178: Chapter 178 Not Replacing the Dead

The public channel was dead silent.

Deputy Captain He Yuan was already dead.

His name had been carved into the Torch Registry, his personal effects had all been archived and sealed, and his Hidden Lamp coordinates had been permanently fixed. The fact that the Linhai third anchor point had managed to hold on until now was entirely due to the clues he had left behind with his very last breath. The fact of his death had been confirmed countless times; it was not a suspected disappearance, nor was he missing in action. There was no room for negotiation.

But when that sentence, "Trade for the Shore Keeper," pierced through the current and into their ears, everyone's heart still tightened.

Tide was the first to speak. Her voice was very soft, yet it was pulled taut.

"It's fake."

After she finished, as if afraid she wasn't firm enough, she clenched her fist and added, "Uncle He is already dead."

Zhao Ye turned to look at her.

The girl did not lower her head. Her eyes were terribly red, and the corners of her eyes were wet, yet not a single tear fell.

"I saw it with my own eyes. When he shoved the Hidden Lamp to me, his hands were already cold to the bone."

Bai Ya did not speak. He swiped his fingertip to pull up Deputy Captain He Yuan's registry record.

The Torch Registry was never a resurrection spell. It could preserve the truth, preserve the witness, and keep a person from being tampered with by anomalies or dissolved into something else. But precisely because it anchored the truth, one could not use the delusional lie of "maybe he can come back" to deceive the living.

Lu Chen's voice came from Xinhuo Hall, steady but carrying an indisputable weight.

"We do not trade the dead."

The four words fell like a heavy stone cast into water; the ripples it splashed were wrapped in an indescribable, dull pain.

It was cruel. And exceptionally clear-headed.

He did not say, "We will not save him."

He said, "Do not trade."

Do not take the living as bargaining chips, do not use fire points for transactions, and do not use the safety of the entire Guardian Lamp zone or the millions of people in the three cities to trade for a shadow that could no longer return.

Wu stood outside the Qinghe Safe House, looking up at the three-city fire map projection in the sky.

He understood this temptation the best.

If a person's name was about to dissipate, and someone came over holding a shadow that bore a striking resemblance to the past and asked, "Don't you want him to come back?", very few people could harden their hearts and refuse.

"It does not want to send Deputy Captain He Yuan back," Wu whispered. "It wants us to admit—that the dead can be traded."

The Arbiter stood beside Gu Xingzhou, his fingertips flipping through the temporary case files, the paper making a soft rustling sound.

"Once this rule is accepted, the records of all those who sacrificed themselves in the future will be used by it to set a price one by one."

Gu Xingzhou's expression was grim.

He was not part of the Torch system, but he had read too many accident reports; he knew all too well what this sentence meant.

Han Yue, Chen Fu, Lu Chengzhi, Liang Cheng, Deputy Captain He Yuan... every name carved into the registry would become bait hanging at the gate of the Black Shore, stabbing into the hearts of the living time and time again.

Bai Ya did not wait for the discussion to continue.

He raised his hand and pushed, and the Patrol Crow Lamp hovered steadily in the center of the three-city fire map.

"It uses Deputy Captain He Yuan as bait precisely because it cannot touch his record in the registry; it can only wrap a hollow shell around it to wander about."

Shen Qinghe nodded: "Where is the shell?"

"The Jiangbei Liuxia carriage, at the intersection with the Black Shore's dark line."

Zhao Ye squeezed his knuckles, his joints making a soft cracking sound: "Smash the shell?"

Bai Ya glanced at him sideways: "Is there anything you can do besides smashing?"

"I can smash more accurately."

"That will be enough."

The operation was immediately divided into three fronts.

On the Jiangbei front, Chen Jue and Lin Zhao stood guard at the Jiangbei Liuqiao Old Station, evacuating all civilians, refusing to let anyone approach that lightless carriage.

On the Linhai front, Zhao Ye and Tide went down to the Old Lighthouse, firmly suppressing the momentum of the Black Shore's dark line to prevent it from continuing to infiltrate the city's heartland.

On the Qinghe front, Lu Chen sat in Xinhuo Hall to stabilize the three-city fire map, while Bai Ya used the link of the Patrol Crow Lamp to cut into the trapped carriage and confirm the true source of Deputy Captain He Yuan's shadow shell.

Tang Zhiwei listened to the deployment, her brows furrowing even tighter: "Bai Ya is going in personally?"

Bai Ya corrected: "It is the Crow Shadow going in."

"If the Crow Shadow is severed, won't you suffer backlash?"

"I will."

"To what extent?"

Bai Ya thought seriously for a second: "Headache, dizziness, wanting to curse."

Tang Zhiwei said with a cold face: "You usually have that last one anyway."

Bai Ya chuckled softly.

He did not mention the more serious consequences.

The Patrol Crow Lamp had just formed, and its Foundation was not yet stable. If the Crow Shadow were to be completely trapped inside by the Black Shore, he certainly would not be in mortal danger, but the Patrol Crow Lamp would very likely be subjected to reverse pollution. By then, it wouldn't just be him who had a problem—every fire point in the three cities would have an additional crack that the Black Shore could pry open.

Lu Chen knew this.

So he did not let Bai Ya risk it alone.

A grey-white firelight descended from far away in Xinhuo Hall, gently covering the top of the Patrol Crow Lamp. It was not the loud tolling of a bell, but the lingering resonance of the Law-Suppressing Bell Shadow, like an invisible hand, steadily pressing down on the flickering lamp wick.

"Only one shadow enters," Lu Chen's voice was deep. "You are not allowed to chase into the depths."

Bai Ya put away his smile and replied sternly: "Understood."

Beneath the Jiangbei Liuqiao Old Station, that lightless carriage sat quietly on the tracks.

There was no number on the carriage door, and the glass was covered with a layer of water mist.

Inside the carriage, Deputy Captain He Yuan's shadow sat by the window, head lowered, shoulders slightly drooping, as if dozing off, or as if waiting for someone.

Chen Jue stood outside the yellow line, the veins on the back of his hand gripping the return line rope bulging, his knuckles turning white.

Lin Zhao looked at him: "Want to charge?"

Chen Jue gritted his teeth and squeezed a word out from between them: "Want to."

"Are you going to charge?"

"No."

He said it very slowly, every word like swallowing a piece of red-hot branding iron, forcing it down his throat.

Lin Zhao did not say anything more, only moved the Guardian Lamp half a step forward, the light membrane steadily protecting the two of them.

The next second, a grey-Bai Ya Shadow pierced through the firelight and landed gently on the carriage door handle.

Inside the carriage, that figure with its head lowered slowly raised its head.

His face had no features, only a patch of blurred whiteness, like paper soaked rotten by the Tide.

Bai Ya's voice sounded in the channel at the same time, cold and without a hint of hesitation.

"It is not him."

"Start dismantling."

After Tide said the words "Uncle He is dead," her hands had been trembling. She tucked her hands into the pockets of her raincoat, her fingernails digging desperately into the Hidden Lamp paper that had been wrinkled by seawater. The corners of the paper were already worn and frayed, but she did not dare to loosen her grip, as if once she let go, Deputy Captain He Yuan would truly be nothing more than those few lines of cold text in the archives.

Bai Ya did not try to persuade her. Words of comfort were too light—so light that the person saying them might feel relieved, but the person listening would only hurt more. He simply projected Deputy Captain He Yuan's registry record onto the public channel, allowing everyone to see that searing truth: Shore Keeper Deputy Captain He Yuan, died in the line of duty during the Linhai Black Shore incident, leaving behind Hidden Lamp coordinates. The record was very short, but it was enough to make that superficial shadow shell tremble even more.

When Lu Chen said the four words "We do not trade the dead" in Xinhuo Hall, his own fingertips paused for a moment. He certainly knew how cold this sentence sounded, and how unfeeling it was. But if Torch took this step today, using the safety of the living to trade for a shadow that could not return, then every person who sacrificed themselves in the future would be dragged out from the registry by the enemy and hung at the windward side of the Black Shore to ask: Are you going to trade?

When Shen Qinghe heard the decision, she let out a soft breath. She did not feel relieved; she just knew this was the right thing to do. Doing the right thing is never synonymous with feeling good. Many times, the right thing is precisely the hardest one to swallow.

When the image of the shadow shell of Deputy Captain He Yuan raising its head in the carriage was transmitted back, Tide instinctively looked away. But after only a few seconds, she forced herself to turn back, staring dead at that blank face. She wanted to confirm with her own eyes that this was not Deputy Captain He Yuan. It was not to prove how strong she was, but so that if someone used this matter to trick her or use Deputy Captain He Yuan to bait her in the future, she could clearly remember that she had already seen the fake.

When The Arbiter wrote the four words "We do not trade the dead" into the temporary records, the tip of his pen paused for a long time. Such direct sentences rarely appeared in program files; it was not smooth enough, not comprehensive enough, and could even easily be misinterpreted by others as cold-blooded. Yet he still wrote it down, stroke by stroke. Because many times, what truly preserves the dignity of the dead is never pulling them back from death time and time again, but rather, absolutely refusing to allow the enemy to use their names to hurt the living ever again.

Tide later copied these four words and tucked them behind that Hidden Lamp paper of Deputy Captain He Yuan. She wrote with great force, the tip of her pen carving deep marks into the back of the paper. After she finished writing, she sat on the stone steps beneath the lighthouse for a long time, and in the end, she only whispered to the sea breeze: "Uncle He, please don't blame us."

The sea breeze blew, and no one answered.

But the firelight under the lighthouse swayed gently, as if someone had reached out to block the wind for her.

Tide lowered her head, folded the paper back up, and carefully tucked it back into her pocket.