Peak Immortal Palace

"boom--!"

The deafening explosion was like a heavy hammer, slamming into the city sky at three in the morning.

Zhang Dianfeng suddenly sat up from the mountain of code documents. The stiffness in his neck made him pause, and then a sharp pain climbed up his spine—a "gift" from staying up for four consecutive nights.

The view outside the window made his blood freeze instantly.

Three armed helicopters painted with dark red skulls were flying low over the residential buildings across the street. The gusts of wind whipped up by their rotors blew off the outdoor air conditioning units of several households, which crashed into the flower beds below with a loud bang, sending dirt flying half a meter high.

Beneath the wing of the foremost aircraft, two rocket launchers gleamed with a cold metallic sheen, and the fuse of one of the warheads had already begun to flash red, its aim clearly directed at the old apartment building where he was located.

"Damn it!" Zhang Dianfeng ripped the cheap earphones out of his ears, his knuckles turning white from the force of his grip.

His gaze swept across the computer screen. The firewall code he was writing was now like sand painting being washed away by a rainstorm. Lines of green characters collapsed and disappeared at a visible speed, replaced by dense black gibberish.

In the center of the garbled text, a skull made of pixels is slowly rotating, as if silently mocking his overestimation of his abilities.

"High-explosive warhead detected and locked on. Current distance: 1200 meters. Estimated impact time: 45 seconds."

The computer's built-in voice assistant suddenly sounded, a mechanical female voice with an eerie calm, like the ticking of Death's stopwatch in his ear.

Zhang Dianfeng's heart pounded wildly in his chest. He subconsciously touched his pocket, which contained only half a pack of crumpled cigarettes and a cell phone that was almost out of battery.

He was just an ordinary programmer working for a small company that could go bankrupt at any time. His daily life consisted of typing code and fixing bugs in front of the screen. In the evening, he would return to his one-bedroom apartment, which cost 3,000 yuan a month, and continue typing code and fixing bugs in front of the screen.

Yesterday, I was berated by the product manager for three whole hours because of a punctuation mistake, and he even spit on my face.

He hasn't even had time to pay this month's rent, and now he's going to be blown to pieces by an armed helicopter.

A surge of absurd anger rushed to Zhang Dianfeng's head, and he almost burst out laughing.

What is this? Did life, that damn thing, not want him to die badly enough, so it specially added a "Hollywood-level curtain call"?

Just then, I caught a glimpse of the bedside table out of the corner of my eye.

There was a palm-sized object there—a piece of dusty, ancient jade that he had bought for fifty yuan at a flea market on the outskirts of the city last week.

The stall owner was an old man with missing teeth. He said it was an "ancestral treasure that can calm the mind." He saw that the jade had some crooked patterns carved on it and thought it was quite unique, so he bought it on a whim and casually threw it on his bedside table.

At this moment, the unremarkable ancient jade was emitting a strange, eerie blue light.

The light grew brighter and brighter, and fine lines could even be seen flowing on the surface of the jade, as if some living thing was trapped inside, struggling desperately to get out.

"10 seconds," the voice assistant's voice sounded again.

The helicopter's shadow completely enveloped the window, and the roar of its rotors almost shattered his eardrums.

Zhang Dianfeng could clearly see the man in the cockpit wearing a black mask. The man was grinning, revealing yellow teeth, and his finger was pressed hard on the launch button.

"Click—"

A crisp cracking sound rang out.

It wasn't the sound of glass shattering, but rather the sound of that ancient jade.

Zhang Dianfeng watched helplessly as a crack appeared on the surface of the ancient jade, and a dark blue light burst forth from the crack like a bolt of lightning, striking his fingers that were resting on the edge of the bed.

"!!!"

An indescribable, excruciating pain suddenly shot into his body! It felt as if someone had inserted a red-hot iron directly into his blood vessel, or as if countless fine needles were piercing his nerves at the same time. The pain made his vision go black, and he almost fainted on the spot.

But the next second, something even stranger happened—the wildly surging energy seemed to suddenly find an outlet, flowing rapidly through his body along some invisible trajectory.

Wherever it goes, the eye strain from staying up late for a long time, the stinging pain in the neck, and even the lingering pain from sprained ankle while playing basketball last month are all fading away at an astonishing speed.

His vision suddenly became incredibly clear. He could see every stubble of the thugs under their masks in the helicopter cockpit a hundred meters away, and even the frequency of the red light flashing on the rocket fuse—three times per second, as steady as a metronome.

"Warning: An unknown energy entity has invaded the nervous system and is merging with the host's consciousness... Merging progress 10%... 30%... System forced restart in progress..."

A brand new voice echoed in his mind. Unlike the voice assistant, this voice was not cold; instead, it carried its own unique, yet unusually calm tone, as if another "Zhang Dianfeng" had awakened deep within his consciousness, scrutinizing everything before him from a godlike perspective.

Immediately afterwards, countless pale blue data streams exploded in his field of vision.

The data poured down like a waterfall, dismantling and reassembling the world before him—the helicopter's flight altitude (120 meters), speed (350 km/h), the rocket's trajectory (3.7-degree deviation), wind speed (12 m/s)... all the information was converted into precise numbers and clearly presented on his "retinal screen".

"Warhead impact point correction: 0.5 meters to the left, which can avoid the core structure."

The moment the voice in his mind faded, Zhang Dianfeng's body reacted.

He instinctively grabbed the stainless steel thermos on the table, which he had used for three years—it still contained half a cup of chilled goji berry water—and rotated his wrist at an extremely strange angle, the force of his muscles precise to the millimeter level.

"Whoosh!"

The thermos flew out with a whooshing sound, tracing a perfect parabola in the air.

"clang!"

With a crisp snap, the thermos cup struck the fuse of the grenade that had just broken through the window. The red light of the fuse paused abruptly, then went out completely.

"?!"

The thug outside the window was clearly stunned for a moment. Through the broken window, Zhang Dianfeng could see his eyes, which were exposed outside the mask—his pupils shrank and were filled with disbelief.

But the next second, madness once again filled those eyes. The thug suddenly raised the machine gun on his chest, the dark muzzle pointing directly at Zhang Dianfeng's face.

"Damn it, die!" the thug roared, his finger slamming into the trigger.

"Da da da—"

The bullet whistled past Zhang Dianfeng's ear and struck the wall behind him, exploding into clusters of cement debris.

Zhang Dianfeng could even smell the burnt smell produced by the friction of bullets flying at high speed.

But he didn't dodge.

With the aid of data streams, the bullet's trajectory appeared as slow as a snail to him.

He ripped off the power cord connecting the computer with his backhand. The more than two-meter-long cord, along with the plug, swung around in the air, the exposed copper wires still crackling with electric sparks.

Zhang Dianfeng was stunned: "When did I become so agile? I can even 'sense' the path of the current flowing in the copper wire and calculate the best throwing angle."

"Sizzle—"

Blue arcs of electricity illuminated his face, as well as the cold smile that curled at the corner of his mouth.

The pent-up frustration, anger, and resentment that had been building up for so long seemed to find an outlet at this moment, rushing straight to the top of their heads with that newly awakened energy.

He remembered the three months of bonuses that were owed to him, the spittle the product manager spat in his face, the impatient face of the landlord when he was urging for rent, and even more so, the group of people in front of him who dared to use rockets to bomb his "code nest"—which was the result of his hard work and sleepless nights!

"You dare smash my code?" Zhang Dianfeng's voice was hoarse, yet carried an undeniable ruthlessness, as if every word was tempered with ice. "Today I'll show you that a programmer's anger is more explosive than a missile!"

Before he could finish speaking, he suddenly flung the power cord out of his hand.

Two copper wires, crackling with electricity, moved like venomous snakes, drawing two silver streaks in the air and precisely wrapping around the thug's wrist as he gripped the gun.

"ah--!"

High-voltage current surged into the assailant's body through the copper wire in an instant. The assailant let out a shrill scream, his body convulsed violently, and the machine gun in his hand fell to the ground with a clatter, sliding to Zhang Dianfeng's feet.

Without the slightest hesitation, Zhang Dianfeng rushed forward, his left knee slamming into the assailant's chest, his right fist clenched and held in front of the assailant's mask.

He had never been in a fight before, but at this moment, the best attack point clearly appeared in his mind—the jawbone, with the force controlled within the range of "being able to temporarily lose consciousness but not kill the opponent."

"Speak! Who sent you?"

He growled, and the chill in his voice sent a shiver down the spine of the convulsing thug.

Fear finally showed in those crazed eyes. His lips trembled as if he wanted to say something, but the electric current paralyzed him and he couldn't utter a complete syllable.

Just then, the roar of a second helicopter approached from afar.

Out of the corner of Zhang Dianfeng's eye, he saw another rocket, trailing a long plume of flame, hurtling towards the window, its orange-red light instantly illuminating half the night sky.

"Impact countdown: 3 seconds," a calm voice in his mind announced.

Zhang Dianfeng's pupils suddenly contracted. Without thinking, he grabbed the machine gun on the ground, grabbed the still convulsing thug's collar with his left hand, and slammed him against the load-bearing wall in the corner like a dead dog.

"boom--!"

Another deafening explosion rang out, the scorching blast of air ripped his coat off, and shards of glass rained down on his back.

Zhang Dianfeng pinned the thug down, a burning pain shooting through his back, but he couldn't care less.

He looked up through the billowing smoke at the helicopter circling outside the window, then looked down at his hands, which were still slightly numb.

The ancient jade had shattered into powder, scattered on the bedside table like a handful of ordinary dust. But the scalding energy surged through his veins, carrying an unprecedented sense of power.

Zhang Dianfeng took a deep breath. The fear and panic that had been pounding in his chest were no longer replaced by a burning determination to "survive".

He didn't know why these people wanted to kill him, nor did he know the origin of that ancient jade. But he knew that from this moment on, his life could never be the same again.

He will repay every trouble that comes his way, one by one, doubly so.