Large Language Models (LLMs) have achieved remarkable success in tasks
requiring complex reasoning, such as code generation, mathematical problem
solving, and algorithmic synthesis -- especially when aided by reasoning tokens
and Chain-of-Thought prompting. Yet, a core question remains: do these models
truly reason, or do they merely exploit shallow statistical patterns? In this
paper, we introduce Chain-of-Code Collapse, where we systematically investigate
the robustness of reasoning LLMs by introducing a suite of semantically
faithful yet adversarially structured prompt perturbations. Our evaluation --
spanning 700 perturbed code generations derived from LeetCode-style problems --
applies transformations such as storytelling reframing, irrelevant constraint
injection, example reordering, and numeric perturbation. We observe that while
certain modifications severely degrade performance (with accuracy drops up to
-42.1%), others surprisingly improve model accuracy by up to 35.3%, suggesting
sensitivity not only to semantics but also to surface-level prompt dynamics.
These findings expose the fragility and unpredictability of current reasoning
systems, underscoring the need for more principles approaches to reasoning
alignments and prompting robustness. We release our perturbation datasets and
evaluation framework to promote further research in trustworthy and resilient
LLM reasoning.