped by the edge of the pod.

In the past, she could approve cold storage losses, abandon damaged equipment, and cross out an entire piece of peripheral nodes during wartime.

Starting from today, she alone could not cross out herself.

"The unauthorized record is retained."

Lin Yuan continued.

"Emergency self-harm commands will have a secondary confirmation added."

"The highest steward authority still belongs to you."

"Yu Qingyi will continue to serve as the deputy steward, taking over the three-location administration, outer-circle scheduling, and routine material approval."

Su Xiaonuan immediately clicked open the work checklist.

"I can do the three-location daily reports tonight—"

Yu Qingyi crossed out half the tasks directly across the communication interface.

"The three-location daily reports belong to me."

"Housekeeper Su, you are responsible for deciding, and I am responsible for making the decision land."

She also took away the outer-circle scheduling and routine inventory verification.

"Piling all accounts back onto yourself also violates the new rules."

Su Xiaonuan looked at the checklist that was reduced by half.

"This is my duty."

Yu Qingyi showed a polite smile.

"It is no longer."

Tang Qiqi stuffed a new candy into her mouth.

"Congratulations, Housekeeper Su, on winning a mandatory vacation."

Su Xiaonuan ignored her.

She signed her name at the end of the new rules.

...

B2 Independent Observation Area.

The Zero-Reset Coffin was placed in the center of the three-layer physical barrier.

Tang Qiqi activated the electrical probe.

As soon as the probe approached the black coordinate box, the black mark inside the coffin replicated a current trajectory.

The next second, the probe, wires, and power source were all shortened by a section simultaneously.

"Cut the power!"

The mechanical knife switch dropped.

The remaining lines stopped disappearing.

Liu Qing connected a set of harmless data signals.

The black mark turned accordingly and crawled outward, clinging to the communication interface.

She immediately unplugged the physical connector.

The data streams behind her thick glasses all extinguished.

"It will mimic interfaces."

"Superpowers, energy, spatial coordinates, and data signals can all become exits."

The pure mechanical lens rotated.

There was no crystal core.

There was no Superpower supply.

It relied solely on gears and springs.

The black mark did not react.

Lin Motong hugged her little bear and walked to the observation window.

She did not attack.

[Reality-Illusion Paradox] stopped at the outer layer, setting down a piece of mental common sense.

The black mark still moved.

Without hesitation, nor was it affected by the rules.

"Daddy."

Lin Motong raised her head.

"It is not a living thing."

"It has no emotions, no complete consciousness, and cannot understand common sense."

The little bear's black eyes reflected the coordinate box.

"This is just a location left behind by a mouth."

"The entity that truly wants to eat hasn't come over yet."

Wang Xue stared at the black mark inside the coffin.

After a moment, she brought up her memories of her past life.

"Before the twelfth round of the red moon, similar records appeared globally."

"Space-type shelters disappeared entirely. Population, supplies, corpses, crystal cores—nothing was left behind."

"What's more troublesome is that nearby survivors will gradually forget those bases."

Tang Qiqi put down the wrench.

"It helps people clear their cache after eating?"

No one picked up her words.

Lin Yuan connected to Beijing.

Adam's image appeared in the observation area.

"I want all spatial anomaly archives of Ark Zero."

Seconds later, an encrypted record was transmitted.

Beijing had also captured similar black marks.

It just couldn't be sealed, and eventually, the carrier was destroyed by physical blasting.

"We have always defined it as high-order spatial collapse."

Adam brought up the player System.

[Target parsing in progress.]

[Insufficient parsing authority.]

Lin Yuan activated the System simultaneously.

The same prompt appeared before his eyes.

[Unknown rule coordinates.]

[Insufficient parsing authority.]

Two players.

Two sets of Systems.

The results were consistent.

Adam stared at the Zero-Reset Coffin.

"Its tier is above the player System. If we continue to keep it, the risk cannot be evaluated."

"Encountering something higher than the System for the first time does not mean we have to run."

Lin Yuan closed the parsing interface.

"If we can't understand it, lock it up and dismantle it slowly."

The Zero-Reset Coffin was transferred to an all-mechanical physical pod.

No spatial equipment.

No Superpower power supply.

No network interface.

All monitoring data was only allowed to be manually transcribed offline.

A new archive was established.

[Serial Number: End of Days Zero.]

[Nature: Feeding Coordinate.]

[Rank: Higher than the current-stage player System.]

[Purpose: Tiangong No. 1's only living sample of the End of Days rule.]

Liu Qing walked over holding a stack of paper records.

"Master, last night's global satellite statistics are complete."

She spread the map onto the observation platform.

Large areas of red were circled out.

"The total amount of land zombies dropped by eleven percent overnight."

"There are no corpses in the missing areas."

"There are no crystal cores."

"Nor are there any traces of battle."