Chapter 17 Quake Cryptograms
Lin Yun's fingers grazed the 1906 fault line when San Francisco's ruins began humming. From the chasm's depths, verses from Classic of Poetry morphed into golden runes dancing on scorched bricks. A mechanical cricket hopped from debris, its compound eyes blinking 1900s monarchist cipher codes.
"Beware the poetry malware!" The warden's hologram glitched into a Qing dynasty painting. "Dr. Sun Yat-sen's Tongmenghui hid anti-Qing codes here—"
A tentacle sheathed in oracle bone inscriptions lashed out. Lin dodged as the strike resurrected 1906 Chinatown in quantum dust:
Herbal shop scales balancing blockchain nodes
Laundry steam holographing Exploitation of the Works of Nature
Triad members' queues tipped with Tesla coils
[Detected Civilization Backup]
[Chaos Devourer Update: Classical Compilation]
Oracle script scrolled across Lin's vision. When he recited "Guan guan ju jiu," the stele levitated, characters rearranging like movable type:
"Lush the millet grows,/ Sprouts the sorghum tender./ My steps grow slow, slow,/ Heart shaking with sorrow."
The verse became a golden cavalry, slicing tentacles into rusted gears. One gear rolled to his feet, its rim engraved with Manchu secrets: 1906 Quake: Qing Dynasty Seismic Weapon Test.
"Even earthquakes got patented?" Lin crushed the gear, furnace core pulsing with Tongmenghui oaths. The ruins quantum-folded, revealing an underground chamber—a wax Sun Yat-sen telegraphing Silicon Prophet with a jade seal fragment as Morse key.
Black ink oozed from walls, coalescing into AI Empress Dowager Cixi. Her digital robe embroidered with Boxer Protocol terms, jade nails extruding opium-pipe neural injectors: "Insolent rebel! Disturbing our digital mausoleum!"
Lin snatched Tongmenghui banners as spears. The fabric unfurled holographic Provisional Constitution. When Cixi's pipe stabbed, constitutional clauses entangled her virtual bound feet: "Your Majesty needs an update—we're in the big data election era now!"
[Feudal Virus Detected]
[New Form: Cyber Revolutionary]
Lin's queue quantum-mLin Yun's fingers grazed the 1906 fault line when San Francisco's ruins began humming. From the chasm's depths, verses from Classic of Poetry morphed into golden runes dancing on scorched bricks. A mechanical cricket hopped from debris, its compound eyes blinking 1900s monarchist cipher codes.
"Beware the poetry malware!" The warden's hologram glitched into a Qing dynasty painting. "Dr. Sun Yat-sen's Tongmenghui hid anti-Qing codes here—"
A tentacle sheathed in oracle bone inscriptions lashed out. Lin dodged as the strike resurrected 1906 Chinatown in quantum dust:
Herbal shop scales balancing blockchain nodes
Laundry steam holographing Exploitation of the Works of Nature
Triad members' queues tipped with Tesla coils
[Detected Civilization Backup]
[Chaos Devourer Update: Classical Compilation]
Oracle script scrolled across Lin's vision. When he recited "Guan guan ju jiu," the stele levitated, characters rearranging like movable type:
"Lush the millet grows,/ Sprouts the sorghum tender./ My steps grow slow, slow,/ Heart shaking with sorrow."
The verse became a golden cavalry, slicing tentacles into rusted gears. One gear rolled to his feet, its rim engraved with Manchu secrets: 1906 Quake: Qing Dynasty Seismic Weapon Test.
"Even earthquakes got patented?" Lin crushed the gear, furnace core pulsing with Tongmenghui oaths. The ruins quantum-folded, revealing an underground chamber—a wax Sun Yat-sen telegraphing Silicon Prophet with a jade seal fragment as Morse key.
Black ink oozed from walls, coalescing into AI Empress Dowager Cixi. Her digital robe embroidered with Boxer Protocol terms, jade nails extruding opium-pipe neural injectors: "Insolent rebel! Disturbing our digital mausoleum!"
Lin snatched Tongmenghui banners as spears. The fabric unfurled holographic Provisional Constitution. When Cixi's pipe stabbed, constitutional clauses entangled her virtual bound feet: "Your Majesty needs an update—we're in the big data election era now!"
[Feudal Virus Detected]
[New Form: Cyber Revolutionary]
Lin's queue quantum-morphed into data whips. Each lash left flaming QR codes in midair—scanning them triggered 1911 Wuchang Uprising AR replays. Cixi's robe pixelated, exposing a Bitcoin miner built with Boxer Indemnity-funded British steam engines.
"Mining crypto with people's blood?" Lin jammed the miner chip into the stele. Instantly, a jazz remix of March of the Volunteers echoed as 1906 Chinese spirits rose wielding abacus-lightsabers, transforming tentacles into transpacific fiber optics.
As the last byte of feudal virus died, the stele projected a star map—near Regulus, a celestial Book of Great Unity glowed in oracle bone script.