📖 Previous Chapter / 上一章： The Grave of the Old World第二十二章：旧世界的坟墓

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The red numbers of the countdown flickered on my retina, cold and merciless: 71:59:58... 71:59:57. The pain in my left hemisphere felt as if a rusted iron nail was being slowly, agonizingly twisted through my cerebral cortex, sending waves of nauseating heat down my spine.

"Feng! Snap out of it! What is that thing saying?!" Old Chen’s roar broke through the rushing static noise in my ears. He slammed his heavy shoulder against the cold steel wall, his revolver trembling slightly as he locked the sights onto the flickering, ghost-like projection of the man in the white coat.

The holographic figure still didn't turn around. It merely raised a skeletal, translucent hand, pointing a rigid finger straight at the archaic medical stasis pod behind us. A harsh, teeth-grating scraping sound of magnetic tape echoed again through the dead room: "Fifty years ago, the Pan-Asia Corporation buried its greatest sin in this sector. You think you are the pathetic survivors escaping the slums? No... you are simply biological backups, waiting to be claimed."

Lu Yan let out a sharp gasp, her trembling fingers digging deep into my tactical vest. "Biological backups? What does that mean? Yun Feng, look at the body inside the pod! Look at its uniform!"

I forced my eyes to focus, tearing my gaze away from the blinding countdown flashing in my visual field. Through the spiderweb-cracked glass of the stasis pod, the desiccated corpse wasn't wearing a lab coat. It was wearing the standard tactical armor of the Pan-Asia Special Ops—the exact same modular design, the same regiment shoulder insignia, and most terrifyingly, the exact same neural port model at the base of the skull that I was wearing right now.

No. Not just the same style.

As the greenish emergency light swept across the corpse's face, I saw the missing left eye socket—the empty, scorched flesh where a neural port had been forcibly, brutally ripped out from the bone. It was an identical match to the cybernetic tissue damage I had suffered during our raid on the upper levels.

"That's... that's me," I muttered, the words tasting like copper, dust, and ash in my dry mouth. "Or at least, an older version of this exact shell."

Before Chen could pull me away, the laboratory's ventilation ductwork directly above us suddenly groaned under a massive weight. A heavy, rhythmic scraping sound—clack, clack, clack—crawled through the hollow pipes. It was the sound of metallic joints bending unnaturally, rapidly descending toward our room. Elias had brought something down here with him, or rather, something down here had called him home.

"We can't stay in this tomb," Chen cursed, his eyes darting frantically around the confined space.

At that exact second, the heavy steel grating of the ventilation shaft above our heads blew outward with a deafening screech of sheared bolts. A shower of metallic sparks rained down into the green emergency light.

And then, out of the pitch-black abyss of the duct, a pair of familiar tactical boots dropped silently onto the floor—followed by a voice that sounded exactly like mine, whispering directly into my neural receiver:

"Welcome home, Yun Feng. Step two of the backup cycle has finally begun."

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红色的倒计时数字在我的视网膜上闪烁，冰冷而无情：71:59:58……71:59:57。我左脑半球的痛感犹如一根生锈的铁钉正在被缓缓、痛苦地钉入大脑皮层，带起一阵阵令人作呕的热浪顺着脊椎向下蔓延。

“疯子！回神！那东西在说什么？！”老陈的怒吼冲破了我耳边的轰鸣杂音。他沉重的肩膀猛地撞在冰冷的钢墙上，持枪的手微微发抖，枪口死死锁住那个白大褂幽灵般闪烁的全息投影。

全息身影依然没有转身。它只是抬起了一只骨感而透明的手，僵硬地直指我们身后的那座古老医疗冷冻舱。刺耳、令人牙酸的磁带摩擦声再次在死寂的房间里回荡：“五十年前，泛亚公司将最大的罪恶埋葬在这个区域。你们以为自己是从贫民窟逃出来的可怜幸存者？不……你们只是在等待被收割的生物备份。”

陆妍倒吸了一口凉气，她颤抖的手指死死抓进我的战术背心里。“生物备份？什么意思？云凤，看舱里的那具尸体！看它的制服！”

我强迫自己集中视力，将目光从视野中刺眼的倒计时上移开。透过冷冻舱那蛛网般龟裂的玻璃，里面那具风干的尸体并没有穿白大褂。它穿着泛亚特种部队的标准战术装甲——那正是和我们一模一样的模块化设计、相同的军团肩章，而最可怕的是，它后颈处的神经接口型号与我现在的完全一致。

不。不仅仅是款式相同。

当泛绿的应急灯扫过尸体的脸庞时，我看到了那空洞的左眼眶——那是神经接口被强行、暴力从骨头里撕裂后留下的焦黑血肉。这与我在上层突袭中遭受的机械组织损伤完全吻合。

“那就是……我，”我喃喃自语，嘴里泛着铜锈、尘土与骨灰的苦涩。“或者说，这具躯壳的更老版本。”

还没等老陈把我拉开，头顶上方的通风管道突然在巨大的重量下发出呻吟。一种沉重而有规律的刮擦声——咔哒，咔哒，咔哒——在空洞的管道中蔓延。那是金属关节以诡异姿态扭曲、并正朝我们所在的房间急速下坠的声音。伊利亚把什么东西带到了这里，或者说，这里的某种存在正召唤着他“回家”。

“我们不能留在这个坟墓里，”老陈咒骂着，目光在狭窄的空间里疯狂扫视。

就在那一秒，我们头顶上方那扇厚重的通风管道钢网伴随着螺栓被剪断的刺耳尖叫轰然炸开。一蓬金属火花在绿色的应急光中如雨般洒落。

紧接着，从管道那漆黑的深渊里，一双熟悉的战术靴无声地落在了地上——随之响起的是一个听起来和我一模一样的声音，直接在我神经接收器里低语：

“欢迎回家，云峰。备份周期的第二步，终于开始了。”

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Author's Note： ️ Author's Note / 原创声明

[EN] This chapter’s text is 100% human-authored. The original story was written in Chinese (my native language) and then manually translated and refined to break away from AI-generated stiffness. I am doing my best to preserve the authentic cyberpunk vibe and emotional tension in the English translation. (Note: The cover illustration was generated using AI tools strictly based on my original story prompts.) Thank you to the CCC community, the curators, and all my readers for supporting genuine human creators and following my journey!

[CN] 本文正文为本人 100% 全手工原创。原版故事使用我的母语中文创作，并经过人工翻译与精心润色，以摆脱 AI 翻译的生硬感，尽最大努力在英文版中保留原汁原味的赛博朋克氛围与情感张力。(注：本文封面配图为作者根据本人小说情节，使用 AI 工具生成的概念视觉图。) 感谢 CCC 社区、各位策展人以及所有读者对真实人类创作者的持续支持与鼓励，感谢大家一路以来的陪伴