137: Chapter 137 The Tickets of the Trendsetter

The old tea house in the Linhai Port Area is located in an alley that is about to be demolished.

Paint is peeling off the door, and expired beer posters are plastered on the glass, yet it is packed inside.

Some people are holding portraits, some are clutching old phones, and some have placed a pair of child's rain boots on the table.

The tea house owner is long gone; only a man in a dark blue shirt sits behind the counter, writing tickets with deliberate slowness.

He doesn't use a printer.

It is a very old dip pen.

When someone hands over a photo of the deceased, he writes the name, departure point, and the words "Return Voyage" on black paper.

Every time he finishes writing a ticket, the smell of damp salt grows stronger at the tea house entrance.

"Tide Lantern Keeper," Bai Ya says over the earpiece, "His ticket stubs are connected to all the abnormal calls in Linhai."

Zhao Ye stands at the alley entrance, having already seen at least thirty tickets.

He wants to go in, but is held back by Shen Qinghe.

"The tickets are connected to the people."

"I know," Zhao Ye stares at the person behind the counter, "That is why it is annoying."

The Tide Lantern Keeper looks up, sees them, and actually smiles.

"People from Torch?" He asks, "You came faster than I thought."

He does not call them Fire Keepers, nor does he reveal anything internal about Torch.

This person simply deduced that someone in Linhai was finally willing to confront him head-on, based on the lit Fire Beacons, the stolen ticket stubs, and the suddenly appearing lines of fire.

"Stop writing the tickets," Shen Qinghe says.

"Why?" The Tide Lantern Keeper dips his pen tip into the tea, "They just want to see their loved ones."

"What you are giving is not a reunion; it is a substitute ticket."

The Tide Lantern Keeper's smile fades a little: "So what? If people from the sea want to return, people on land must provide a place. There is no such thing as a free return voyage under heaven."

An old lady in the tea house suddenly looks up: "I am willing to provide it. My son has been missing for thirteen years; I just want to see him once."

The Tide Lantern Keeper hands over the pen: "Then sign."

Zhao Ye's knuckles turn white.

Shen Qinghe does not grab the pen.

She just walks to the old lady, squats down, and looks at the rain boots on the table.

"Are these your son's?"

The old lady nods.

"How old?"

"Lost at the Seventh Pier, he was twenty-one that year."

"How old are you now?"

The old lady says nothing.

"After he returns, will he know you have aged?" Shen Qinghe asks.

This sentence is cruel, but Shen Qinghe does not flinch.

What the Tide Lantern Keeper offers is never a "return," but a shell frozen in the past.

It can speak of old things, call out names, but it has no future.

The old lady's hands start to tremble.

The Tide Lantern Keeper says coldly: "You all like to persuade people back to reality. What has reality given them?"

"Reality cannot give everything," Shen Qinghe says, "but at least it will not use the living to fill the seats of the dead."

Cao Gui stands outside the tea house, his expression poor from the start.

He has not looked at the counter since entering the alley, until the Tide Lantern Keeper takes a blank ticket from the drawer and places it in front of him.

Words slowly seep onto the ticket surface.

[Passenger: Cao Gui]

[Co-passenger: Cao Zheng]

Cao Gui's breathing becomes chaotic.

The older brother who disappeared at the port thirty years ago was not swept away by the sea, nor was it "bad luck" as his family claimed.

He might really be down there, waiting for a full thirty years.

The Tide Lantern Keeper pushes the ticket forward an inch.

"You understand better than they do," he says, "The files say death, your family says missing, you yourself wrote 'let go.' But you never really let go."

Cao Gui does not touch the ticket.

But his hand lifts, then stops in mid-air.

Bai Ya's voice comes through the earpiece: "I can track the ticket stub. But you need to give me three minutes. Do not let him write another one within three minutes."

Zhao Ye tilts his head to look at Shen Qinghe.

Shen Qinghe nods.

Zhao Ye steps into the tea house.

The Tide Lantern Keeper does not stop him, just puts down the pen: "Do you also have someone you want to return?"

Zhao Ye stops in front of the counter.

Images of Han Yue, Chen Fu, and that empty car in Jiangbei flash through his mind.

He does not pretend not to hear, nor does he say he does not have anyone.

"Yes," Zhao Ye says.

The Tide Lantern Keeper's eyes brighten a little.

"But it is not your turn to give a ticket."

The next moment, Zhao Ye's Fire Nail pierces the tea house floor.

The Suppression Domain does not trap the people, but only suppresses the wet path from the counter to the back door.

The ticket stubs on the Tide Lantern Keeper's table are all jolted up by half an inch, and Bai Ya's Patrol Lamp takes the opportunity to crawl out along the invisible line at the bottom of each ticket.

The Tide Lantern Keeper finally changes his expression.

He grabs the dip pen, the tip drawing a black line in the air, and the lights in the tea house go out simultaneously.

In the darkness, someone presses the open button of the cargo elevator at the alley entrance.

"Ding."

The Tide Lantern Keeper laughs softly.

"You stopped a tea house."

"But there will always be someone who will open the door for me themselves."

After Bai Ya's Patrol Lamp chases along the ticket stubs, it does not immediately find where the Tide Lantern Keeper hides the tickets, but first finds a string of very ordinary reality addresses.

Courier collection points, second-hand recycling stations, community print shops, port area convenience stores.

The black tickets are dismantled into individual sheets of ordinary paper, mixed into flyers, bills, and missing person notices to be sent out.

"He does not rely on ability to pull people over," Bai Ya says, "He relies on people bringing the tickets themselves."

Zhao Ye is even more annoyed after hearing this.

Things that can be smashed with a fist are not hard to deal with; the hardest part is when someone stands in front of you holding a ticket, telling you they know everything, but they still want to go.

The old lady in the tea house does not sign in the end.

When she returns the pen to the Tide Lantern Keeper, her hand is shaking so much she can barely hold it.

The Tide Lantern Keeper looks at her as if looking at unsold merchandise; the disappointment lasts only for a moment before he turns to the next person.

Cao Gui stands in front of the ticket, not moving.

Every word of the Tide Lantern Keeper stabs at his most painful spot; he can even remember how his mother saved a pair of chopsticks every day after his brother went missing.

But when he looks up, he sees an old calendar on the tea house wall, stopped thirty years ago, the date exactly the day his brother went missing.

"The tickets you write are forever stuck on that day," Cao Gui says.

The Tide Lantern Keeper squints.

"What about after the person returns?" Cao Gui stares at him, "Can he grow old with me? Can he know how Mom and Dad died later? Can he know how much of a mess I have been these years?"

The Tide Lantern Keeper does not answer.

Cao Gui pushes the ticket back: "You are not letting my brother come back. You are taking my brother's youngest self to force me to hand over the present."

The Tide under the counter suddenly surges.

The dip pen in the Tide Lantern Keeper's hand cracks, and black ink drips down along with seawater.

He shows a trace of real anger for the first time.

"You always think that not signing is winning," he says, "But the sea will wait. Wait until someone is more desperate."

When the prompt tone of the cargo elevator at the alley entrance rings again, Bai Ya's Patrol Lamp happens to chase to the Seventh Pier.

That is not a ticket stub.

That is an entire route of descent stitched together by ticket stubs.

Before the Tide Lantern Keeper retreats into the darkness, all the unfinished tickets on the counter turn over simultaneously.

The back of the tickets are not addresses, but a string of house numbers in the Linhai Port Area.

Bai Ya notes down the last house number, his expression darkening.

"Seventh Pier."

Tide looks down at the map, her fingertip stopping at that old freight shaft.

"There is still a night shift there tonight."