The comments said I was deeply affectionate, I just added points by using an alternate account.

Yin Chen's gaze swept across the empty restaurant.

"Is there a better place to talk than here?"

An Changqing stepped forward, his tone gentle, but also carrying a sense of pressure.

"Mr. Yin, please calm down. Now is not the time to assign blame."

He looked at the middle-aged man who was on the verge of collapse.

"But we really need to know the origin of this symbol, because it relates to seven lives and the possibility of more victims in the future."

"I……"

The middle-aged man opened his mouth, looked at An Changqing, then at Long Ao and Hong Yuan's unfriendly expressions, and finally his gaze fell on his young master.

"I'll talk, I'll talk."

He gave up all struggle and plopped down on the carpet.

"That was three years ago."

His voice drifted away, lost in distant memories.

"Strange things happened in the restaurant back then, unlike now."

Long Ao had little patience and asked directly.

"How are they different?"

"Those people are different this time; they didn't disappear, they just went crazy on the spot."

The middle-aged man hugged his arms, his body still trembling.

"Someone will suddenly attack everyone around them while they are eating. They've completely gone mad and become incredibly strong. Several security guards can't hold them down."

"Once they collapse from exhaustion, they're ruined; their energy and spirit have been drained, and they become living dead."

Yin Chen's brows furrowed tightly.

"I've never heard of such a thing before."

"Because the old man suppressed everything."

The middle-aged man gave a bitter smile.

"Back then, the old man personally intervened in this matter. He said that the thing was an evil spirit and told me not to interfere or mention it again."

"And what about this symbol?"

An Changqing pointed to the mark on the glass that appeared under the frost.

"This is the seal that the old man set up back then."

The middle-aged man's voice trembled with sobs.

"He said that as long as the seal is still there, that thing will never come out, but how come it has come out now?"

Hong Yuan, carrying her battle axe, snorted coldly.

"The seal will eventually break down, what's so strange about that?"

"No, it's different."

The middle-aged man shook his head frantically, his face growing even paler.

"The old man's seal is no ordinary seal."

Yin Chen sensed something was wrong. He stared at his second uncle and asked, word by word.

"What do you mean?"

"Back in the day, the old man..."

The middle-aged man's teeth chattered, and after a long while, he finally managed to utter a sentence in a voice barely above a whisper.

"Back then, the old man used a living person as the core of the formation to completely suppress it."

The living core of the formation.

The cruelty behind those four words instantly darkened the expressions of An Changqing and Su Yuehe.

Yin Chen stood frozen in place, his chest heaving with anger.

He was always proud of his family, but he didn't know that behind this glory lay such a cold-blooded past.

"Who is the one who is the key figure in the formation?"

"have no idea."

The middle-aged man shook his head blankly.

"All I know is that the person was there voluntarily, and she was a young girl. I only glanced at her from afar and didn't dare to ask any more questions."

Chen Guan, who had been silent all along, finally spoke at this moment.

"If it's a permanent cage, why is it malfunctioning now?"

The middle-aged man was taken aback by the question and blurted out the answer.

"I don't know. Maybe the restaurant was renovated recently, or maybe some equipment affected it..."

His voice trailed off, because even he himself felt that the reason was untenable.

But he really couldn't think of any reason, after all, he was just an ordinary person and knew nothing about the supernatural realm.

Chen Guan didn't ask any further questions, but simply stared quietly at the glass.

Yue Teng's words echoed in his mind again.

"No matter where he is, the remaining power will come to him on its own."

Perhaps the seal's failure has nothing to do with the renovation or equipment.

It was because he came.

On the other side, Yin Chen's usual perfect demeanor was completely shattered at this moment.

The family he was so proud of, the glory he often spoke of, was actually built on the life of a young girl.

"The living core of the formation."

Yin Chen repeated those four words, his face growing increasingly grim: "Second Uncle, I need an explanation."

"She is an extremely rare psychic ability user. She used her own soul as a vessel, along with the seal set up by the old man, to completely suppress that thing."

The middle-aged man slumped to the ground, his eyes unfocused, completely unable to look Yin Chen in the eye. He hurriedly added, "But, but that girl was definitely there voluntarily."

Long Ao was furious and couldn't help but interject.

"Voluntarily? A young girl, voluntarily coming to be the center of the formation? You Yin family really know how to pat yourselves on the back."

The middle-aged man was speechless, and could only stare at Yin Chen with trembling eyes.

An Changqing stepped forward and pressed down on Yin Chen's trembling shoulder.

"Yin Chen, calm down."

An Changqing's voice was steady, cutting straight to the point: "Now is not the time to dwell on past grievances."

"The most urgent task is to figure out why the seal has loosened and how to fix it."

Yin Chen closed his eyes, his chest heaving violently. When he opened them again, the anger in his eyes had been forcibly suppressed, and he had regained his usual rationality.

Just then, Su Yuehe, who had been engrossed in her computer, suddenly spoke up.

"The situation may be more complicated than we thought."

She turned her laptop screen toward the crowd.

The screen displays a complex 3D structure diagram, with countless lines spreading like a spider web across the entire virtual model of the Oriental Pearl Tower.

The final point where all the routes converge is this revolving restaurant right beneath their feet.

"This seal is not just a symbol on the glass."

Su Yuehe pointed to the flashing red dot on the screen.

"It is connected to the entire building, and even to the deep underground spiritual veins of Shanghai."

"If violence is used to cause destruction, it could trigger a chain reaction with unimaginable consequences."

While everyone was discussing the seal and the spiritual veins, only Chen Guan stood silently in front of the glass.

He felt more and more clearly that it wasn't Yue Teng's words that were working, because this time, it didn't seem to be his gray energy and black aura that were resonating.

Instead... it's my old self!

It is Lao Ji's existence that hastened the decay of this seal!

……

In the far north, inside a palace frozen in ice.

A silver-haired girl with black eyes opened her eyes.

Her gaze pierced through endless space and landed on the distant Magic City.

Guan Jinyue sensed it.

Deep within the seal of that tower, there is a familiar, unforgettable aura.

Faint, yet real.

That was her sister's aura. She could also sense a powerful and unfamiliar force eroding the seal from the outside.