27: Chapter 27 The Marks Beneath the Abandoned Platform

"I hope your bones are worthy of your reputation."

March 22nd, 10:00 PM.

Yan Zheng stood at the intersection of 39th Street in the West District of Hells Kitchen, the lenses of his gold-rimmed glasses reflecting the bleak light of the street lamp at the corner.

The street behind him was empty. Fifty meters ahead was the entrance to an abandoned subway station surrounded by iron railings. Hanging on the railings were three rusty warning signs: "Danger," "No Entry," and "New York City Department of Transportation."

The lock on the iron railing had long been cut. There was no rust on the broken edges; it hadn't weathered away, but had been cut open with a tool recently.

Yan Zheng: ( ˘ ꒳ ˘ )

"Someone is coming and going frequently."

He crouched down and brushed away a layer of dust on the entrance steps with his fingers, revealing the surface of the concrete steps underneath.

There were footprints under the dust. Not just one pair, and not just one type, but densely overlapping, with directions both in and out, spanning a short period of time.

"At least a dozen people, and it's very regular."

Yan Zheng stood up, brushed the dust off his hands, and spoke softly to the shadow behind him.

"Skeleton Soldier No. 1, Skeleton Soldier No. 2, go down first."

Two black shadows slid silently out from the darkness of the street corner. The ghost fire of the Skeleton Soldiers flickered eerily deep within their hoods, like two floating green fireflies.

They bent down, slipped through the gap in the iron railing, and stepped onto the stairs leading underground.

Yan Zheng waited for ten seconds behind them, switching his consciousness to the remote shared vision feed.

The left screen was the perspective of Skeleton Soldier No. 1. In the gray-green night vision feed, the steps extended downward one by one, disappearing into the darkness.

The right screen was the perspective of Skeleton Soldier No. 2, following three meters behind No. 1, scanning the walls on both sides.

"No traps triggered. Continue down."

Thirty seconds later, the two Skeleton Soldiers reached the bottom of the stairs. It was an abandoned subway platform.

Most of the tiles on the platform had peeled off, revealing the blackened concrete underneath. A few broken fluorescent tubes hung from the ceiling like the necks of hanged men.

The tracks were piled with sewage and trash, and the air was filled with a pungent mix of the stench peculiar to sewers and the smell of rust.

Yan Zheng: ( ꐦ ˘ ꒳ ˘ )

"The air quality is concerning, but the dead don't need to breathe."

He climbed through the gap in the iron railing and walked down the steps.

The Stitched Brute followed behind him. Its 2.2-meter petrified body almost filled the entire width of the stairwell, its gray scales scraping against the walls on both sides with a rustling sound.

Upon reaching the bottom of the platform, Yan Zheng stood still and looked around.

"Skeleton Soldier No. 1, enter the tunnel, heading north. Skeleton Soldier No. 2, keep a ten-meter distance from No. 1 and widen the search range."

"Stitched Brute, follow me."

The Stitched Brute stood silently to Yan Zheng's rear right. The dark green ghost fire in its eye sockets was particularly glaring in the darkness of the platform, illuminating the ground within a two-meter radius of their feet.

Yan Zheng jumped off the platform, stepped onto the gravel roadbed beside the tracks, and followed the Skeleton Soldiers ahead into the tunnel.

The tunnel was darker than the platform. It was as black as if someone had stuffed you into a coffin.

Yan Zheng took out his phone and turned on the flashlight. The beam of light swept across the curved walls of the tunnel, revealing layers of overlapping graffiti, water stains, and mold spots.

"Skeleton Soldier No. 1, report the situation ahead."

In the left screen, Skeleton Soldier No. 1 was moving forward at a steady pace along the tunnel. It wasn't fast, and the range of its ghost fire perception covered fifteen meters around it.

Everything in the feed was normal, with only gravel, standing water, and the occasional rat darting past.

Five minutes later.

Ten minutes later.

After extending about four hundred meters underground, a fork appeared in the tunnel. The left side led to a deeper drainage system, while the right side was a manually widened passage where the marks on the walls were clearly different from natural weathering.

Yan Zheng saw this fork in his remote vision.

"Skeleton Soldier No. 1, stop. Skeleton Soldier No. 2, move forward and check the right passage."

Skeleton Soldier No. 2 bypassed No. 1 and entered the right passage. The screen shook a few times, then stabilized.

Yan Zheng's pupils constricted slightly.

Yan Zheng: ( ꉺ ꒳ ꉺ )

In the right screen, a clear symbol was carved into the concrete surface on the wall of the passage. It was an open, five-fingered palm.

The lines of the fingers were smooth, the carvings were deep, and the edges were clean and sharp. It wasn't casual graffiti, but carved stroke by stroke with the tip of a knife.

The mark of The Hand.

"Found it."

Yan Zheng quickened his pace, walked to the fork, and inspected the symbol with his own eyes.

The flashlight's beam shone on the palm symbol, and he could see a thin layer of dark red substance remaining at the bottom of the carving.

"Blood."

He reached out his finger and touched the edge of the carving, his fingertip picking up a bit of dark red powder.

"It's dry, but not more than a week old."

He turned around, and the beam of his flashlight swept across the floor of the passage. There were footprints on the ground.

They weren't ordinary sneaker prints, but shallow marks left by some kind of thin-soled soft shoes. The spacing was even, the stride was consistent, and the arrangement was orderly, like the traces left behind after a silent queue had walked past.

"At least fifteen people."

Yan Zheng crouched down and gently wiped the ground next to the footprints with his finger.

"Consistent strides mean unified training; thin-soled soft shoes mean the need for silence; orderly arrangement means strict unit discipline."

He stood up and pushed up his gold-rimmed glasses.

Yan Zheng: ( ˵ ¬ ᴗ ¬ ˵ )

"A well-trained assassin organization. Old Jack did not exaggerate."

"Skeleton Soldier No. 2, continue moving forward along the passage. Slow down and watch for any abnormalities within your perception range."

Skeleton Soldier No. 2 proceeded deeper.

The passage became narrower and narrower. The walls changed from concrete to bare rock, and the standing water on the ground became deeper, submerging the Skeleton Soldier's ankle bones.

They walked about another hundred meters.

In Yan Zheng's consciousness, the perception range of Skeleton Soldier No. 2 suddenly fluctuated. It wasn't that it had discovered something. It was that the edge of its perception range had been "shielded" by something.

The perception signal in a certain direction became blurry, like looking at things through a layer of gauze. The outlines were there, but all details were lost.

"Perception interference?"

Yan Zheng's footsteps paused for a moment. He switched to the perspective of Skeleton Soldier No. 1; it was still parked at the fork, and its perception range was completely normal. Only No. 2, which had gone deep into the passage, showed abnormalities.

"There is something deep in the passage interfering with the undead's perception. Some kind of barrier, or some kind of aura."

He glanced at the Stitched Brute behind him. The color of the Brute's ghost fire hadn't changed, but the frequency of its flickering had noticeably increased, like a hunting dog that had caught the scent of danger.

"The Stitched Brute senses it too."

Yan Zheng: ( ꐦ ˘ ͈ ꈊ ˘ ͈ )

"The good news is that the direction of The Hand's stronghold is confirmed. The bad news is that they have some means to interfere with the perception of my creations."

He was about to issue an order for Skeleton Soldier No. 2 to retreat. In the right screen of his remote vision, above the head of Skeleton Soldier No. 2, three black figures dropped down upside down from the gaps in the pipes on the tunnel ceiling.

Silent and soundless. There were no footsteps, no sound of fabric rubbing, and not even the impact sound upon landing. It was like three drops of ink silently dripping from the ceiling, solidifying into human shapes.

They landed behind Skeleton Soldier No. 2. But they didn't attack the Skeleton Soldier.

The three black figures bypassed Skeleton Soldier No. 2 and moved toward the tunnel entrance at an extremely fast speed. Their target wasn't the Skeleton Soldier. It was Yan Zheng further behind.

Yan Zheng's pupils tightened by half a millimeter in the reflection of the flashlight.

"Stitched Brute, front, intercept."

Yan Zheng: ( ꐦ ≖ ᗜ ≖ )

"It seems the members of The Hand are even more enthusiastic than I imagined."

The Stitched Brute took a two-meter step forward, its petrified scales colliding with the rock walls with a dull thud, its massive body blocking the middle of the passage, cutting off the path ahead.

The next second, the first flash of a blade lit up from the darkness.