Weird Game: I brought an old version bug

As Jiang Chen climbed out of the ventilation duct, the light made him squint.

It wasn't the dim yellow light of a luminous stick, nor the cold white light of an underground archive—it was real sunlight.

Although the underground city of New Dawn has no sun, the lighting system on the surface level simulates a color temperature close to natural light, creating a stark contrast with the cool light sources deep underground.

He climbed out of the pipe and found himself inside an abandoned pumping station.

The pumping station's equipment had long since stopped operating, and rusted metal pipes lay haphazardly in the corners. The ground was covered with a thick layer of dust, but there were a few broken skylights in the roof, through which filtered simulated sunlight streamed down, casting slanted beams of light onto the ground.

Shi Yu followed him out, carrying the canvas bag on her shoulder.

The first thing she did after straightening up wasn't to brush off the dust, but to glance back at the pipe opening—to make sure no one had followed her out. Then she took the empty syringe out of her pocket, held it in her hand for a few seconds in silence, and then put it away again.

"How are you feeling?" Jiang Chen asked.

"My mind is twice as cluttered as before, but it's more chaotic than ever."

Shi Yu said, "It's like someone dumped a bunch of files all over my desk, and I have to sort them myself—but overall, it's a good thing. At least now I know what I'm looking for."

Jiang Chen took out the two rule fragments from his pocket—Sample-01 (silver gray, 71%) and Sample-04 (dark red, 68%)—and examined them in his palm.

In addition to his original pale gold fragment (37%), he now has three rule fragments in his possession, and his total energy reserves are enough to support several high-consumption operations.

But he didn't immediately try to analyze it—having just escaped from the Seventh Administrative District, the system might still be tracking abnormal data traffic in that area, and activating the rule fragment now would be tantamount to actively exposing his location.

He collected the fragments, sat down against a rusted pipe, and began organizing the contents of his backpack.

Old Shen's notebook, Old Shen's map, the decompiled core, crystal fragments, three rule fragments, and Shi Yu's mobile file package—this was all the belongings they brought back from the Seventh Administrative District.

There aren't many, but each one is a game-changer.

Shi Yu walked around the pumping station and found a half-open side door.

She pushed open the door, glanced outside, and turned back to say, "We're in the northwest corner of New Dawn City, about a forty-minute walk from the rental house. There are no patrol units nearby, so it's safe for now."

"Then let's not go back to the rented apartment for now."

Jiang Chen said, "Since the system can track the entrance to the Seventh Administrative District, it's very likely that it knows who we are. The rental house may have already been marked."

"Where to?"

Jiang Chen thought for a moment, then suggested a place: "An intelligence shop."

Shi Yu glanced at him, but didn't ask why; she simply nodded.

The two left the pumping station and circled around most of the small roads on the edge of New Dawn City. Only after confirming that they were not being followed did they approach the street where the intelligence shop was located.

Jiang Chen didn't go straight through the main entrance, but instead went around into the alley behind the shop. He paused at the shop entrance to make sure that only the shop owner was inside before pushing the door open and going in.

The shop owner remained seated behind a table in the corner, seemingly waiting for someone. He saw Jiang Chen and Shi Yu enter, his gaze lingering briefly on the canvas bag on Shi Yu's back before shifting away.

"You've found what you're looking for," the shopkeeper said.

It's not a question, it's a statement.

"You knew I would find it when you left that piece of paper."

Jiang Chen said, "If you have anything to tell me, say it now."

The shop owner was silent for a few seconds, then stood up, walked behind the counter, and took something out of the drawer.

A notebook with the same cover as Lao Shen's notebook, but thinner, with only about a dozen pages.

He placed the notebook on the counter and pushed it toward Jiang Chen.

"Someone told me to give this to you after you find the Seventh District."

"Who?"

"I don't know his name. He told me to call him 'Old Zhong'."

The shop owner said, "He contacted me about a month ago and said someone would come to inquire about the Seventh District. He told me to put that piece of paper in a conspicuous but not inconspicuous place when that person came, and then give it to him when that person came a second time."

Jiang Chen opened the notebook.

The handwriting on the first page is different from Lao Shen's, and also different from the flowchart in Room 07—it's a more casual handwriting, like something written on the spot, but every stroke is powerful, as if the writer was very sure of what they wanted to write when they put pen to paper.

The first page contains only one sentence:

"If you can get your hands on this notebook, it means you've obtained Old Shen's notebook, entered the Seventh Administrative District, found the decompilation core, and Shiyu has regained her memories. Excellent. That means I didn't choose the wrong person."

— Signed: Watchmaker.

After reading this, Jiang Chen looked up at the shop owner and asked, "Is the clockmaker still alive?"

"I don't know if he's still alive."

The shop owner said, "When he gave me this notebook, he looked like a living person, but you never know—in this game, things that look like living people aren't necessarily alive."

Jiang Chen did not press the matter further.

He turned to the second page of the notebook, where a new map was drawn.

It wasn't in Lao Shen's hand-drawn style; it was more precise, like a map drawn with some kind of tool—marked with coordinates, depth, distance, and even the estimated travel time for each section of the road.

The map starts at the pump station in the northwest corner of New Dawn City and ends at a location deeper in the Seventh Administrative District, extending two more layers than Lao Shen's map, and is marked as "Seventh Administrative District · Layer 04 - Core Data Layer".

There is a note below the map:

"Go down from here and keep going until you reach the very bottom. You'll see a door that isn't locked, but you'll need to decompile the kernel to open it."

Behind the door lies the actual data from the old version of the Abyss game—not the version filtered by the system, but the original, unmodified source code. After seeing that code, you'll understand what this game truly is.

Jiang Chen closed the notebook, put it in his backpack, and placed it next to Lao Shen's notebook.

He now has enough clues—Old Shen's notebook tells him how to get there, the decompiled core tells him where the key is, and the watchmaker's notebook tells him where the destination is.

The three clues form a complete path, from the starting point to the end point, so clear it's almost unnatural.

Everything went too smoothly.

From the entrance to the Seventh Administrative District to the archives, from the archives to the rules laboratory, from the rules laboratory to the ventilation ducts, every step felt like a path had been paved in advance.

Even the watchmaker's notebook seemed to have been calculated so that he would receive it at this exact moment.

"Don't you think everything is going too smoothly?"

He turned to ask Shi Yu.

Shi Yu was looking through the mobile files in her canvas bag when she heard his question and paused: "You mean it's like someone is orchestrating this route for us?"

"Um."

"Possibly."

Shi Yu said, "But the people who arranged for us to take this path—whether it's Lao Shen, the 07 team, or the watchmaker—were not doing it for themselves."

When they did these things, the old version was about to be shut down, and they knew they might not live to see the end.

So they paved the road, left the keys along the way, and waited for people to come and complete the last leg of the journey.

She closed the file and looked at Jiang Chen: "We are the people they are waiting for."

Jiang Chen did not answer.

He zipped up his backpack, stood up, and glanced at the sky outside the window—the simulated sunlight was beginning to dim, and the day-night cycle in New Dawn City was about to enter night.

"Let's find a safe place to spend the night and set off early tomorrow morning."

He said, "We still have a long way to go."

That evening, they found an abandoned residential building on the outskirts of New Dawn City and settled in a room on the fourth floor.

The room's windows face the street, offering a wide view; anyone approaching can be seen from a distance.

Jiang Chen propped the door shut with a cabinet, then sat down and took out the three fragments of the rules, placing them on the ground.

Silver-gray fragment - Energy 71%, unanalyzed, unbound.

Dark red fragment - Energy 68%, unanalyzed, unbound.

Pale gold fragment - Energy 37%, bound, analyzed.

He picked up the silver-gray fragment, closed his eyes, and concentrated on perceiving the data structure inside the fragment.

When he obtained the first fragment in the Forgotten Mine, he didn't know how to analyze it—but the flowchart from the Rules Lab provided the method, and with some details provided after Shigure regained his memories, he now roughly knows what to do.

The core of deciphering rule fragments is not "reading" but "matching"—a rule definition is stored inside the fragment, and players need to use their mental power to trigger the resonance frequency inside the fragment, so that the fragment can actively "tell" the player what rule it carries.

This process requires no external tools, only focus.

He calmed himself down and let his consciousness sink into the fragments.

After about ten seconds, he felt the surface of the fragment begin to heat up slightly, and then a stream of information flowed from his fingertips into his brain—

[Rule Fragment - Silver Gray - Analyzed]

[Rule Definition: Shared Vision – Within a 30-meter radius, you can briefly share the visual information of one teammate. Duration: 15 seconds. Cooldown: 60 seconds.]

[Applicable scenarios: reconnaissance, coordinated operations, and information asymmetry confrontation.]

Jiang Chen opened his eyes and glanced at the silver-gray fragment in his palm.

Shared vision – this ability may not be very useful in regular combat, but it is invaluable when exploring unknown areas, especially when you need to observe multiple directions at the same time.

He didn't bind it immediately; instead, he carefully put away the fragments and turned to the dark red one.

Focus your mind and perceive the resonance within the fragments.

This time the reaction was even faster—the dark red fragment resonated almost instantly, and a clear and complete stream of information flooded into his consciousness:

[Rule Fragment - Dark Red - Analyzed]

[Rule Definition: Damage Reflection – After being attacked, 30% of the damage dealt can be reflected back to the attacker. Duration: Triggers automatically once after activation. Cooldown: 120 seconds.]

[Applicable Scenarios: A countermeasure in skirmishes or when facing high-damage enemies.]

Two rules are defined, one for support and one for combat. Adding the "ignores environmental restrictions" rule carried by his original pale gold fragment, he now has three usable rules, which perfectly meets the upper limit of "a maximum of three rules can be stacked for the same skill" mentioned in the flowchart.

But he didn't rush to bind himself.

He remembered the last sentence of the flowchart very clearly: "The order of stacking affects the final result."

He needs a skill as a vehicle to write the three rule fragments in the correct order. If the order is wrong, the effect may be completely different.

He glanced out the window at the night view of New Dawn City, where a few crystal lamps shone lonely in the darkness. Before setting off tomorrow, he needed a suitable skill to contain these fragments of rules.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the city, somewhere he couldn't see, a new record might be being generated on the system panel.

Regarding the abnormal data flow at the entrance of the Seventh Administrative District, the records of access to the archives, and the traces of the memory stabilizer being used.

The system knows he was here.

But the system didn't know what he took with him.