Weird Game: I brought an old version bug

The screen went completely black, and only the creaking sound of the old exhaust fan remained in the room.

Shi Yu stood frozen in place, her face even paler than the surrounding metal walls.

She stared intently at the black screen, her lips trembling slightly, as if she wanted to say something, but no sound came out.

Jiang Chen could hear her increasingly heavy breathing, which sounded particularly clear in the deathly silent abandoned area.

The strong smell of rust in the air seemed even stronger, mixed with the acrid smell of ozone, making it hard to breathe.

Jiang Chen's brain was working at lightning speed, trying to find logical flaws in that seemingly random warning.

"Who...are you?"

Shiyu finally spoke, her voice terribly hoarse.

She instinctively took a half step back, her hand already reaching for the weapon at her waist, her knuckles turning white from the force.

Jiang Chen did not answer immediately, but looked at her calmly.

He did not rush to defend himself, because in such an extreme situation, any weak explanation was not as convincing as evidence.

He took the decompiled kernel out of his backpack and inserted it back into the terminal's read slot.

A pale golden light spread along the cable, forcibly reviving the video from before.

He didn't look at the screen, but stared at the low-level code stream jumping on the side of the terminal.

"Look here."

Jiang Chen pointed to a string of red characters scrolling rapidly on the screen, speaking at a steady pace.

"The rendering engine for this video is the old version V3.2, but the lighting and shadow algorithm uses the new version V4.0."

To save computing power, the system directly extracted your memory data and applied an existing model.

He turned his head and looked directly into Shigure's eyes.

More importantly, in the video, you don't have that old scar on your left wrist from when you were doing missions before.

Because when the system generated the image data, it flipped the physical features by default, but forgot to fix your personal model.

Shi Yu was stunned and looked down at her left wrist.

There is indeed a faint white scar there, left from when I first entered the game.

The wariness in her eyes lessened slightly, but her brows remained furrowed.

"You mean, this was deliberately released by the system to sow discord among us?"

She took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down.

Jiang Chen nodded and pulled out the decompilation core—63% energy remaining.

"Zhong Yuan wrote in his diary that the system only cares about the stability of the test environment."

When two variables produce an uncontrollable synergistic effect, the most common tactic a system uses is to create internal conflict, thereby reducing our survival efficiency.

Just then, the terminal screen suddenly emitted a blinding red light.

The piercing alarm instantly tore through the deathly silence of the abandoned area, making people's eardrums ache.

[System Warning: Unauthorized data access detected]

[Old version cleanup program has been started]

[Countdown: 10 seconds]

The red light flickered wildly in the dim room, casting distorted and bizarre shadows of the two people.

The air temperature dropped sharply again, and Jiang Chen could even feel the hairs on his skin standing on end, a strong sense of crisis welling up in his heart.

He knew they had touched the very thing they shouldn't have touched in this abandoned area.

"run!"

Jiang Chen grabbed Shi Yu's arm and rushed toward the rusty isolation door on the right side of the room.

The metal wall behind me began to shake violently, and large chunks of rust peeled off its surface.

Behind the wall, countless streams of dark red, viscous code surged forth, spreading wildly like living tentacles.

The code streams converged and gradually twisted into several humanoid monsters with no facial features and long, thin limbs.

They emitted a strong, acrid smell of ozone and made a hissing sound that made your teeth ache. Every time they moved, they left corrosive marks on the metal floor.

The monsters had no facial features, only a smooth, dark red metallic sheen.

Their limb joints bend in a way that defies ergonomics, and with each step they take, their bones emit a chilling "crackling" sound.

Jiang Chen could even smell the stench emanating from them, a stench similar to that of burning protein.

The smell hit him right in the head, making his stomach churn.

He knew that these were not monsters in the traditional sense, but rather "antivirus software" that the system had created to remove redundant data.

The isolation door was forcibly cracked by Jiang Chen using a decompiled core. As soon as the two rolled into the outer corridor, the management room behind them was completely swallowed up by those dark red tentacles.

All the lights in the corridor were turned off, with only the emergency indicator lights emitting a faint green light that reflected off the puddles on the ground.

Jiang Chen was panting heavily, his lungs felt like they were on fire, and every breath he took was tinged with the smell of blood.

He immediately activated the "Scouting" skill, which had its cooldown time reduced to zero, and a pale golden field of vision instantly spread out.

In the pale golden light, the pursuers were covered with countless red weak points, their movements leaving clear afterimages in the air.

"Their movement logic is based on an old version of the pathfinding algorithm, which can only move along straight lines and make right-angle turns, and cannot handle complex three-dimensional obstacles."

Jiang Chen pulled Shi Yu along as they ran down the corridor, analyzing the situation rapidly.

"Don't go in a straight line! Use the abandoned equipment in the corridor as cover and cut off their blind spots!"

Shi Yu reacted very quickly and immediately understood his intention.

She drew her weapon with a backhand motion, slid to dodge a sweeping dark red tentacle, and at the same time severed a rickety ventilation duct next to her.

The sound of metal breaking echoed in the corridor.

The heavy metal pipe crashed down, precisely blocking the cleaners' path.

The monsters were stuck between the pipes and the walls, emitting angry electronic hissing, and streams of dark red code flew everywhere.

Taking advantage of the situation, Jiang Chen pulled Shi Yu into a narrow maintenance passage.

The passageway was covered with thick dust and cobwebs, and the air was filled with a musty smell.

The two slowed their pace, trying not to make a sound.

Jiang Chen deactivated "Reconnaissance" - the cooldown countdown entered 180 seconds.

His mental energy was almost depleted, his temples were throbbing, and black patches were starting to appear on the edges of his vision again.

"You just said that the system extracted my memories."

Shiyu leaned against the cold wall, calming her breathing, and suddenly asked in a low voice.

"Did it also extract yours? If it wanted to sow discord between us, why did it warn me in the video instead of you?"

Jiang Chen remained silent for a moment.

He looked at the half-closed iron gate at the end of the passage, the plaque on which read:

Data Archive

"Because in this test, you are a remnant of the old version, and the system believes that your perception is more easily tampered with."

I am seen as an "abnormal variable" by the new system, which is more inclined to eliminate me outright.

Jiang Chen pushed open the heavy iron door, the hinges making a screeching sound, shaking off large pieces of plaster from the door frame.

The archive room didn't contain the server matrix I'd imagined, nor did it have mountains of data disks.

What comes into view are rows of neatly arranged transparent nutrient tanks, stretching into the darkness deep inside the room.

Each cabin was connected to thick pipes that emitted a faint blue light, like indifferent eyes.

The room was extremely cold, and the breath you exhaled instantly turned into white mist.

An indescribable sense of oppression enveloped the two of them, as if this place were a huge tomb, burying countless unknown secrets.

Shi Yu walked to the nearest nutrient tank and wiped the frost off the glass with her sleeve.

Her body suddenly stiffened, and her pupils contracted sharply.

Jiang Chen noticed her unusual behavior and quickly walked over.

When he saw the scene inside the cabin, his heart felt as if it were being squeezed tightly by an invisible hand, and his breath stopped instantly.

The nutrient tank was filled with a pale green nutrient solution, and a person with their eyes closed was floating in it.

The man's face, build, and even the tiny mole on his chin were exactly the same as Jiang Chen's.

The bubbles inside the cabin rose slowly, making a soft "gurgling" sound.

Jiang Chen felt as if his brain had been hit hard by a heavy hammer, and it was buzzing.

He looked at the person inside the cabin who looked exactly like him, and countless thoughts flashed through his mind.

If the real Jiang Chen is lying inside, then what am I now?

Is it a piece of copied code, or a clone with implanted memories?

He looked down at his hands, the lines on his palms were clearly visible, and he could even feel the cold touch on his fingertips.

This sense of realism made him feel a ridiculous dizziness.

"This...this is you?"

Shi Yu's voice trembled violently. She turned to look at Jiang Chen, her eyes filled with fear and confusion, and her hand holding the weapon was shaking slightly.

Jiang Chen did not answer. His gaze was fixed on the metal nameplate below the nutrient tank, and he felt his throat was dry and painful.

A line of text is clearly engraved on the nameplate:

[Experiment 073 - Jiang Chen - Status: Dormant]

Before he could react, a completely emotionless, mechanical synthesized voice suddenly rang out from the depths of his mind, as if the voice had exploded directly in the depths of his soul.

[Hidden Hint: You have triggered a core rule rift]

[Authenticity verification in progress... Verification failed]

[Elimination program... initiated]

The eerie blue light in the entire filing room instantly turned blood red.

The piercing alarm ripped through the air once again.