Bright Sword: Conquer the monk at the beginning and take down Zhou Weiguo

Qin Cang didn't respond, just nodded and then closed the call channel.

He stood there, looking at the window which was gradually getting darker, and was silent for a long time.

He knew Liu San wouldn't ask why, but he knew in his heart that he didn't want to eat because he was greedy.

Just now, after the shock of the electric current, he realized that his body had reached its limit. With his nerves overloaded, a single deep connection could cause a temporary dislocation between consciousness and physiology. Once he entered the core section of the secondary pathway, he had to be 100% alert and stable. Otherwise, even a single misoperation could cause the entire circuit to collapse.

Eating is to stabilize your body and your mind.

He sat back on the platform, staring at the images that were still loading.

The third frame of the image began to clear. It was a long, narrow corridor, with a metal wall on one side and a transparent structure on the other, through which the shimmering light outside could be seen. At the end of the corridor was a beveled door with a marking that he was very familiar with—a construction symbol left over from the early days of the line, unused for many years.

He suddenly felt uneasy.

He had seen this logo once before, in old documents, and the accompanying description at the time was: "Unverified experimental path, for single pass only."

And that was also the last time his master contacted him before he left.

Until now, no one has successfully walked that path.

He took a deep breath and murmured softly: "It seems that after this meal, I will have to go that way."

A heavy feeling of oppression followed him like a shadow, but he did not retreat.

There was no turning back for him.

Just as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, the signal meter on the other side of the platform suddenly jumped. A string of encrypted data silently popped up in the corner of the screen. It was cryptic and blurry, but with a line of eye-catching red text:

[Target sensor—locked.]

It was like a pair of eyes lurking in the darkness, staring at him coldly, neither approaching nor retreating.

"I shouldn't say these words..." Qin Cang whispered silently in his heart, as if to himself, and also as if to the silent observer in the air.

It was too blunt, too revealing, too... vulnerable.

He was never one to show his emotions easily. Even when his heart was racing, he always maintained a composed expression. But those words just now—"You won't even give me time to eat?"—were like a sharp stone suddenly bursting from his chest, carrying with it a resentment that had been hidden for too long, too deeply suppressed.

Once the resentment is expressed, it is like throwing a stone into calm water, causing ripples to surge, and things that were originally hidden in the dark begin to stir.

He quickly returned to the main interface and manually masked the string of red text, but his fingertips moved a fraction slower than usual, like an uncontrolled hesitation. He knew it wasn't fear or regret, but a struggle of consciousness, tugged at by a dull pain. A deep, instinctive warning told him: these unintentional words might have been captured, analyzed, and archived by a monitoring device.

"Aphasia is protection, silence is disguise." He remembered someone once taught him this sentence. He didn't take it seriously at the time, but now every word is like a nail, nailed into his brain.

He stood up and walked towards the unused quiet area inside the room. It was a closed space where all sensors, monitoring, and signal transmission were suppressed to zero. Before entering, he took a deep breath and forced down the nameless ripples in his heart.

"Emotions are poisonous." He repeated to himself, as if the words were ingrained in his bones and blood.

The silence within the silent zone was complete, even the air being cut off. He sank completely into the metal cabin, knees bent, back pressed against the wall, eyes closed, and no longer thought a single word. He allowed himself to completely return to zero in these short three minutes.

This is not a rest, it is a cleansing.

His mind quickly reviewed the frequency and emotional amplitude of every sentence, every word, and every tone, as if he was interrogating himself and strictly judging his out-of-control behavior.

"The cost of imbalance should not be paid by others." He remembered this sentence more clearly. It was the warning word when he first connected to the main line system. It was embedded in the primary program to prevent the user from making command errors due to emotional fluctuations.

"I'm still too easily shaken." He said to himself in his heart, with an almost harsh calmness.

Three minutes later, the hatch opened and he emerged from the silent zone. His fatigue hadn't diminished, but his eyes had regained their composure. He knew this moment of "speechlessness" wasn't a sign of weakness, but rather a preparation for the even more chaotic moment ahead.

At this moment, several familiar footsteps were heard outside the main control room. It was Liu San.

"Brother Cang, I'm back." Liu San was carrying a heavy plastic bag. He was still covered in dust and had some sweat on his forehead. "I spent a long time looking for the food you wanted, but it wasn't easy. I had to go through three different routes and almost ran into a patrol dog."

Qin Cang took the bag but didn't open it immediately. His eyes paused on Liu San's face.

"Did you bump into them?" He asked in a calm tone, but with a hint of sharpness.

"It wasn't a head-on collision." Liu San took a breath and sat down on a maintenance chair nearby. "I took a detour and used the old exhaust duct. It's a bit dirty, but it's safe. I just got back a little late."

"There's dust on you," Qin Cang said calmly, "and metal powder, from being scraped against the edge of the track."

Liu San was startled, then looked down at the corner of his clothes. Sure enough, there was some dust on them. He chuckled, a little embarrassed, "Your eyes are like detectors. I really just took a detour, nothing else."

Qin Cang said nothing, simply nodded, and walked back to the platform, carrying the bag of food. He knew Liu San wasn't telling the truth, but he didn't expose him. He could sense the subtle tension in Liu San—like someone who had just escaped from a critical state, with his nerves still taut and his eyes still showing a residual alertness that couldn't be deceived.

He opened the plastic bag, revealing three sealed boxes of food: a braised egg and chili pork combo, a spicy noodle soup, and a box of kimchi for dry food. While there weren't any fancy ingredients, the food exuded a genuine warmth and aroma. At that moment, he suddenly realized that the long-simmered emptiness in his stomach had been instantly ignited by this aroma.

"These... must have taken a lot of thought from you." He said lightly without raising his head.

"Of course." Liu San curled his lips. "You explained everything clearly. How dare I do it casually? Besides... you've been working too hard these past few days. Your face is almost as pale as paper. I don't want to come back one day and see only your shadow floating in the main control cabin."

Qin Cang did not respond, but slowly scooped a mouthful of soup into his mouth. As soon as the hot liquid touched his tongue, it quickly spread into his throat, as if awakening a heat source in his body that had been dormant for a long time.