Courtyard House: My Long and Hard Body Makes Me Play with All the Women in the Courtyard

[Global Resonance Progress: 89%]

[Dominant frequency is stable]

[System protocol expiration countdown: 03:00]

"Did we win?" Tangtang asked, looking up.

Su Ting did not answer.

Chapter 1493 It's up to you to do it.

His body was now just a blurry outline, and his voice seemed to come from a very distant place.

"Not yet. The final step... you'll have to do it."

"Me?" Tangtang was stunned.

"You are the first child to escape the system's cleansing, the only one who retained complete childhood memories during the silent period." Su Ting gazed at her, his eyes filled with a heartbreaking tenderness. "You are the 'Initial Frequency.' Only you can restart the world's sound."

He mustered his last bit of strength and gently touched her forehead with his fingertips.

In an instant, countless images exploded in Tangtang's mind—

She saw her mother smiling as she handed her strawberry ice cream on her sixth birthday;

Seeing the first doodle she drew in the shelter, which read, "I want to be the best storyteller in the world";

I saw her write "Tangtang is not afraid" in the snow, and then it was blown away by the wind;

Those years when I saw her call out "Su Ting" again and again, but never received a response...

All the forgotten, suppressed, and deemed "meaningless" voices have returned at this moment.

"I..." she began, her voice trembling, yet carrying an unshakeable strength, "I remember... I remember everyone... I want to tell you... I'm still here... We're all still here..."

Her voice spread out, no longer just audio, but a deeper resonance—like the world restarting its breathing.

[Resonance Progress: 96%]

[A new order has been detected]

[The old system is being dismantled...]

Duo Duo suddenly opened her eyes and hissed, "There's only one chance! Now shut down all forced synchronization protocols and implant the 'Free Listening' framework! Let everyone choose who to listen to, what to say, and what to remember!"

"Fuck it!" Su Ting roared, slamming his fists on the control panel. "I'm going to make the whole world able to argue! To cry! To say stupid things! To fall in love with the wrong person!"

Dr. Lin closed his eyes with a smile, and murmured his last words:

"Children...please say...I'm sorry for me."

A wave of light swept across the world.

The ears of the first listener slowly closed, like a heart finally falling asleep.

On the distant horizon, the dawn finally broke through the clouds, casting its golden and red light upon the snow-covered plain.

Su Ting's figure grew fainter and fainter, almost merging into the morning light.

Tangtang gripped his hand tightly, even though it was no longer touchable.

"Will you come back?" she asked, her face upturned, tears glistening in her eyes. "If you're gone, who will listen to my next story?"

He looked at her, a final smile playing on his lips.

"When you take your first bite of strawberry ice cream in spring, when you're afraid of having nightmares at night, when you say 'I hate you' but then secretly turn back to find me..."

He said softly:

"I am in the very first syllable of your mouth."

The snow is still melting.

The morning light, like a gentle knife, sliced ​​through the dark clouds and spilled onto the remaining metal frame of the first listener's ear. The massive device had ceased operation, its surface showing fine cracks, like a dried-up riverbed, silently telling a story of a wordless farewell.

Tangtang knelt where Su Ting had stood, clutching the long-vanished virtual ice cream cone in her hand, her fingertips still retaining a trace of its coolness and milky scent. She gazed at the sky, her lips trembling slightly.

“Su Ting…” she whispered, her voice so soft it was almost inaudible, “The first syllable… is it ‘Su’?”

No one answered.

The wind whipped up snowflakes, brushing past her hair as if they were just passing by.

Chapter 1494 Stop Staring

suddenly--

"Hey! Girl!" Su Ting's rough voice ripped through the silence. He staggered out from behind a pile of smoking control panels, his face covered in soot and blood, but he still grinned. "Stop staring! The terminals are still processing data! Eight hundred million people worldwide are still connected. Do you think this is a farewell love movie?!"

Tangtang suddenly looked up.

Duoduo also stood up, her face pale, the catheter in her wrist still in place, blue light coursing through her veins: "The resonance progress is stuck at 96%, the system is reconstructing the underlying protocol, but... but the 'Free Listening' framework is not yet fully deployed. If the connection is broken now, everyone may fall into a state of consciousness stagnation."

“In other words—” Su Ting plopped down on the fallen robotic arm, panting heavily, “either we all wake up, or we all become vegetable-like. Choose, little genius.”

Duoduo gritted her teeth: "Someone needs to go into the core layer to manually complete the last piece of code. But there... it's a vacuum data stream now, there's no carrier, no one can go in alive."

“Who said I had to live?” Su Ting sneered, suddenly lifting the protective plate on his chest to reveal the neural interface flashing red lights underneath. “I’m not alive anymore. After that explosion three years ago, all that’s left of my body is this shell made up of parts.”

Tangtang's pupils contracted: "Are you crazy?! That's suicide!"

“Hey.” He turned to look at her, his eyes surprisingly gentle. “You think Old Man Lin and I have been holding on until now just to see the sunrise? I promised him—that I would let Duoduo see how the new world begins. But this little girl is too stubborn, she insisted on doing it herself. So…” He shrugged. “Do you understand shift work? It’s my turn.”

"No!" Duoduo rushed forward and grabbed his arm. "If you die, Dad's last words will become a joke! He said 'Please say sorry for me,' but you never intended to be remembered, did you?!"

Su Ting was stunned.

He looked down at the girl he had called a "bookworm" and "robot-headed" since childhood, her eyes now filled with anger and tears.

“…I don’t want to be remembered.” His voice was hoarse. “If you’re remembered, you can’t let go. If you can’t let go, you can’t go far.”

"But we want to remember you!" Tangtang stood up, her voice suddenly rising, "You can speak like a human being, and that's not a virus, and feelings aren't a mistake! You've clearly become a part of us for a long time, so why can you just leave like that?!"

Su Ting was taken aback.

Then he laughed, his shoulders shaking with laughter, and tears welling up in his eyes.

"Ha... alright." He wiped his face. "Okay, then I won't die for nothing. Listen up—when the new system goes live, reserve a channel for me. Every morning at six o'clock, play an old rock song. It has to be loud, the kind with electric guitar. If my soul comes back and I hear it, I'll know this world isn't completely sluggish yet."

Duoduo nodded, sobbing, "I...I will back up your neural patterns, even if it's just a fragment...I will make sure you have a name in the system."

“A name?” Su Ting scoffed. “Writing ‘Su Ting’ is so boring. Write ‘The most handsome operator in the world’.”

"Pah!" Tangtang burst into laughter through her tears. "More like the most narcissistic scrap metal recycler in the world!"

"Hey, little brat, you've gotten bold!" Su Ting pretended to grab her neck, but his legs gave way and he almost fell.

Duoduo quickly helped him up.

Chapter 1495 Time is running out

“Time is running out,” she said softly. “The Ear of the End may be destroyed, but the data storm is still spreading. We must complete the final upload within three minutes.”

Su Ting nodded, took a deep breath, and walked towards the central control pillar.

He stopped, turned his back to them, and his voice suddenly became very soft:

"Su Ting."

"Ok?"

“What Su Ting left you wasn’t just memories.” He turned, his gaze sharp as a knife. “He implanted the key to the ‘initial frequency’ into your brain. You can hear things others can’t—like now.”

Su Ting was taken aback.

She slowly closed her eyes.

In an instant, countless subtle "sounds" rang in my ears—

It is neither language nor music.

It's the rhythm of a heartbeat, the rise and fall of breaths, the vibration of water flowing through the city's underground pipes, the murmur of a baby in a distant dream, and someone whispering in the ruins, "I still want to live."

These voices were originally isolated and chaotic.

But when she concentrated, they began to... synchronize.

Like stars finding their orbits.

"I...I can control them?" She opened her eyes, shocked.

“No, you are not controlling.” Duoduo looked at her, her eyes shining. “You are responding. You are the real ‘first listener’.”

Su Ting grinned: "Alright, put on your protagonist halo. I'll go clear the way for you."

He leaped into the access pod of the control pillar, and the nerve conduit automatically pierced his spine. A burst of red light appeared, and his body trembled violently.

[Start the final upload process]

[User Permission Verification: Su Ting - Passed]

[Identity Tag: Guardian Sequence - Zero]