Shh—shh—

  On the west corridor of the Ascension Platform, Li Qingya moved like a machine caught in an endless loop. Each sweep of his reed broom across the stone tiles produced a slow, dragging sound—monotonous and hollow. The ancient, silent corridor absorbed all other noise, leaving only this dull, ceaseless friction, like a forgotten algorithm attempting to execute in an abandoned system.

  Seven days. Seven excruciating days he'd spent sweeping this same stretch of stone. No changes, no progress—just the same mechanical motions on repeat. His body ached from head to toe, muscles protesting with every movement. But the mental toll was even worse, as if some invisible background process was methodically eroding his mind, bit by bit.

  Yet, beneath the surface, something was stirring.

  In the cracks between the bricks, he noticed it again. Faint tendrils of data seeped upward, like digital mist leaking through the fractures of reality. These data threads wriggled like phosphorescent worms, pulsing with an otherworldly blue glow. They blinked, faded, then blinked again, as if trying to communicate secrets encoded in ancient, corrupted code.

  Li Qingya squinted, his curiosity piqued.

  “So damn boring...” he muttered under his breath.

  Sweat trickled down his brow, curved along the bridge of his nose, and splattered onto the stone tiles. As the droplets hit the floor, something extraordinary happened: each one formed a perfect circle, a precision far beyond the realm of chance.

  His heart skipped a beat. He stared at the wet marks, then at the other droplets he'd shed earlier.

  No way...

  The droplets were arranged in a Fibonacci sequence: one, two, three, five, eight... The realization hit him like a sudden debug alert. This wasn't just sweat; it was a deliberate signal.

  Li Qingya's breath caught in his throat, his pulse pounding in his ears. “It’s not a coincidence,” he whispered, his voice trembling with excitement.

  This wasn't just a world—it was an interface, a simulation constructed on layers of code and pattern.

  “Hey! You slacking off already?”

  The voice shattered the silence like a crashing error log. Li Qingya flinched, his moment of discovery abruptly interrupted. Turning around, he saw an old Daoist standing behind him, his robes still as a statue, eyes sharp and piercing. The supervisor, appearing as silently as a ghost.

  Li bowed quickly, hiding his face. But from the corner of his eye, he noticed something astonishing: tiny arcs of light danced across the broom's tassels—data chains. Digital serpents slithered through the fibers, humming with energy. That broom wasn't just a tool; it was a subroutine.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  And when the old Daoist turned to leave, his boots left behind an even more chilling sight—glowing residue. Faint blue-green specks clung to the soles, like stardust, but unmistakably the fragments of deleted data, the traces of erased cultivators, echoes of souls that had been completely formatted.

  As night fell, the corridor returned to its silent stillness. Distant gongs marked the midnight hour.

  Li Qingya slipped through the shadows like a data packet evading a firewall. Crouching low, his toes barely brushing the dust, he began to draw—lines looping into intricate patterns, spirals folding into recursion. A recursive function etched into the dirt.

  When the seventh layer of nesting was complete—BOOM.

  A low rumble reverberated through the earth.

  Then, light.

  A holographic star map erupted from the cracks, bathed in blue flames. It shimmered in mid-air, both real and illusory.

  But something was amiss.

  The Tien Xuan star, a supposed constant in this world, was glitching. It jumped erratically between constellations, defying all laws of orbit and logic, descending into pure chaos.

  Li realized with a start: This world is breaking down. Or worse, it was never real to begin with.

  Footsteps. The metallic clank of boots, growing closer.

  He had mere seconds.

  Scanning the patrol route, he spotted a single opportunity: a 0.7-second window, just enough time.

  He reached for the map.

  Pain.

  The moment his fingers touched the light, searing agony shot up his arm. It felt like thousands of needles stabbing simultaneously, fire racing through his nerves.

  A red alert flashed across his vision:

  [WARNING: Unauthorized Access Detected — ID: TX-1086] [Access Denied. Defensive Protocol Initiated.]

  The map began to fade.

  “No!”

  In a desperate bid, he threw his last hope—a fragment of a tortoise shell—onto the vanishing light.

  White light exploded.

  He was falling...

  And then, he wasn't.

  He found himself standing in a realm composed entirely of data. Stars of code twinkled around him, lines and paths interconnecting, all flowing towards a massive golden sphere at the center. A server. The heart of this world.

  “This... This is Heaven’s Dao? It’s a central control system!”

  But then, alarms blared:

  [CORE BREACH DETECTED. DISCONNECT IMMEDIATELY.]

  A powerful force wrenched him out, like a corrupted process being terminated.

  He stumbled back into reality.

  And someone was waiting.

  A shadow detached from the darkness. The janitor.

  “You’re playing with fire, kid,” the old man rasped. One eye glowed a menacing blue, while the other was a bottomless void.

  He drew a symbol with his broom—not random scribbles, but a glyph, encrypted logic.

  “Know why the patrol has a 0.7-second delay?”

  Li’s eyes widened in realization.

  “It’s the system’s self-check interval.”

  A howl echoed in the distance. The boots were almost upon them.

  “Run.”

  Li didn't need to be told twice. He melted into the shadows.

  Just before the patrol passed, a new prompt flashed before his eyes:

  [Coordinate Saved. Access Key: Prime Number Sequence]

  He looked at the tortoise shell. Lines were etched into it, resembling a circuit board.

  “I’m going to break this system,” he growled determinedly. “One bug at a time.”