16: Chapter 16 White Crow's Secondhand Goods

In Xinhuo Hall, Lu Chen took one last look at the observation record for Bai Ya's Secondhand Goods.

[Candidate Observation: Bai Ya's Secondhand Goods.]

[Anomaly Association: Time-Lost Mantel Clock.]

[Risk Assessment: High curiosity, high tendency for concealment, potentially possesses network tracking capabilities.]

The first two members, one a criminal investigator and the other a veteran, had relatively clear bottom lines, execution capabilities, and stress resilience.

Bai Ya was different.

This type of person is smart, sensitive, restless, and accustomed to breaking information into layers before revealing it. Used well, he is an intelligence node; used poorly, he is a source of trouble constantly testing boundaries.

But Xinhuo Council was short on people, and even shorter on leads.

Lu Chen could not rely solely on Shen Qinghe and Zhao Ye to blindly crash into anomalies in this city.

That was not an organization.

That was just two people working overtime.

He raised his hand and tapped "Confirm" on the stone tablet.

"Deliver the grey message."

Deep within the grey fog, the grey letter bearing Bai Ya's name burned away silently.

At the same time, in a warehouse on the back street of the secondhand market, Bai Ya saw that grey message for the first time.

At that moment, he was dismantling an old clock.

The old clock had been sent to the warehouse three days ago. The sender had used a fake name, the phone number was disconnected, and the address on the courier label was an old building that had been demolished two years ago.

For a normal person, the first reaction upon seeing such a thing would be to return it, and the second would be to call the police.

Bai Ya did not.

He had been in the secondhand business for many years and had seen too many things of unknown origin.

Some people sold old furniture from their ancestral homes, some listed mirrors used by the deceased on second-hand platforms, and some sent messages in the middle of the night saying they had something at home that "could not be kept," offering any price as long as he was willing to come over.

Most of these were just stories.

Behind the stories were financial desperation, superstition, fraud, or simply a desire to scare people.

But occasionally, a few items were different.

Like the clock before him.

It looked like an old-fashioned mantel clock from the last century, with a dark wooden casing, a fine crack on the clock face, and a layer of stubborn dust on the inside of the glass. The outer pendulum was bronze-black and much heavier than a normal pendulum; when held in the hand, a subtle chill would crawl up through the gaps between his fingers.

Bai Ya removed the outer pendulum and placed it on an electronic scale.

The numbers jumped three times.

346 grams.

0 grams.

346 grams.

Bai Ya stared at the electronic scale, his eyes showing little surprise, and simply reached out to turn off the mobile phone that was recording nearby.

This kind of material could not be posted casually.

Netizens liked watching strange tales, but real strange things could not be used for traffic. Traffic would attract people, people would attract trouble, and if there was too much trouble, sooner or later, he would end up selling himself into it.

He turned and walked to the computer, opening a hidden folder.

The folder name was very ordinary, called "Stock Photos." But inside, it was not product images, but records of anomalous secondhand items.

[Old mirror, buyer missing, seller account deactivated.]

[Black leather notebook, three consecutive owners dreamed of the same classroom.]

[Unbranded Buddha statue, automatically turns toward the door at night.]

[Old-fashioned mantel clock, chimes at a fixed time, suspected to be related to missing items.]

Bai Ya recorded today's data and added another line.

[After removing the outer pendulum, the chime still exists. Suspected that the core is not in the outer pendulum.]

After writing this sentence, he paused.

The warehouse was very quiet.

The electronic clock on the wall displayed 23:49, but the mantel clock on the table suddenly chimed once.

Dong—

The sound was not loud, yet it seemed to come from very far away.

Bai Ya turned his head.

The mantel clock's outer pendulum had already been removed, and the gears had been dismantled; logically, it should not be able to run anymore.

Yet the hands on the clock face were moving.

Tick.

Tick.

Finally, it stopped at 2:17.

Bai Ya did not approach.

He immediately turned off all reflective screens in the warehouse, unplugged the computer power, and placed his phone face down on the table.

This was his habit.

He did not know what these things were exactly, but he knew that many anomalous secondhand items liked to spread via "seeing" and "recording." Photos, mirrors, screens, and livestream comments could all become new doors.

Just then, a letter appeared on the table.

A grey letter.

No stamp, no address, no trace of delivery.

It lay quietly beside the mantel clock, as if it had been there from the beginning.

Bai Ya's hand paused in mid-air.

He did not touch it immediately.

He first took a step back, looked at the door, looked at the window, and then looked at the surveillance camera in the corner of the warehouse that was not connected to power.

The surveillance indicator light was on.

The red light was flashing on and off.

Bai Ya cursed in a low voice: "This is a bit unreasonable."

The grey message unfolded on its own.

Dark golden text appeared in the air.

[Candidate: Bai Ya.]

[You have long-term contact with anomalous secondhand items and actively conceal relevant transaction records.]

[Current Anomaly: Time-Lost Mantel Clock.]

[Task Type: Investigation, Containment.]

[Task Tips: Do not let the chime sound fully three times. Do not answer any questions coming from the clock. Do not attempt to photograph the clock face.]

[Task Objective: Remove the bronze-black clock core inside the mantel clock and submit it to Torch.]

[You may refuse.]

[After refusal, Candidate qualification will be closed. Torch will no longer provide support for this anomaly.]

[The Fire Keeper is watching your choice.]

After reading the last line, Bai Ya calmed down instead.

He had seen scammers, people pretending to be supernatural, and half-baked Great Masters selling courses based on strange tales.

But no scammer could stuff a letter into a warehouse he had confirmed was locked tight, and no prank would accurately write the words "long-term contact with anomalous secondhand items."

More importantly, the other party did not ask him for money.

Did not ask him to join an organization.

Did not ask him to kneel and shout any honorifics.

Only gave tasks, restrictions, objectives, and an option to refuse.

This was even more terrifying.

Because this did not look like solicitation.

It was like a pre-written investigation.

The mantel clock chimed again.

Dong—

The second sound.

At that moment, Bai Ya finally realized that he was not dealing with a strange item tonight, but was instead being inspected by some invisible buyer.

Bai Ya looked down at his left hand.

The old silver ring on his little finger was gone.

A page was also missing from the notebook on the table.

That page had recorded a mirror he had acquired last year; the buyer later went missing at a highway service area, leaving only an empty car in the surveillance footage.

Bai Ya's expression finally changed.

The chime did not just take away items.

It was deleting records.

If an item only stole cups, books, and photos, it would be terrifying at most.

But if it started deleting transaction records, then it was not a random anomaly, but someone using it to clean up traces.

The fire pattern on the grey message lit up slightly.

Bai Ya looked at the two words "Torch" and suddenly smiled.

"Fine."

He said, "I accept."

The letter paper burned away silently.

At that same instant, all the lights in the warehouse went out.

In the darkness, the old clock that had lost its outer pendulum slowly opened its clock door.

There were no gears inside.

Only an eye.