Chapter 289
Saving him doesn't mean returning the gun to him
The nine fragments, after losing control, did not extinguish.
Nine points of light hovered above the broken mountain, awaiting a new, legitimate archer. The two broken sections of Lu Chen's bow simultaneously heated up, and the Hou Yi sequence issued a request for complete takeover.
As long as he combines the bow, he can retrieve all nine suns at once.
It will also become the new sole controller.
"No." Lu Chengong inserted the two sections of the bow into different rock grooves.
System notification: "Unattended operation will begin autonomous cleanup in three minutes."
If they don't take over, the defensive array will indiscriminately burn down the abnormal areas; if they do take over, Lu Chen's bow might be counter-controlled by the complete bow. Zhou Heng sat in the stuck zero seat, leaning against an oxygen mask, his shoulder burned and bleeding.
"Give me the permissions," he said. "I can make them stop."
"You just used them to kill 07," Luo Xu said.
"Only I know the stop code right now."
"It can be provided, but permissions will not be restored."
Zhou Heng closed his eyes: "Without my biometric signature, the stop code is invalid."
After checking, Qin Lan confirmed that he was not lying. The emergency shutdown of the Nine Suns Array was indeed bound to the user of the zeroth verification seat, but binding did not mean that the entire control had to be handed over.
Lin Jibai broke down the shutdown process into three parts: Zhou Heng only provided the biometric signature, Lu Chengong was only responsible for transmitting it, and the Seven Cities offline shutdown film was only responsible for stopping the shooting. None of the three could restart Nine Days on their own.
"I refuse to provide it," Zhou Heng said.
"Record it." Xu Wangshu made no threat.
Two minutes and twenty seconds left in the countdown.
Qin Lan adjusted Zhou Heng's oxygen supply back to the lowest safe flow rate. His treatment would not be canceled, nor would it be increased due to his refusal to cooperate. Zhou Heng had initially wanted to force them to exchange privileges under the pressure of survival, but he found that no one was using oxygen as a bargaining chip.
Countdown: 1 minute and 40 seconds.
07 The Jade Rabbit, the narrator, crawled to Zhou Heng. It had lost a leg and a mechanical arm, and could only drag its body forward. It raised its remaining mechanical claw and drew a crooked circle in the lunar dust.
Zhou Heng recognized that it was a new move it had learned after breaking Lin Wangchuan's old habits.
"You think you've become a human?"
The jade rabbit tapped twice.
It rejects the presuppositions of this question.
"Then why did you save me?"
He knocked for a long time, then pointed to the oxygen supply pipe.
The narrator in question 07 did not mention rescue. It only confirmed that Zhou Heng had received oxygen and should not be executed for losing his authority.
Zhou Heng stared at it for a long time.
59 seconds left in the countdown.
He finally raised his uninjured left hand: "Signature sampling is only open once, limited to the pause phase, and cannot be included in subsequent authorizations."
Xu Wangshu fully recounted the restrictions. Zhou Heng confirmed.
Qin Lan used an independent sampling membrane to take her palm print, without connecting it to the South Heavenly Gate. Lu Chengong sandwiched the membrane between two broken strings, keeping them from closing. The Seven Cities Stop Plate lit up one by one along the outer ring of the brake.
The Nine-Sun Array requires the designation of a new archer.
Lu Chengong replied, "There are no new archers, only nine stationary targets."
He did not treat the nine fragments as a weapon set, but rather designated them one by one as malfunctioning devices that needed to be stopped. Each time a fragment was designated, a stop fragment of a city would freeze and activate it once; if the eighth and ninth fragments did not correspond to a city, Luo Xu's observation post would withdraw the record and 07's self-narrator would currently refuse to fill in the gaps.
This isn't a permanent shutdown, it just deprives them of their reason for firing in this round.
The first fragment went dark.
The second and third balls stopped rotating in succession.
As the ninth arrow finally extinguished, a bloody gash appeared on the Hou Yi mark on Lu Chen's wrist. He had not obtained the complete bow, but instead permanently lost an opportunity to unconditionally recall the nine suns.
Even with less power, choices remain.
Zhou Heng's palm print membrane shattered automatically and was not saved as a key for the next time.
He looked at the fragments and suddenly asked, "After you pull down the second panel, how do you plan to interrogate me?"
"We're not handling this," Xu Wangshu said. "We'll release the evidence first, and then let a qualified, existing institution handle it. You can continue to deny it."
"What if humanity makes a mistake in judgment?"
"Corrections are allowed," Lin Jibai said, "but just because you might make a mistake won't mean you can continue to hide behind the rules and fire away."
The bone fragment in the second compartment splits into three pieces.
"No response, no consent" loses its automatic execution capability.
The handle is only missing one final on-site confirmation.
But Lin Wangchuan suddenly pressed the stop button.
He pointed to the second compartment behind him, where an old record had just been revealed, bearing the fingerprint of consent that Lin Jibai had personally pressed twelve years ago.