Chapter 258: Chapter 258: The City of Borrowed Faces
Floor 104 opened inside a bustling city where everyone wore masks.
Not festival masks.
Faces.
A merchant with a young scholar’s face argued with a guard wearing an old woman’s face. Children exchanged painted expressions at roadside stalls. Officials walked through crowds with polished heroic faces that clearly did not belong to them.
Above the city gate hung a sign:
Welcome to Borrowface City.
Wear wisely.
Return promptly.
Qin Mo stared.
"No."
Qin Yuchen frowned.
"This is legal here?"
A nearby passerby laughed.
"Of course. Faces are property, reputation is currency, and identity is convenience."
The mission panel appeared.
[Floor 104: The City of Borrowed Faces]
[Duration:
4 Tower days]
[Main Mission]
Expose the stolen-face network before the city’s Identity Bell tolls.
[Sub-Missions]
1. Identify 10 borrowed faces.
2. Rescue 5 original face owners.
3. Prevent team identity erosion above 25%.
4. Break the face-rent contract system.
5. Defeat the Face Broker.
[Warning]
A face worn too long may begin charging rent.]
Qin Yuheng immediately activated the Nameless Self Mask resonance, not wearing it, but keeping identity pressure away from the team.
Qin Lian pulled her hood lower.
"This city is full of stolen shadows."
Qin Mo touched his cheek nervously.
"If anyone tries to rent my face, I refuse in advance."
They entered the city.
Borrowface City’s economy was horrifyingly organized.
Poor people rented respected faces to get work.
Criminals rented innocent faces to avoid punishment.
Merchants rented trustworthy faces to sell goods.
Officials rented heroic faces to gain obedience.
Some face owners willingly rented their appearance.
Others had been tricked.
Some had sold face rights under desperation contracts.
Some had lost faces as debt collateral.
Qin Yuheng saw the connection immediately.
Greenwake Village had sold spring.
Borrowface City sold identity.
The first borrowed face was easy to identify: a guard wearing the face of a missing young man whose poster hung nearby.
Qin Mo used the True Name Protection Seal and Clean Contract Appraisal methods learned from Lin Xian’er.
The face flickered.
The guard attacked.
[Borrowed Face Enforcer]
[Level Equivalent: 56]
[Ability:
Reputation Shield, Identity Deflection]
Reputation Shield was troublesome. Attacks against the guard were redirected as public hostility because the borrowed face belonged to a beloved citizen.
Qin Yuheng did not strike hard.
He exposed the contract first.
When citizens saw the face was rented illegally, the shield weakened. Qin Lian cut the face-thread. Qin Yuchen subdued the enforcer.
First face identified.
They found the original face owner in an underground dormitory, faceless and barely conscious.
His real face returned after Qin Mo broke the rent seal.
[Original face owners rescued: 1 / 5]
The deeper network led to the Face Registry Hall.
There, thousands of face contracts were stored. Some legal. Some predatory. Some forged.
The Face Broker appeared on the second day.
It wore a different face every time it spoke.
A mother.
A judge.
A child.
Qin Yuheng.
That last one made Qin Mo shout, "Absolutely not!"
The Face Broker laughed.
"Faces create trust. Trust creates access. Access creates value."
Qin Yuheng’s eyes were cold.
"Stolen trust creates rot."
The Broker offered him a deal.
"Rent me your face for one day. I will give you the names of three Blood Sun intermediaries."
Qin Mo froze.
Qin Yuchen’s grip tightened.
Qin Lian’s eyes narrowed.
The Living Values Compass trembled.
Real value. Wrong exchange.
Qin Yuheng refused.
The Broker smiled with Qin Yuheng’s face.
"Then others will wear you without permission."
That was the floor’s threat.
On day three, false Qin Yuhengs appeared across the city giving orders, signing contracts, and collecting followers. The team had to expose them without harming civilians.
The Nameless Self Mask became essential. Qin Yuheng used it publicly for the first time inside a Tower floor, creating a field that declared:
Identity cannot be assigned by appearance alone.
The false faces weakened.
Citizens began asking for proof beyond face.
That broke the city’s social logic.
Qin Mo and Qin Lian rescued four more original face owners. Qin Yuchen protected them from retaliation. Qin Yuheng confronted the Face Broker at the Identity Bell tower.
[Face Broker]
[Level Equivalent: 64]
[Type:
Identity contract authority / reputation thief]
[Abilities:
- Face Rent
- Reputation Shield
- Trust Theft
- Identity Erosion
- False Signature]
The battle was strange.
The Broker wore faces of allies, enemies, family, and even Qin Yuheng himself. Each face changed how attacks behaved. Striking a family face caused guilt pressure. Striking a child face caused hesitation. Striking Qin Yuheng’s own face caused identity erosion.
Qin Yuheng activated the Nameless Self Mask fully.
He did not become faceless.
He became unborrowable.
The Broker screamed.
Qin Lian cut the face vault threads.
Qin Mo broke the registry contracts.
Qin Yuchen shattered the reputation shields.
Qin Yuheng pierced the Broker’s true core: a blank contract mirror.
The Broker collapsed.
Faces flew across the city, returning to their owners.
[Face Broker defeated.]
[Stolen-face network exposed.]
[Face-rent predatory contracts broken.]
[Final Evaluation greatly increased.]
The Identity Bell tolled once.
For the first time, it rang with people’s own voices.
Floor 104 was complete.
