My younger brothers are so fierce!!! I'm clearly the eldest brother!

"...ventricular fibrillation!"

"...Defibrillator! Two hundred joules!"

As time passed, a sense of panic inexplicably arose in the hearts of Jiang Yan and the others.

Just as the minute hand on the clock was about to point to 8 o'clock, the operating room door suddenly opened.

Jiang Zhuo, Bai Xin, and the others were overjoyed and hurriedly went to greet them.

Jiang Yan's vision went black for a moment, and he had to hold onto the wall to avoid falling to the ground. Bai Xin and the others didn't know the approximate time of the surgery, but he knew that a simple interventional closure surgery would take at least an hour. It had only taken 40 minutes, which was too fast, too fast.

"What happened?"

Jiang Yan steadied herself and kept her eyes fixed on Director Liu.

The back of Director Liu's surgical gown was soaked with sweat, and his face was grave. Jiang Yan's heart sank; he was all too familiar with that expression.

Jiang Zhuo and the others froze on the spot, staring blankly at Jiang Yan and Director Liu.

Director Liu's voice was grave, "...suddenly suffered a malignant arrhythmia, ventricular fibrillation during the operation, and the heart stopped beating for more than four minutes. He is still being resuscitated."

The nurse following Director Liu held a thin piece of paper in her hand. "Critical condition notice, who will sign it?"

The words "critical illness notice" struck their hearts like a heavy hammer.

Jiang Yan reached out to take the pen, but found that her hand was shaking violently. She used all her strength to draw her signature on the paper.

The pen fell to the ground with a thud, sending shockwaves through Bai Xin and his colleagues.

"impossible!"

Jiang Ning's voice suddenly rose, and she roared in protest, "Impossible! You're lying! Didn't you say the success rate of the surgery was very high? Huh? Tell me... my brother will be alright..."

Jiang Ning tried to rush over, but Jiang Huai held her back tightly. "Calm down, Xiao Liu, calm down."

Jiang Huai was clearly trying to persuade Jiang Ning, but his voice was trembling uncontrollably.

Jiang Zhuo leaned against the wall, then slowly slid down to sit on the ground, his shoulders heaving violently.

Jiang Ting ran to Director Liu, crying and begging, "Please save my brother, please, please..."

Seeing that Jiang Ting was about to kneel down, Bai Xin reached out to support her, suppressing his panic, "Director Liu, please tell us if you need anything, medical equipment, supplies, or medicines, and we will find a way."

Gong Bolin strode forward, "If it's not available in China, then it's from abroad. No matter the cost, I'll spare no expense. Please save him."

Director Liu nodded solemnly, "I will do my best."

-

Outside the small world, two orbs of light, one gold and one white, shuttled through the endless void.

"S099, are you giving us the wrong directions?! We've been searching for days!"

Baiyun was quite dissatisfied; it had been so many days, and it still needed to go back to see its cub.

Countless data streams were circulating within the golden orb of light. "The system indicates the direction is correct."

Bai Yun puffed up his cheeks in anger, "You're really useless. Why did the main system send such a rigid system like you? We've been chasing you through more than three hundred world rifts, and we haven't even seen a trace of the traitorous system."

S099's voice was completely flat. "The system's aura is 90% consistent with the void turbulence. If it doesn't actively expose itself, calculations show that conventional search methods would take at least ten years."

"ten years?!"

Baiyun was furious. "Ten years from now, my little one will be all grown up. What use are you to me?!"

S099 didn't understand, "Ten years have passed in the blink of an eye."

Baiyun was too lazy to argue with this wooden system. Those systems took hundreds or thousands of years to complete each task, so ten years was naturally a very short time for them.

A tremor ran through her body, and the luminous glow of Baiyun's body visibly dimmed. Something had happened to her baby...

S099's data stream suddenly accelerated, and its golden light intensified. "High concentration of defective system energy detected! Coordinates 354078569, small world."

The white cloud suddenly turned around, its fluffy cloud mass churning rapidly in the void, "Dare to touch my cub, I will tear it to pieces."

The white cloud transformed into a streak of light and shot off, with the pursuit system following closely behind, leaving two long trails in the dark void.

-

As Jiang Guanqing fell into the cold, dark abyss amidst the fragments, just as he was about to be completely swallowed by nothingness, a ball of eerie blue light quietly emerged from the darkness.

"We've finally met, Jiang Guanqing."

A familiar mechanical voice rang in his ears, and Jiang Guanqing stopped in his tracks, lost in the void. "...Who are you?"

"You can call me the Defected System."

Jiang Guanqing was slightly taken aback.

The defector system's mechanical voice carried a hint of mockery, "Surprised?"

"What do you want to do?"

After a moment of silence, the defector system spoke, "I want to tell you a secret."

Jiang Guanqing instinctively wanted to shake his head, but the defection system had already spoken on its own.

"The other is considered taboo. As long as one can plunder enough fortune, find a desolate little world where the Heavenly Dao has not yet been born, and forcibly infuse that fortune into an ordinary person, turning them into a 'pseudo-Child of Fortune,' then one can forcibly ascend to the Heavenly Dao."

Jiang Guanqing pursed his lips; he couldn't understand what the defection system was trying to say.

"I am one of the first systems to be created, numbered S001, the strongest of the hundred systems."

"Back then, our mission was simple: bind to a host, complete the task, and correct the timeline."

"The main system granted our first batch of systems a privilege: if one day our bound hosts treat us as true family and partners, rather than tools, we can break free from the system's shackles and ascend to become the Heavenly Dao. The Heavenly Dao, for our system, is the supreme glory and eternal freedom."

S001's mechanical voice suddenly became very soft, "I have bound myself to 63,721 hosts. I cried with them, laughed with them, and gave them hope when they were most desperate, but they all abandoned me."

"My first host was in a post-apocalyptic world. She was an ordinary female college student whose mission was to live to a ripe old age. I used my own essence to save her and expended my power to build a protective shield for her. However, in order to save a stranger's child, she voluntarily stepped out of the shield and ultimately died."

"The second host was a prince in a world of political intrigue, tasked with growing into an emperor and achieving lasting fame. When I bound myself to him, he was only 9 years old, and I accompanied him from the cold palace to the imperial palace. However, when I asked him to wage war against another country, he refused and chose to sign a century-long truce, saying that the common people would suffer from war."

"Whether they are cultivators pursuing immortality in the world of cultivation, generals conquering all directions in the interstellar world, or ordinary people in the modern world, they have all abandoned me without exception."