104: Chapter 104 Liuqiao Old Station

By day, Liuqiao Old Station looked nothing like the source of an anomaly.

It was just a piece of unfinished land.

The construction hoarding was peeling, and the blue corrugated iron clattered in the wind. Piles of broken bricks, old concrete pipes, and half-removed scaffolding littered the ground. The small shop next door was already closed; a "for rent" sign was stuck on the rolling shutter, but the phone number had two digits washed away by rain.

Liuxia stood outside the hoarding, speaking lightly, but his hands remained tucked in his pockets, never coming out.

"Just for the record, I'm only here to guide the way."

Zhao Ye glanced at him.

"If you're scared, stand in the back."

Liuxia immediately straightened his back. "I'm just respecting professional expertise."

Bai Ya walked past him and casually patted his shoulder.

"Good respect. Keep it up."

Liuxia's mouth twitched, but he didn't dare reply.

Not too many Candidates were allowed near this operation.

Shen Qinghe was in charge of rule judgment, carrying the Fate-Illuminating Bronze Bell. Zhao Ye was responsible for frontal suppression. Bai Ya was on the perimeter setting up the Grey Net to fill in gaps. Lin Zhao was in charge of the evacuation perimeter and Candidate control. Xu Minglan remained in the Safe House, keeping an eye on Luo Ping and the others affected by the text messages.

As the local information assistant, Han Yue was only allowed to provide information via the remote channel.

Chen Shi was responsible for time verification.

Chen Jue was forcibly kept in the Safe House.

When he heard this arrangement, his expression was as ugly as if he'd just swallowed a piece of iron.

But this time, he didn't sneak off.

Lin Zhao glanced at him before leaving; Chen Jue turned his face away and only said, "I know. I'm not going."

That was already progress.

Before leaving, Tang Zhiwei double-checked the peripheral evacuation routes three times.

She no longer relied entirely on navigation. Every vehicle was equipped with a paper route map, and drivers had to follow manual commands. When someone complained it was troublesome, she simply wrote Lu Chengzhi's name next to the schedule.

"If you find it troublesome, quit now."

No one said anything else.

Gu Xingzhou also sent over a simplified file, containing only road closures and a list of nearby residents, without any core official archives. Both sides still didn't fully trust each other, but the Jiangbei line had made them realize that neither side had the luxury of putting on airs and waiting for the other to bow first.

Lu Chen watched these external materials enter the Grey Net and didn't give an immediate evaluation.

This was the change he wanted.

Torch wasn't just about a group of people charging into the darkness and winning. It needed logistics, the officials, ordinary informants, and Candidates to all become part of the order.

It was just that this process was too slow and too expensive.

So expensive that behind every new rule, there was a name that had just vanished.

After nightfall, Liuqiao Old Station began to change.

A grey-white outline appeared around the edge of the previously broken platform. The waiting shed looked like it was being erased from an old photograph—first the roof, then the pillars, and then the old route sign hanging on the pillar.

The wind blew past the hoarding, bringing a damp, woody smell.

Shen Qinghe stopped.

"First layer of remnants."

Bai Ya looked at the Grey Net's feedback: "driverless night bus."

Zhao Ye rested his hand on the containment box: "What about the second layer?"

Shen Qinghe didn't answer.

She lightly tapped the Fate-Illuminating Bronze Bell.

The bell's chime was very soft.

Yet it sounded as if it had fallen deep underground.

The next second, Shen Qinghe heard the conductor's voice.

"Buy a ticket."

"Liu Bridge to Liuxia, buy a ticket."

Her eyes darkened.

"The second layer is the Liu Bridge last bus disappearance case."

The bell's chime continued to sink deeper.

This time, the sound became even older, as if it were emerging from the gaps in the train tracks.

"Next stop, Liuxia."

Shen Qinghe raised her hand, signaling everyone to stop.

"There is a third layer."

Liuxia stood on the perimeter, his face already pale. He had been stubborn for a long time, but now he couldn't help it: "What kind of place is Liuxia? I've been building roads in Jiangbei for so many years, and I've never seen this station."

Han Yue's voice came from the channel, clearly hurried.

"I think I've heard of it."

Everyone went quiet.

"When?" Shen Qinghe asked.

There was the sound of flipping papers from Han Yue's end.

"That old lady looking for her son."

He took a breath, as if struggling to drag a suppressed memory out of the water.

"She said her son didn't go to Liu Bridge."

"She said he was sent to Liuxia."

The waiting shed at Liuqiao Old Station suddenly lit up.

It wasn't the lights.

It was the route sign that lit up.

The originally blurred station names on it emerged bit by bit.

Qinghe. Jiangbei. Liu Bridge.

The last line consisted of two blackened characters.

Liuxia.

When Bai Ya put the characters "Liuxia" into the Grey Net, the System's feedback noticeably lagged.

It wasn't that it couldn't calculate.

It was that there weren't enough samples.

The Grey Net was like someone feeling for a door in the dark, not knowing if behind it was a room, a train carriage, or an entire road buried underground.

Zhao Ye cursed under his breath.

"This thing actually has a next stop."

Shen Qinghe stared at the route sign; the bell's chime in her ears became increasingly urgent.

She didn't continue forward.

"Don't enter yet."

Zhao Ye looked at her.

Shen Qinghe said, "The entrance hasn't fully appeared yet. It's not inviting us in right now; it wants to know who among us can hear it."

Bai Ya planted a marker in the Grey Net: "That sounds familiar."

Zhao Ye sneered: "Those people from the Longevity Society love testing things."

"It's not them," Shen Qinghe shook her head. "At least, not entirely."

She looked at the ground beneath the platform.

"This place is older than the things the Longevity Society delivered."

This statement made the atmosphere at the scene sink.

If the Night Bus was just the first carriage after the old thing started running again, then what was hidden beneath Liuqiao Old Station was the place that truly sent people away.

In the channel, Han Yue suddenly went silent.

Xu Minglan asked immediately: "Han Yue?"

A few seconds later, he answered.

"I'm here."

But his voice didn't sound right.

He sounded like he had just been startled awake from a dream, or like he had remembered something he shouldn't have.

"I just... saw her."

"Who?"

"That old lady."

Han Yue's voice was very soft.

In the Safe House, Xu Minglan immediately had someone pull back the curtains.

There was no old lady outside the door.

Only the corridor lights shone on the empty space, the light pale and white, with the fire extinguisher in the corner sitting quietly.

Yet Han Yue stared at the doorway, not blinking.

"She was just there."

Li Xi didn't say, "You saw wrong."

She crouched down beside Han Yue and pressed a cup of warm water into his hands.

"Hold the cup for a moment."

"Why?"

"It's hot."

Han Yue was stunned for a moment; the heat from the cup's wall pulled his palm back to reality.

Xu Minglan glanced at Li Xi and noted down this little trick.

Ordinary people didn't have the Purifying Flame or the Fire Seal, but sometimes they knew better than ability users how to pull another ordinary person out of fear.

This was also why Torch needed collaborators from the outer city.

Not everything relied on fighting.

After saying this, Han Yue lowered his head first.

He finally understood that he hadn't simply forgotten the way.

It was that something had been standing at the door of his memory, waiting for him to turn back.

"She stood at the door of the Safe House and asked me if I still remembered the way."