Weird Game: I brought an old version bug

"Looks exactly like me?"

Jiang Chen stared out the window, but the dark figure had disappeared, leaving only a hazy mist flowing by.

"Are you sure you saw it clearly?" Shi Yu stood up, walked to his side, and followed his gaze to the window. "The visual data layer here is unstable, and sometimes it produces ghosting."

"It's not a double image," Jiang Chen said. "The outline, the height, the build, the way you walk—it's all the same as me. Not just similar, it's exactly the same."

"Lin Bei said that the data residue here records who has entered. Perhaps when you entered the Seventh Administrative District just now, the system recorded your data and generated a projection."

"Maybe." Jiang Chen closed the window and drew the curtains, shutting out the gloom outside. "But that projection doesn't seem to have been created recently."

"What do you mean?"

"Its movements were natural, like a living thing, not a newly formed afterimage."

Shi Yu was silent for a few seconds: "You should rest, I'll keep watch."

"No need, you can continue sleeping."

"I'm not going to sleep." Shi Yu walked to the window, pulled back the curtains a crack, and glanced outside. "It's almost dawn."

Jiang Chen glanced at the clock on the wall—the clock had stopped, the hands stopped at a certain point in the Frost's Descent of the 47th year of the lunar calendar, but the electronic clock left by Lin Bei showed that it was now 6:20 in the morning.

"What time is 'dawn' here?"

"The 'daytime' that Lin Bei mentioned will probably start around seven o'clock. Let's get ready and leave when he gets back."

Half an hour later, Lin Bei pushed open the door and came in.

"The cordon is set up, and the route has been marked." He held a hand-drawn map, spread out on the coffee table. "This is a route map from the surface to the middle level entrance. I've marked a few backup routes so that if one route gets blocked, we can go around from other directions."

The map was drawn in great detail, marking the location of each building, the width of the passageways, areas where monsters might be encountered, and even several places marked with "short rest area".

"How long did it take you to draw this picture?"

"I started drawing this map the first time I came in, and I update it every time I come." Lin Bei pointed to several red crosses on the map. "These are dangerous areas. Don't go there. The data flow in some places has completely collapsed. If you go in, you'll be torn apart by the data turbulence."

Jiang Chen carefully examined the map and memorized the route.

"Let's go."

The three left the safe house and headed east along the passage.

"Daylight" had indeed arrived in the Seventh Administrative District—the milky white halo had changed from dark gray to bright white, but there were still no shadows, no sun, only a uniform, all-pervasive light.

"There's no sun here during the day, so where's the light source?" Shigure asked.

"There's no light source." Lin Bei walked ahead, his short sword still gripped in his hand. "The white light comes from the air, similar to the principle of an incandescent bulb, but the light source is the air itself. This is the lighting protocol of the old version of the system; even if the system crashes, this protocol still works."

A thin mist hung over the streets, and occasionally a few dark red data streams would flash by like lightning before disappearing.

"What are those?"

"Data remnants. Log records from older system versions, data residue that has been atomized," Lin Bei said. "It's okay to encounter them, but don't try to delve deeper. Some remnants contain malicious code, and touching them can lead to the implantation of Trojans."

"A Trojan horse?"

"A virus at the data level. Once infected, your skills will be locked, or your mental energy will be continuously depleted until you die."

Jiang Chen activated the Rule Chain - Reconnaissance.

[Rule Chain - Reconnaissance Lv.1 Activated]

[Information being retrieved within a 30-meter radius...]

[Cooldown: 180 seconds]

[Mental Energy Consumption: 30/60]

In the field of vision, the data stream in the fog became clearer.

He saw that those so-called "data remnants" were actually fragments of the old system's runtime logs, which had been pulled from the ground by some force and were now suspended in the air. Some logs were complete, some were fragmented, and some had been corroded beyond recognition.

"Is this fog rising from underground?"

"Smart," Lin Bei said. "The core area underground is still operating, and the data exhaust gas it produces will rise to the surface through cracks. You can think of it as the entire surface of the Seventh Administrative District breathing the exhaust gas emitted by the core area."

"So, the core area is still operational?"

"Some modules are still running, but most have crashed. I don't know exactly which modules are still working." Lin Bei paused, "But one thing is certain—there's something 'alive' managing the system in the core area."

"Something alive?"

"It wasn't a monster, nor was it a data phantom. It was something... I can't describe it clearly. When I first went in, I sensed a consciousness, very faint, but definitely present. It didn't attack me, it just 'looked' at me, and then left."

Jiang Chen remained silent for a few seconds before continuing to walk forward.

After walking about two kilometers, Lin Bei suddenly stopped.

"etc."

He squatted down, smeared his finger on the ground, picked up a little dark red liquid, and smelled it.

"The smell of blood. Data residue."

"Is it a monster?"

"No. It's a person."

Jiang Chen and Shi Yu exchanged a glance.

"Are there other people here?"

"It wasn't just the three of us who came into the Seventh Administrative District." Lin Bei stood up and looked in the direction of the bloodstains—the bloodstains extended into the interior of a collapsed building, the entrance piled with rubble. "Data hunters, survivors of the old version, and those madmen who collect fragments of the rules would all risk coming here."

"Shall we go take a look?"

"There's no need." Lin Bei turned and continued walking forward. "The dead don't run away, and the living don't need us to save them. Everyone who survives in the Seventh Administrative District has their own way of living. If we rashly offer help, we'll just be seen as a threat."

Jiang Chen glanced at the collapsed building, hesitated for a moment, and then followed it.

Shigure walked at the back, his short bow always strung, his gaze sweeping over the surrounding ruins.

After walking about another kilometer, they arrived at an abandoned administrative building.

The building is twenty stories high, and a third of its exterior walls have collapsed, exposing the internal steel frame. All the glass is shattered, and the frames hang crookedly on the walls like rows of broken teeth. The entrance is piled with concrete debris, but there is a narrow passage that has been cleared.

"Go in from here, the elevator shaft is on the basement level." Lin Bei was the first to crawl into the passage.

Jiang Chen followed behind him, with Shi Yu bringing up the rear.

The passageway was narrow, allowing only one person to pass at a time. The walls on either side were covered in dust and cobwebs, and the air reeked of mildew and rust. Occasionally, glowing symbols, like some kind of marking, could be seen on the walls.

"What are these symbols?"

"These are markings left by the maintenance staff of the old system. They're like road signs, telling you where this leads and what level of security it is." Lin Bei pointed to a blue symbol. "This symbol means 'Maintenance passage, unauthorized personnel prohibited from entering.'"

"So, we're on the verge of breaking the law?"

"Illegal?" Lin Bei laughed. "The entire Seventh Administrative District is illegal. The system doesn't allow anyone to enter, but we did. Entering here already constitutes the highest level of illegality."

At the end of the passage was a metal door, its surface covered with a thick layer of rust, but the lock was intact and even had a polished sheen.

"Has this door been maintained?"

"Yes. I always thought I was the only one who knew about this place, but judging from the condition of the lock, at least three groups of people have been here."

"Three groups of people?"

"At least. But that was a long time ago, there probably isn't anyone there now."

Lin Bei took out the decoder and plugged it into the door lock.

[Decoding in progress...]

[Door Lock Type: Older Version Standard Maintenance Door Lock]

Estimated decoding time: 30 seconds

Thirty seconds later, the door lock made a crisp "click" sound.

The door opened.

Behind the door was a spacious hall, about fifty square meters in size. The floor was paved with white tiles, but most of them were broken, exposing the underlying cement layer. In the center of the hall was a circular elevator shaft, the opening of which was sealed by a steel plate with a ring of rivets welded around its edge.

"The elevator shaft is the entrance. Move the steel plate aside, jump down, and you'll reach the middle floor."

"Jump?" Shigure frowned. "How deep is it?"

"It's about fifteen meters. There's a cushioning layer underneath, so you won't fall to your death. I hesitated the first time I went down, but I was fine."

Lin Bei walked to the steel plate, took out his short knife, and pried open the rivets on one side.

"Let's help each other out."

The three of them worked together to move the steel plate away.

The elevator shaft was deep, pitch black below, with no bottom in sight. A cold draft rose from the bottom of the shaft, carrying the smell of ozone and an indescribable odor of decaying electronic equipment.

"Who goes first?" Lin Bei asked.

"Me," Jiang Chen said.

"Okay. Be careful, throw a light on before you go down."

Jiang Chen took a glow stick out of his backpack, broke it in half, and threw it into the elevator shaft.

The glow stick fell, illuminating the well wall.

The well walls were covered with a dense network of data cables, some still emitting a faint glow, crisscrossing like veins. Some cables were broken, dark red liquid oozing from the ends, dripping onto the well walls with a hissing sound.

"These cables...are they from an older version of the data transmission channel?"

"Yes. The core area of ​​the Seventh Administrative District is connected to the various sub-districts through these cables. The fact that these cables are still operational indicates that the connection between the core area and the surface layer has not been completely severed."

The glow stick fell to the bottom, emitting a faint green light.

Judging by the depth, it's about fifteen meters, just as Lin Bei said.

"I'll go down first." Jiang Chen grabbed a handle on the well wall and began to climb down.

The well walls were slippery, covered in moss-like data residue in some places, feeling damp and sticky, like touching a piece of rotting flesh. He tried his best to avoid the residue, but in some places it was too dense to avoid.

He climbed about five meters when he suddenly heard a muffled thud above him.

What was that sound?

"I don't know," Lin Bei's voice came from above. "It might be a monster. Hurry up and come down!"

Jiang Chen sped up, using both his hands and feet to climb down.

Shiyu followed closely behind, much more agile than him—she had served in the military, and climbing was a basic skill for her.

Lin Bei was the last to come down. As soon as he climbed into the well, he heard a loud bang from above—something was hitting the metal door. The sound was dull and powerful, like a wild beast ramming the door with its body.

"Damn it! We've been spotted!" Lin Bei quickened his pace as he climbed down, shouting, "Jiang Chen, once we get to the bottom, go straight to the depths, don't stop!"

"clear!"

Jiang Chen jumped down the last three meters and landed on the buffer layer.

The cushioning layer was made of a sponge-like material, soft to the touch but very stable. After he steadied himself, he looked around—the bottom of the elevator shaft was a circular platform, about five meters in diameter, with four passageways around it, each leading in a different direction.

Which way to go?

"The middle one." Lin Bei jumped down, landed on the buffer layer, and pointed to the passage directly in front of him. "That's the main road leading to the core area."

"What about the other three?"

"It leads to different server rooms. If there's time, you can explore them, but there's no time now."

The three rushed into the passage directly ahead.

The passageway was wide enough for four people to walk side by side. The walls on both sides were made of metal, covered with a layer of dark red data streams that pulsated like blood vessels and emitted a low hum.

"Are the walls here... breathing?"

"It's not breathing, it's data streaming. The core area of ​​the old version is still alive, just in a fragmented way," Lin Bei said. "The data stream you see is the system trying to repair the damaged modules."

At the end of the passage was a door.

The door was half open, and a dark red light shone through the crack.

Jiang Chen pushed open the door.

The sight behind the door completely stunned him.

This is a huge space.

It was about the size of a football field and at least twenty meters high. The space was filled with mechanical devices—huge gears were slowly turning, making a dull clattering sound; data cables were tangled like a spider web overhead, densely packed, almost covering the entire ceiling; the floor was transparent, allowing a view of the deeper structures below, which were also in operation, emitting a faint light.

"This is... middle management?"

"Yes. The server cluster of the Seventh Administrative District, the old version of the core data processing center." Lin Bei walked to the nearest mechanical device and patted its casing. "These machines are still running, but the data they process is all garbage—old crash logs, error codes, and incomplete data packets."

Is there a way to read this data?

"Yes, but it requires special decoding equipment. My decoder can only handle surface data; the middle layer requires a more advanced one."

Jiang Chen walked up to a huge transparent screen.

The screen was filled with a dense stream of data, moving at a dizzying speed. He couldn't understand the specifics, but he could sense that there was a pattern, a cycle, hidden within these data streams.

"What did you see?" Shigure walked over.

"Data streams. They repeat a certain pattern."

"model?"

"Yes. It's like a loop, constantly repeating the same data sequence."

Lin Bei walked over and glanced at the screen: "That's the old system's self-check program. It automatically runs every time the system crashes, trying to fix the errors. But this program has been running for who knows how many years, and it has never succeeded."

Why didn't it work?

"Because the core data has been corrupted. The self-checking program cannot find a target to repair, so it can only loop indefinitely."

Jiang Chen stared at the screen and suddenly had an idea.

"What if... I could enter this loop?"

"What do you mean?"

"My skill allows me to trace data changes. If I use it to track the data flow of this self-checking program, I might be able to find the starting point of each loop."

"So what if you find the starting point?"

"The starting point is the first log entry recorded when the system crashed. If we can read that log, we can find out what happened back then."

Lin Bei was silent for a few seconds: "This idea is crazy, but it's theoretically feasible."

"Then let's give it a try."

Jiang Chen walked to the screen and reached out to touch its surface.

[Rule Chain - Reconnaissance Lv.1 Activated]

[Data Retrospective - Incomplete Documents Take Effect]

[Rewind range: 3 seconds]

[Mental Energy Consumption: 25/60]

In my field of vision, the data stream on the screen began to reverse.

Within three seconds, he saw the source of the data stream—a massive vortex of code, slowly rotating deep within the screen. The vortex was a dark gold color, with faint blue light emanating from its edges, like a black hole, devouring the surrounding data.

"A whirlpool... what's that?"

"What vortex?" Lin Bei asked.

"Deep within the screen, there is a data vortex. All data flows originate from this vortex."

"That's... the entry point to the core data layer."

"Entrance?"

"Yes. The core area of ​​the Seventh Administrative District is right behind that vortex. But you can't get in—you don't have the authority, you don't have the key, you have nothing."

"What if we force our way in?"

"It would be torn apart by the data stream. I've seen people try it, and not even a body was left."

Jiang Chen stared at the vortex, lost in thought.

Suddenly, he noticed some unusual data fluctuations at the edge of the vortex—fluctuations that were similar to the data snakes he had encountered on the surface before, but denser and more active.

"Wait... there's something at the edge of the vortex."

"What is it?"

"They look like data snake fragments, but smaller and more numerous. There are at least dozens."

"A nest of data snakes?" Lin Bei frowned. "They usually nest in areas with dense data flow. If there are data snakes at the edge of a vortex, it means that the data flow around the vortex is very active."

"So, if I want to get closer to the vortex, I have to clear away these data remnants first?"

"I'm afraid it's more than that. They'll call upon their companions, attracting even stronger monsters."

Jiang Chen took a deep breath.

"Then let's clean them up first."

He turned to look at Shi Yu.

"Shiyu, you're in charge of ranged suppression. Linbei, you're in charge of melee protection. I'll try to use the Rule Chain: Reconnaissance to find their weaknesses."

"clear."

Shiyu drew back the bowstring, aiming the arrow at the screen.

Just as she was about to shoot the arrow, the screen suddenly shattered.

Countless strands of data surged from the screen, cascading down like a waterfall, the dark red data streams weaving into a giant net in mid-air.

"Hold!"

Lin Bei brandished his short sword, severing two data snake fragments that lunged at him.

Jiang Chen activates the rule chain - reconnaissance.

[Rule Chain - Reconnaissance Lv.1 Activated]

[Data Retrospective - Incomplete Documents Take Effect]

[Analyzing the behavior patterns of the data snake...]

In the field of vision, the movement trajectory of the data snake became clear.

Their attack pattern is simple—lock onto the target, then charge in a straight line and ram it headfirst. But the problem is that they are too fast, much faster than those on the surface, at least 30 percent faster.

"Shigure, three o'clock, Wujiao!"

Shiyu turned around and fired three arrows in quick succession.

The three data snakes were precisely shot in the head and turned into code fragments.

"Linbei, seven o'clock direction, two lines!"

Lin Bei swung his blade, severing two data snakes that had attacked from behind. The blade was covered in dark red data residue.

The battle lasted for about ten minutes.

When the last data fragment shattered into pieces, all three were already panting heavily.

[27 Dead Snakes]

Experience points gained: 3240

[Drop: Rule Fragment x2]

A notification popped up in Jiang Chen's field of vision.

On the ground, two dark red fragments of the rules lay quietly, larger and darker in color than the one he had obtained from the surface.

"It's shipped." Jiang Chen picked up the fragments.

"Two pieces." Lin Bei wiped the blood off his knife. "Luckily, we didn't attract any stronger monsters."

"What can these fragments be used for?"

"Rule Fragments are the core materials for skills in the old version. The more you collect, the stronger the skills you unlock."

Jiang Chen looked at the two fragments in his hand, a sense of anticipation rising in his heart.

But at that moment, the ground suddenly shook.

A deep voice resounded throughout the space, seemingly coming from all directions at once, making eardrums ache:

"Intruder detected... Defense mechanism activated..."