CHAPTER 49 – The Real-World Attack
Back in the hospital, isolated and fragile, Xiao Xi suddenly felt a sharp, agonizing pulse in her chest.
The System screamed in her mind, overriding the low-power mode:
[Incoming physical threat! Physical reality break in security!]
[Danger level: CRITICAL. Zhou Meilin initiated final protocol.]
The door to her sterile, secure room burst open, splintering the frame.
Three masked figures rushed in, moving with chilling, professional speed—armed and deadly.
Xiao Xi gasped, stumbling backward out of the bed.
Her IV ripped violently from her arm, leaving a bloody streak on the sheet.
"Who are—!?" she choked out.
One figure stepped forward.
The second raised a silenced weapon.
"The hacker sends her regards, little divergence," one sneered.
Xiao Xi's blood went cold.
They were here to kill her, physically.
She activated her System instinctively—the newly unlocked Luck Redirection—a desperate, life-or-death gamble.
[Luck Redirection initiated.]
[Luck +80 transferred to Host.]
[Attacker One luck –80. Attacker Two luck –80. Attacker Three luck –80.]
The result was instantaneous and chaotic.
The gun raised by the second attacker jammed instantly, misfiring uselessly.
The first attacker's foot slipped on a non-existent puddle in the perfectly dry room, sending him sprawling into the third, who promptly fainted—out of sheer, impossible bad luck.
But Xiao Xi staggered, collapsing to her knees, clutching her chest.
She could feel her own vitality draining, the immense energy expenditure of manipulating the universe's basic probability too great for her weakened body.
"No… not yet…" she gasped.
Just then—
The hospital room door blew open again, the sound deafening.
Gu Yanzhou stormed in, his eyes blazing with a transcendent, terrifying fury.
He hadn't just followed the security alert; he had run, recognizing the pattern of the attack.
"GET AWAY FROM HER!"
He moved faster than she'd ever seen him—not the cold strategy of a CEO, but the savage precision of a desperate protector.
He slammed one attacker against the wall before they could recover, disarmed another with a sharp kick, and drove the third, who was already stirring, to the ground.
Hospital security guards rushed in moments later, alerted by the commotion.
Gu grabbed Xiao Xi, his body trembling as he pulled her into his embrace.
"Xiao Xi—are you hurt? Did they touch you?"
She pressed her forehead to his chest, soaking the fine fabric of his suit with blood and tears.
"I thought… I thought you weren't coming back for me."
He cupped her cheeks, his voice raw and breaking with emotion.
"I will ALWAYS come back.
Always."
But the world around them glitched violently—the walls flickered, briefly showing a framework of abstract, impossible code.
The System chimed one last, critical warning:
[World stability: 29%. Core structure compromised.]
[Warning: Collapse imminent. New reality is forming.]
Xiao Xi whispered, her voice barely steady:
"We're running out of time, Yanzhou.
We broke it."