130: Chapter 130 Letter from the Tide

When the Fire Map dissipated, it was almost dawn in Jiangbei.

Liuxia Passenger Station was not completely sealed off.

It was forced back into the interstitial layer, and the ticket window sank back into darkness, leaving behind only that row of waiting seats beneath the second anchor and a doorplate pinned down by a line of fire.

But everyone knew that was not the end.

It just hadn't driven the bus out for the time being.

The Jiangbei Station Service Collaboration Point was officially established that day.

There was no ribbon-cutting, no banners, and no decent office space.

Two rooms were cleared out on the side of the Safe House; one for storing documents and old blueprints, and the other for temporary containment equipment.

A generic sign reading "Community Emergency Coordination Office" was posted on the door; passersby wouldn't give it a second glance.

Chen Shi was responsible for time calibration. Every day, he had to sync three clocks: real-world time, mobile phone time, and the time of the Liu Bridge remnant—not a second off.

Liushu was responsible for real-world structure and construction cover. By day, he followed the workers to repair the hoarding, and by night, he held the blueprints and cursed the underground drainage design, only to have to map out the location of the anomaly entrance clearly after he was done complaining.

Zheng Xiang remained at the settlement point, continuing to deal with those who refused to leave. He no longer urged everyone to "look on the bright side," only ensuring that someone was on duty at night to keep the Guardian Lamp lit, and that they could talk if they wanted to.

Luo Ping had his limited collaboration privileges restored. He couldn't touch high-risk relics, but he could handle registration, transport, water delivery, and running errands. Every time he saw a containment bag, he would first ask if anyone was available to join him.

Chen Jue re-entered the Candidate assessment.

He still didn't have an Ability Seed, nor did he obtain higher clearance. The tasks Lin Zhao gave him remained the most tedious ones: perimeter security, evacuation lists, and checking the Guardian Lamp equipment.

Chen Jue didn't complain this time.

After his daily tasks were finished, he would simply go to look at the sacrifice records of Han Yue and Chen Fu.

He would leave only after reading them.

Wu did not become a Candidate.

His contamination was too deep, and his Fire Seal number could only be maintained for a short time. Xu Minglan arranged for him to stay in the Safe House isolation zone, with a whiteboard, a clock, and a small Guardian Lamp in the room. Every day, he had to write down the things he could still remember.

Today, the whiteboard read: "It's raining. Qinghe. Xu Minglan doesn't drink sweet coffee. Han Yue is in the car."

At the very end, he paused for a long time, then wrote one more sentence.

"I am still here."

No one knew how long this sentence would remain.

When Tang Zhiwei finished handling the compensation and handover for Chen Fu's family and returned to the Safe House, the material storage door had already been walled off with a temporary partition. A new inventory flow chart was posted outside the partition, with the first item bolded in red ink.

"High-risk material transport requires dual verification; no one is allowed to remain in the warehouse alone."

She stood in front of that line of text for a while before turning to leave.

In Xinhuo Hall, Lu Chen did not celebrate the success of the formation.

The Fire Map had only been maintained for a very short time, Spark Post Road had entered a cooldown period, and the two anchors in Jiangbei had also been heavily depleted. More importantly, the Longevity Society had already grasped one fact about Torch: they would risk their lives for Candidates, collaborators, and ordinary people.

This was both their weak point and the very thing Torch would never abandon.

"There is news from Linhai," Bai Ya's voice came from the Grey Net.

He projected a return ticket, wrinkled from being soaked in seawater, onto the main screen.

A letter was tucked into the back of the ticket.

It wasn't anomalous text.

It was written in a blue ballpoint pen, the handwriting hurried, the strokes slightly crooked.

"When the elevator goes down, the sea floods upward."

"Don't let anyone enter the second basement level."

The signature consisted of only two characters.

Tide.

Bai Ya said, "The sender is a night-shift dispatcher at the Linhai Port Area. She has never encountered Torch and has never met our people, but she saw the return ticket on the security footage of the reverse elevator."

Lu Chen zoomed in on the Linhai node.

The reverse elevator entrance was located in the basement of an old shopping mall, which had been connected to the port's freight passage in the early years. Now the mall was half-abandoned, the basement sealed off, and no one went there during the day. However, the Grey Net had already captured a new type of anomalous waveform: every time the elevator descended one floor, the groundwater level would rise a little in reality.

The Liuxia Passenger Station ticket was being sent toward the seaside along that route.

Wu stood by the projection outside the hall, looking at the two characters on the letter.

"Tide is not a station name," he said.

"It is a person."

He raised his head, a rare hint of clarity in his eyes.

"The bus wants to go to Linhai because someone is waiting there."

Lu Chen did not immediately send everyone out.

Jiangbei had just experienced the first bus, and the Qinghe Safe House also needed to be rebuilt. Who could go, who could guard, who would stay behind, and who would go to scout the line first—all of it had to be re-arranged.

But on the Grey Net map, the three fire points of Jiangbei, Qinghe, and Linhai were already connected by faint residual lines left over from that formation.

That line had not completely extinguished.

It cut through the city boundaries, extending toward the seaside along an invisible direction.

In the second basement level of Linhai, the reverse elevator slowly opened.

There was no one inside.

Only a black return ticket lay on the elevator floor.

Seawater washed over the edge of the ticket.

And in the darkness outside the elevator, someone held a blue ballpoint pen and wrote a second sentence on the wall.

"Don't let it reach the sea."

When Tide's letter was put into the Grey Net, the corner of the paper still bore salty, damp water stains.

Bai Ya did not immediately go to find the person. He first had the collaboration channels on the periphery of Linhai verify the port's night shift schedule, the mall's closure records, and the groundwater levels. All three pieces of real-world data matched: the reverse elevator entrance had indeed operated in the early morning, and the groundwater level had experienced an inexplicable, short-term rise.

The person who sent the letter wasn't just watching the spectacle online.

She was right at the scene.

Lu Chen listed the Linhai node as a priority for observation, but did not immediately issue an expedition mission. Jiangbei had just established its second anchor, the Qinghe Safe House was still under repair, and Spark Post Road had entered a cooldown. The greatest danger for Torch right now was not the fear of going out, but the belief that just because they had won one battle, they could keep winning forever.

"First, put the Candidates for going to Linhai onto the Candidate list," Lu Chen said.

Bai Ya asked, "Who?"

"You stay on the outer circle; don't go in first."

Bai Ya clicked his tongue.

"For Tide's information, have Gu Xingzhou's public channels cross-reference it. Don't call her directly to the Safe House."

"Afraid she'll be targeted by the ticket?"

"Afraid that the moment we reach out, we'll drag her in."

This sentence made Bai Ya quiet down.

Torch now had anchors, a Fire Map, and a Post Road that could travel across cities, but that didn't mean everyone who received a clue had to immediately become a member. Tide might just be a night-shift dispatcher, or she might already be drawn into the anomaly. Before confirming, they couldn't treat people like pawns.

Wu returned to his observation room after hearing the arrangements. He wrote "Linhai" on the whiteboard, then paused after finishing. He couldn't remember if he had been to the seaside three years ago; he only remembered the damp smell in the carriage and the water outside the window growing darker and darker.

He erased "Linhai" and changed it to: "Don't let anyone wait for the elevator alone."

Xu Minglan stood outside the door and watched for a while, without changing his words.

In the night of Jiangbei, the fire of the second anchor at Liu Bridge was still burning bright. After Chen Jue finished his perimeter patrol, he updated the record for the Fire Seal. He didn't leave a message under Han Yue's name, only clearly writing down the battery level of the Guardian Lamp equipment and the status of the hoarding.

This was what he could do now.

It was also his way of no longer just paying lip service to responsibility.

In the second basement level of Linhai, Tide stuffed the blue pen back into her pocket. The seawater outside the elevator door had already reached her shoes, but the black ticket hadn't been ruined by the soaking. She looked at the ticket inside the elevator and ultimately did not step inside.

She turned and ran toward the stairwell.

Behind her, the elevator plummeted another floor.

The station announcement drifted out from the crack in the door.

"Next stop: The Sea."