148: Chapter 148 No Need to Come Back

Three black tickets flew out; one toward the hospital, one toward the Seventh Pier, and one landed before the blank wall on the Nameless Floor.

Wu was still standing in that unnumbered corridor.

The homing lamp road outside had already shone in a little, but the names that had been erased from the wall did not return. After the Tide-Reversal Bureau was suppressed by the shadow of the Fate-Illuminating Bronze Bell, the power of the registry loosened for the first time; it was the perfect moment to pry open a gap.

Wu knew what he had to do.

He pulled out the Fire Nail that was already embedded in his palm. A thin line of blood connected the wound to the last stroke of the character "Wu" on the wall. His face turned pale from the pain, but he did not let go.

"Do you still remember what your original name was?" Bai Ya asked within the Grey Net.

Wu was silent for a long time.

He couldn't remember.

It wasn't that he had forgotten for a moment; those two characters had been dug out of his mind, not even leaving a shape behind. Yet he remembered that Xu Minglan didn't drink sweet coffee, that it had rained in Jiangbei, that Han Yue sat in the car, and the blue ink of Tide's handwriting when she wrote letters.

These things could not piece together a complete name.

But they were enough to let him know that he was not a blank slate.

"I won't give the name to it," Wu said.

He turned the Fire Nail around and nailed it into the blank space on the wall.

The wall shook violently.

All the unfinished registration pages opened simultaneously. Wu did not use his own identity to fill the gap; instead, he nailed the "Unregistered" position shut. The Tide-Reversal Bureau was best at categorizing people into its registry, but it had never encountered a blank space that refused to be written onto any page.

The three black tickets in reality caught fire at the same time.

The one at the hospital was pinned to the medical chart board by Jiaoyue with a Tempering Needle. She did not burn the ticket, nor did she let the family tear it. She let the family surround the ticket and write down what they wanted to say to the deceased on paper. After they finished writing, the ticket turned to ash on its own.

The one at the Seventh Pier was stepped on by Zhao Ye. The last Fire Nail of the Suppression Domain was cracked with only half remaining, yet he still pressed it into the ground, ensuring the ticket could never find the downward gate again.

The third ticket fell before Cao Gui.

The ticket did not have Cao Zheng written on it, but rather his mother's name.

Cao Gui stood for a long time, finally hugging the file bag to his chest, and shook his head.

"Mom, I won't let you wait anymore."

He placed the ticket on the lamp road.

The black ticket burned into grey-white fire sparks, flying all the way toward the sky above the port area along the streetlights.

The Tide Lantern Keeper was hiding in the back alley of the old teahouse, watching the ticket stubs break one by one, the calm on his face finally gone. He was not the master of the Tide-Reversal Bureau, only the one best at passing tickets. As the tickets broke, the dim blue lantern in his hand also began to extinguish.

"You think that once people let go, they won't think about it again?" he said in a low voice.

Shen Qinghe looked at him through the Fire Beacon.

"They will think about it," she said, "but thinking about it doesn't mean one should send the living inside."

The Tide Lantern Keeper turned to leave, but suddenly a circle of wet lines floated up under his feet. The names of those for whom he had written tickets crawled back along the ground, wrapping around his ankles. Every ticket was asking him the same question: Who do you want to bring back again?

For the first time, he had no answer.

Black water surged from the depths of the alley, dragging him into a place without light.

The sea surface of Linhai finally began to recede.

When Wu came out of the Nameless Floor, only a trace of warmth remained of the observation Fire Seal on his body. He stood at the elevator entrance, and Tide asked him if he still remembered who he was.

Wu looked at her, and it was a long time before he said, "I am still here."

Tide nodded.

"Then let's count that as remembering."

When the Tide-Reversal Bureau's registry began to collapse, Cao Zheng appeared once more.

He stood under a temporary streetlight, holding those two cans of soda in his hands. The light shone on him, and his shadow was very faint, as if it could be blown away by the wind at any moment. When Cao Gui saw him, his footsteps stopped.

This time, Cao Zheng did not ask him if he wanted to get in the car.

"How is Mom doing?" he asked.

Cao Gui's lips trembled.

He had thought he would blame his brother, blame him for leaving everyone here, blame him for making their mother wait a lifetime. But when he actually saw him, he only wanted to say all the fragmented things from these years. Their mother always left the door ajar, their father never really quit drinking, he had changed three jobs, the Archives were very cold, and the winter wind in Linhai would drill into one's bones.

Cao Zheng listened quietly.

Hearing the end, he gently said, "You've worked hard."

Cao Gui broke down and cried, unable to straighten his back.

"You don't need to come back," he said. "I know what kind of life you've been living. You don't need to come back anymore."

This was not driving someone away.

It was finally no longer binding the living and the dead to the same ticket.

Cao Zheng smiled, placed one can of soda under the light. Then, his figure was wiped away like morning mist, disappearing completely.

Cao Gui squatted there for a long time, finally picking up that can of soda, not drinking it, but holding it to his chest.

On the other side, the blank wall of the Nameless Floor was cracking. After Wu nailed the "Unregistered" position shut with the Fire Nail, the Tide-Reversal Bureau could no longer force a name onto him, but his own observation Fire Seal was also fading inch by inch.

When Tide rushed into the elevator entrance, she saw him sitting by the wall, his palms covered in blood.

"Are you still there?" she asked.

Wu looked up, watching her for a long time.

"Tide," he said.

This was the first time he had accurately called her name.

Tide felt a lump in her throat, reaching out to pull him up from the ground.

"Then don't sit there."

Wu nodded.

Deep in the Black Sea, when the Tide Lantern Keeper was entangled by the ticket stubs he had handed out, he was still trying to struggle. He said those people would regret it, would miss them again in the next night, and would come looking for tickets again.

Shen Qinghe looked at him, not denying it.

"They will," she said.

"But next time, they will see the light first."

The wet lines under the Tide Lantern Keeper's feet finally closed. He was not burned to death by fire, nor was he judged by anyone; he was simply dragged back into that lightless alley by the names he had written.

The homing lamp road dimmed little by little.

Linhai was still there.

And behind the sea gate, the Tide-Reversal Bureau closed its remnant registry, for the first time without leaving any new registrations.

Before the Tide Lantern Keeper was dragged away by the ticket stubs, he suddenly shouted, "They will still come looking for me in the future!"

No one refuted him.

Those who are lost will not stop being missed just because a night has passed, and those who are living will not stop hurting just because a ticket has been torn. What Torch can do is never to make anyone forget.

The logistics vehicle Tang Zhiwei called from Jiangbei arrived in Linhai at this time, carrying temporary resettlement supplies and a batch of blank record books. She distributed the books to all the affected families, not asking them to write "let go," but only to write down what they wanted to say to the deceased, things they wanted to ask but hadn't, and what they still had to do tomorrow.

Some people wrote for a long time; some couldn't write a single word.

When Jiaoyue passed by, she saw the little child who had been the first to rush toward his father drawing a bus in the notebook, with two small figures next to it. After finishing the drawing, he looked up and asked his mother, "Will Dad get lost?"

His mother hugged him and said, "The light is on; he can see."

Wu stood not far away, hearing this, and looked down at the wound in his palm.

He still couldn't remember his original name.

But he began to know that some things don't need to be remembered as a name to remain here.

The Fire Beacon of the Third Anchor lit up slightly at this moment, as if leaving a lamp for all the words that hadn't been finished.