106: Chapter 106 Han Yue's Notes

After Han Yue left the Safe House, the first person to notice something wrong was Liushu.

He had been gnawing on a piece of bread at the end of the corridor, but halfway through, he suddenly noticed there was no light under Han Yue's door.

"Did he go to sleep?" Liushu asked the person on duty.

The person on duty said, "Probably."

The more Liushu thought about it, the more wrong it felt.

A person like Han Yue, who would even carefully reinsert a loose page into his notebook, how could he possibly sleep before the Liu Bridge line was finished?

He knocked on the door twice. No one answered.

Before he even finished the third knock, he cursed, "It's over."

When the door was opened, the only thing left in the room was a note on the table.

When Lin Zhao got the note, his expression changed instantly.

Zhao Ye's voice came down through the channel: "Where is he?"

"He's gone." Lin Zhao gripped the note. "He left a message."

"Read it."

Lin Zhao looked at the two lines of text, his throat tightening.

"It's not that I don't trust you all."

"I'm afraid I'll forget again."

For a moment, only the sound of static remained in the channel.

Chen Jue, standing at the other end of the Safe House, froze upon hearing these words.

He remembered when he had snuck out before, also feeling that he was the only one who could save people. At that time, he had cursed Torch for not telling him the whole truth, feeling like he was being treated as a burden.

Now, Han Yue had left. He hadn't used a rash excuse. He had used a reason that was even harder to refute. Afraid of forgetting again.

Zhao Ye cursed, very low and very heavily. "Locate him."

Bai Ya was already tracing the line within the Grey Net.

Han Yue hadn't taken his communicator, but he had taken his handwritten notes. That was the problem. Those notes had long recorded the abnormal remnants of Jiangbei; they were originally just data, but now they were being used by the Liu Bridge line as navigation.

Every record was a path that could be seized by the anomaly.

Shen Qinghe's assessment was quick. "He wasn't dragged away by force; he's actively walking along the residual line."

"Direction?" Zhao Ye asked. "Beneath Liuqiao Old Station."

Liushu's face turned green when he heard this. "Is he crazy? Not even a dog would go there at night!"

No one answered him. Because everyone knew that Han Yue wasn't crazy. He was just treating himself as the final clue.

Outside Liuqiao Old Station, the wind was colder than before.

Zhao Ye arrived at the entrance first, sparks scattering beneath his feet, only to be dimmed by the chill coming from underground.

Lin Zhao followed on the perimeter, clutching the Temporary Fire Seal in his hand, his expression even gloomier than usual.

"I'm going in after him," he said. Zhao Ye turned back: "You stay on the perimeter."

"He's the one I failed to watch." "You can't watch everyone."

Lin Zhao wanted to say more, but Shen Qinghe had already arrived.

She glanced at Lin Zhao: "You are responsible for the evacuation line outside the entrance. If Han Yue can get out, you must receive him."

These words were more effective than "You are not allowed to go." Lin Zhao gritted his teeth and nodded.

Chen Shi kept announcing the time on the remote channel. "23:04." "23:05."

When it reached 23:06, he suddenly stopped. Shen Qinghe immediately asked: "What's wrong?"

Chen Shi's voice was a bit tight: "My backup watch is slow." "How slow?" "Thirteen minutes."

This number had appeared too many times, so often that everyone felt a sinking sensation in their stomachs upon hearing it.

Chen Shi did not panic. He took off the backup watch, placed it into the isolation box according to the rules, and picked up a third mechanical watch. "Continue the calibration."

Standing in the Safe House, Chen Jue heard this and, for the first time, felt a bit of admiration for Chen Shi. It wasn't that he wasn't afraid. It was that he could still follow the rules even while afraid. This was much harder than rushing out.

Liushu was pacing anxiously in the corridor, cursing Han Yue incessantly: "He looks so honest, yet he does things more ruthlessly than anyone. What kind of ability is leaving a note? If you have the guts, come back and get scolded to your face."

By the time he finished cursing, his own voice had gone hoarse.

The underground entrance was not a door. It appeared beneath the foundation of the demolished platform, like a staircase that shouldn't have existed. The steps were damp, with red threads hanging from the edges. Each red thread was very thin, as if pulled from someone's memory.

Han Yue did not walk fast. He held his notebook in his hand, following the record from three years ago as he walked down. The further down he went, the quieter it became. Eventually, even the sound of his own footsteps vanished.

Outside the entrance, Lin Zhao relaid the safety line. His hands were steady, but his face was tightly strained.

He suddenly understood that leading a team wasn't just about standing at the front and shouting a few commands, nor was it just about saving people and calling it a day. Leading was more often about admitting that one couldn't be in time, admitting that one couldn't watch over everyone, and then still having to lay the next line well.

This feeling was stifling. And very real.

He saw a row of unlit waiting seats. Seventeen people were sitting on the seats. Some wore work clothes, some held bags, some looked down at their phones, and some looked as if they had been sitting there for a very, very long time, so long that a layer of invisible dust had settled on them.

In the very center was that old woman. She raised her head; her face was covered in wrinkles, but her eyes were very clear.

"You finally remembered?"

Han Yue stood on the last step, his fingers trembling from the force of his grip. "I have been here."

The old woman nodded. "You have." "Why did I forget?" "Because you didn't get on the bus."

The old woman's voice was very soft. "Those who didn't get on the bus cannot remember what was inside."

Han Yue looked at her, suddenly recalling the night from three years ago. He had accompanied her to find her son. They found the underground entrance. The old woman told him to wait outside, but he was worried, so he followed her in.

Later, the bus arrived. When the memories returned, they weren't complete scenes, but shards of glass piercing into his brain.

The old woman grabbed his sleeve, her strength not like that of an old person. The conductor was tapping the ticket puncher at the bus door. Someone was crying inside the bus, someone was begging the driver to open the door, and there was a man who kept saying he was only there to pick up his child and wasn't taking the bus.

Han Yue had wanted to rush in back then too. He even remembered shouting: "I'll help you find him!"

But the old woman turned back and scolded him. "Find what? You haven't even figured yourself out!"

That scolding was so fierce that even three years later, when he thought about it, Han Yue still felt his ears burn.

But it was precisely this scolding that woke him up for a moment from the bus door. Then the old woman pushed him out. The old woman pushed him out.

She said: "You are still young, don't look back." Then the bus door closed.

When Han Yue woke up, he was standing outside the hoarding of Liu Bridge, with only a wet notebook in his hand. He had forgotten her. Forgotten that busload of people. Forgotten that he had once been saved.

Tears did not fall immediately. He just lowered his head, tore off the page of the notebook that read "Liuxia Entrance," and clenched it in his palm.

Footsteps came from behind. Zhao Ye had arrived. Shen Qinghe had arrived too. Han Yue did not turn back.

Because he heard the old woman say one more thing. This sentence was like a nail, pinning down Han Yue's last bit of hope.

He finally knew why he had come back. It wasn't to prove his worth. It was to bring the warning the old woman hadn't been able to finish back then before the firelight.

"Don't let them look back."