173: Chapter 173 Untitled

After the Old Lighthouse was locked down, the local Linhai forums exploded.

Some people snapped blurry photos of a black shadow hovering over the Seventh Pier; some claimed with absolute certainty that the authorities were testing a new type of projector; others swore on their lives that they had seen dead people walking ashore from the sea in the middle of the night.

The faster the posts were deleted, the crazier the screenshots spread, and within half a day, it had spread through half of Linhai's social circles.

When Tide swiped to the third identical scoop, she slammed her phone face down on the table.

"These people are really bored out of their minds."

Jiaoyue, who was nearby changing the dressing for an insomniac port worker, didn't even look up. "The more afraid people are, the more they love to pretend they aren't."

Hearing this, the worker shrank his neck and defended himself in a low voice, "Doctor, I'm really not afraid."

Jiaoyue pressed the tape down firmly. "Mhm, your hand is shaking because of the sea breeze."

The worker immediately shut his mouth.

The three Lamp-Keeping Zones of Qinghe, Jiangbei, and Linhai had withstood two consecutive impacts from the Court of No Return and the Black Shore, and everyone was stretched to their limit.

When people are tired, it's easiest for mistakes to happen.

Tang Zhiwei split the three-city fire map supply schedule into three parts and rearranged all the shift rosters; if anyone exceeded their time, she forced them to log off, showing absolutely no leniency.

When Zhao Ye saw his name crossed off, his face darkened instantly.

"I can still keep going."

Tang Zhiwei didn't even lift her eyelids. "You poured salt into your coffee yesterday, thinking it was sugar."

"That was..."

"And you drank half a cup."

Lin Zhao almost laughed out loud nearby, but after being shot a glance by Zhao Ye, he hurriedly lowered his head and pretended to organize the Fire Seal stickers.

Joking aside, everyone knew Tang Zhiwei was right.

The people of Torch were not made of iron.

People get tired, lose focus, and lag half a beat on the most critical judgments.

The enemy never needs to become stronger; they just need to wait until they hold out until the moment they make a mistake.

Bai Ya did not rest.

He sat on the second floor of the Old Lighthouse, with the Raven Feather Seal paper, Deputy Captain He Yuan's hidden lamp fragments, the Starry Sky Station coordinates, and the projection of the three-city fire map spread out before him.

The sea breeze poured in through the cracks in the broken window, blowing the edges of the paper so they fluttered, as if someone in the shadows was reaching out to flip them.

He had been sitting, staring at these clues, for three hours.

When Shen Qinghe came up, she was carrying a bag of hot soy milk.

"Tang Zhiwei asked me to bring this."

Bai Ya didn't turn around. "Since when has she cared about me so much?"

"She said if you died of overwork, no one would deal with this mess of clues."

Bai Ya took the soy milk, and when he inserted the straw, he let out a low chuckle. "That definitely sounds like something she would say."

Shen Qinghe stood by the window and looked out at the distant sea.

The sea surface was abnormally calm.

The sea at Linhai was never this "dead."

Even on windless days, there should be fine ripples, ship lights returning to port, and the low hum of distant cargo ships.

But now, the sea surface outside the blockade looked like it had been covered by a black cloth; even the sound of the waves was gone.

"What do you hear?" Bai Ya asked.

Shen Qinghe closed her eyes.

The lingering sound of the Fate-Illuminating Bronze Bell swayed gently in the depths of her consciousness; there was no bell toll, only a kind of extremely low, hollow emptiness.

It was as if the entire sea was holding its breath.

"It is waiting." Shen Qinghe said.

"Waiting for us to light the lamp?"

"Perhaps."

Bai Ya took a sip of the soy milk, his brows knitting together.

"No sugar."

"Tang Zhiwei says you don't deserve it."

Bai Ya was silent for two seconds. "She at least gives sugar to Zhao Ye."

This bit of idle chatter couldn't keep the atmosphere relaxed for long.

An alarm suddenly sounded downstairs.

It wasn't the highest-level alarm for a Black Shore invasion, but a warning for a lost contact in the Lamp-Keeping Zone.

The person who lost contact was at a temporary shelter on the north shore of Linhai; the person on duty was named Zheng Xiang.

He was originally just a community support worker, and he managed all the trivial matters: distributing porridge, making beds, and persuading people who wanted to sneak home in the middle of the night to retrieve their belongings.

He had no combat ability, and even his Fire Seal stickers could only use the lowest-privilege basic version.

Ten minutes ago, he sent back his last message: three Guardian Lamps in the shelter had gone out at the same time.

Five minutes ago, he could still be heard shouting at people in the channel.

"Don't run around! Do you all think you're fish? Do you have beds in the sea or something?"

Then the signal was cut off completely.

Zhao Ye was already downstairs, grabbing his jacket and putting it on.

But Bai Ya was staring at the location of the shelter in the projection, his expression growing cold inch by inch.

There shouldn't be any problems there.

The north shore of Linhai had no direct shipping lanes to the Black Shore, and no residual Return Tickets.

Although low-tier Lamp-Keeping Zones were weak, they were more than enough to suppress ordinary inducements.

Unless—the other side didn't come from the sea.

Bai Ya pressed the Raven Feather Seal paper against the edge of the Fire Map.

The black feathers on the paper suddenly stood up one by one, their tips pointing straight to the area directly beneath the shelter.

The underground drainage channel.

"It bypassed the lamps." Bai Ya said.

Zhao Ye's voice came through the channel: "Coordinates."

Bai Ya immediately sent the marker over.

The next second, Zhao Ye's Starfire exploded beneath the lighthouse, and following the trajectory of the third Linhai anchor, he pressed at full speed toward the north shore.

Outside the Old Lighthouse, the Black Sea remained dead silent.

But beneath the city, in a drainage channel without any lamps, a wet, dripping hand was resting on the main switch of the shelter's electrical box, pulling it down bit by bit.

That hand had no skin, only wrapped in a thick layer of black salt crust.

On the channel wall, four water-logged characters slowly emerged.

[Those Who Do Not Light Lamps]

In the shelter, most people couldn't sleep.

Once the lights dimmed, some people sat up clutching their quilts, staring fixedly at the door crack.

Zheng Xiang simply opened all the classroom doors; he set up two porridge pots in the hallway, and whoever woke up could come over and scoop some.

Someone complained the porridge was too thin, so he tapped his ladle against the edge of the pot and said if they thought it was too thin, they could go catch rice in the sea themselves.

The person was stunned for a moment, then laughed instead.

Zheng Xiang wasn't not afraid.

Before that black salt hand reached out from the entrance of the electrical room, he had already secretly tucked the hair clip he bought for his daughter into his inner jacket pocket; after putting it in, he felt it was bad luck, so he hurriedly took it out and put it back in his bag.

His fear was very real: he was afraid of dying, afraid there would be no one to take care of his family, afraid that if the porridge burned, no one would distribute it, and even more afraid that if he ran, these family members would be deceived and lured out by those harmful Return Tickets.

When Bai Ya saw this scene through the Grey Net, he tapped his fingers gently against the edge of the table.

Zhao Ye thought he was going to spit out some sarcastic remark, but he only said in a low voice: "These kinds of people are the most troublesome."

Shen Qinghe asked why.

Bai Ya looked at the man in the image who was carrying the porridge pot and scolding people back and forth, his voice softening slightly: "Because even though they are scared to death, they insist on standing there. The enemy loves to target these kinds of people."

The sea surface remained completely motionless.

But in the drainage channel beneath the shelter, there was more than one black salt hand.

They were not in a hurry to break down the doors; they just felt their way slowly along cables, pipes, and fire hydrants, like a group of silent blind people, searching for the Guardian Lamp in this temporary shelter that was easiest to extinguish.

Lu Chen did not order the blocking of all network messages.

Panic can never be blocked; the more you block it, the easier it is for it to mutate into something even more terrifying.

He only had the Grey Net clear out content that obviously lured the public toward the blocked area; the rest of the blurry photos and discussions were left to the authorities for routine guidance.

Gu Xingzhou was silent for a long time after hearing this, saying that this kind of opening was hard to control and easily led to trouble.

Lu Chen only replied with one sentence: People do not survive by "not knowing."

Gu Xingzhou did not refute him.

Outside the Old Lighthouse, a few young people who had been persuaded to leave walked quite far away, then turned back to take one last look.

The lighthouse was not shining brightly, leaving only a faint glimmer in the thick fog.

No one knew what that little light was holding back.

But the fact that living people could walk away safely was sometimes already the best answer.

This sentence was later written by Tide into the Linhai Collaboration Log; it was only a short line: Not being a spectator is also a way to survive.

After writing it, she felt it didn't look like an official document and wanted to delete it; she hesitated for a long time, but in the end, she left it there.

The fog outside the Old Lighthouse grew thicker.

It was as if something had been blocked at a distance by this sentence; it circled around unwillingly, but in the end, it could not come ashore.