129: Chapter 129: Yanagishita Passenger Transport Station

Liuxia Passenger Station was never a vehicle.

The moment the Fire Map pressed down, the darkness beneath the Jiangbei Old Station seemed to be peeled back like a layer.

What was revealed first was a faded station sign.

Then came the leaking ceiling, the peeling waiting chairs, and the route map torn until only half remained. Those things didn't truly push up from underground to the surface, but rather layered themselves over the reality of the scene. Outside the hoarding of Liuqiao Old Station, it was still an unfinished construction site, but inside the hoarding, an old passenger station appeared, parked in the city's shadows.

Dozens of ticket windows lit up one after another.

There was no one behind the windows.

Only old tickets were slowly spat out from the ticket dispensing slots.

The waiting chairs were filled with residual shadows. Some had their heads bowed, some gazed at the empty lanes, and some held things in their arms that no longer existed. Han Yue sat at the very edge, a notebook spread across his knees; when the Fire Map lit up, he looked up for a moment.

That bit of fire wasn't enough to bring people back.

But it allowed him, for the first time, to no longer sit entirely in the dark.

The Ticket Inspector stood in the center of the platform, the brim of his hat already burned away by the line of fire. The pliers in his hand were still there, but grey smoke was constantly rising from the jaws.

"You think that just because you see the station, you can close it?" He stared at Zhao Ye. "There are far more people waiting for the bus here than there are of you."

Zhao Ye didn't argue with him.

He pressed his Demonic Suppression Artifact into the ground, and sparks exploded along the edge of the platform. He wasn't aiming for the waiting chairs, but rather pinning down the thickest yellow line beneath the Ticket Inspector's feet.

"Waiting for the bus is fine," Zhao Ye said. "Don't use living people to fill the seats."

The Ticket Inspector's face darkened, and he clipped his ticket pliers toward him.

Shen Qinghe's bronze bell rang once outside the Qinghe Safe House. The Fire Map responded in three places, and the yellow line was shaken half an inch away by the sound of the bell. Zhao Ye seized this half-inch and smashed his fist into the ticket pliers.

The sound of metal shattering exploded.

The ticket pliers didn't break.

But the dozens of black tickets clamped within the jaws all flew out like a flock of released black birds. Bai Ya locked onto the flow of ticket stubs through the Grey Net in Linhai, and the line of fire traced back along every ticket, passing through the North City warehouse, the old mobile phone drop-off point, and the Liuqiao underground passage, finally pointing all the way to the deepest part of the passenger station.

There was one ticket window there that didn't light up.

An empty chair was placed in front of the window.

An empty ticket with "Fire Keeper" written on it rested on the chair.

Lu Chen sat in the Xinhuo Hall, looking at that ticket.

He didn't reach for it, nor did he let anyone get close.

The Grey Net only marked it as a high-risk conceptual inducement, isolating it in the outer layer of the Fire Map. Liuxia Passenger Station wanted to use a position to name the Core of the Torch, wanting to turn the "Fire Keeper" into a passenger on the vehicle as well.

But it didn't know that Lu Chen was never on its station schedule.

The fire of the Core of the Torch didn't enter the window along the ticket stub.

It just stopped outside the window, like a lamp that refused to let anyone clip the tickets.

Seeing this scene, the Ticket Inspector finally panicked.

He wasn't a high-ranking member of the Longevity Society, nor was he someone who truly controlled the rules. He was just an executor responsible for sending out tickets and letting people board the vehicle themselves. In the past, as long as there were enough tickets and enough crying, there was always someone who would step in voluntarily.

But this time, Torch didn't fight him for the vehicle.

Torch lit lamps on every road, letting people see that there was more than one place to go.

The pliers in the Ticket Inspector's hand began to backfire.

The jaws clamped onto his fingers, and blood dripped down the cuffs of his old uniform. He wanted to let go but discovered that the tickets he had verified were sticking back onto him one by one.

Every ticket was asking the same question.

Where are you going?

For the first time, the Ticket Inspector couldn't answer.

He was dragged toward the deepest window by the black tickets, still reaching for the platform before he disappeared.

No one pulled him.

Inside the ticket window, something finally moved.

A pale hand reached out from the darkness, grasping another, even older pair of ticket pliers.

The ticket pliers descended.

Click.

A line on the outermost edge of the Fire Map was severed.

Not Jiangbei.

It was in the direction of Linhai.

On the Grey Net map, the reverse elevator node suddenly turned red.

A voice with no discernible gender came from the window.

"Next stop, Linhai."

After the passenger station manifested, ordinary people on the outskirts of Jiangbei didn't see the full picture.

They only saw what looked like old building construction inside the hoarding, the fog was thick, and occasionally they could hear metal clashing. Gu Xingzhou's people suppressed the reason for the blockade as a "risk of foundation collapse"; no one would know that so many people who couldn't return home were sitting in the fog.

But the people of Torch could see.

They saw the empty chairs behind the ticket windows, saw the Ticket Inspector being dragged away by his own tickets, and also saw some residual shadows slowly looking up within the Fire Map.

A child's residual shadow picked up a ticket that had drifted to his feet, wanting to hand it to his mother beside him. The mother didn't take it, only pulling him into her arms. This action was very light, but it made the bronze bell in Shen Qinghe's hand vibrate.

"They are remembering each other," she said.

"Can we bring them out?" Chen Jue asked.

"Not now."

Chen Jue's face dimmed.

Shen Qinghe looked at the platform, her voice not as hard: "But remembering doesn't mean there is no way."

After Zhao Ye pinned the Ticket Inspector to the edge of the platform, he didn't chase after him to kill. He knew the other party had already been backlashed by the passenger station, and the truly dangerous thing was deeper inside. So he retreated outside the yellow line and steadied the Demonic Suppression Artifact again.

"As long as the station is there, the vehicle will come again," Bai Ya's voice came from Linhai.

"Then let it crash into fire every time it comes," Zhao Ye said.

In the deepest ticket window, after that hand severed the Linhai fire line, it didn't continue to cut toward Qinghe. It seemed to be testing as well. When the Fire Map dispersed, there was a very light sound of flipping tickets behind the window, as old tickets were being organized in the darkness.

Lu Chen didn't pursue.

He knew that Torch currently couldn't swallow this passenger station in one bite. Forcing its way in would only tear apart the residual shadows in the waiting interlayer and the entrance in reality.

The fire would stay outside the station for now.

Letting the station know that when it opened its doors again, it wasn't without people waiting outside.

The ticket window at the deepest part of the passenger station didn't open completely.

But the hand behind the window had already made everyone understand that the Ticket Inspector was just a layer of skin on the outside. The thing that truly maintained this station was hidden in older routes, holding rules from even earlier than the return tickets.

Bai Ya, watching the footage relayed back by the Grey Net in Linhai, suddenly said: "It wasn't coming for Jiangbei."

Lu Chen raised his eyes.

"Jiangbei was just the most convenient place for it to depart," Bai Ya said. "The ticket stubs going toward Linhai is because that freight line by the sea can send it even further."

Liuxia Passenger Station was not an anomaly that only devoured one city.

It was looking for the terminal station.

It needed more platforms, more people waiting for the bus, and more names that no one was willing to let go of.

After hearing this, Zhao Ye looked up at the half-revealed station sign.

"Then don't let it leave Jiangbei."

Shen Qinghe said: "With the current fire, it's not enough."

"Then keep lighting it," Zhao Ye said.

This time, no one complained about him being reckless.

Because everyone knew that this was not something that could be ended in one night. The Fire Map only forced a corner of the passenger station out of the dark; in the future, people would still need to guard the anchor, guard the lamps, and guard the routes, until they were qualified to walk into that deepest window.