182: Chapter 182 Rhine Line

The old clock shop in the east of Qinghe City had been closed for exactly eight years.

The gold paint on the doorframe had peeled away, leaving only faint traces. The four characters "Haiji Clocks and Watches" were embedded in the blackened wooden frame like an old scar about to heal. The display window was piled with wall clocks, pocket watches, and digital alarm clocks covered in thick dust. In the very back, a broken wooden grandfather clock leaned crookedly, its hands frozen at a moment from many years ago. Local residents all knew the shop had long been abandoned; when passing by at night, only stray cats would crawl inside to hide from the rain.

But today, all the clocks rang.

It wasn't a chaotic clanging. It was one after another, as if an invisible hand was pressing them in sequence, making them chime one by one.

Tick.

Tock.

Ding.

Dong.

Each sound was light, yet it bored into the ears like a needle point. The cashier at the convenience store on the street was bending over to restock instant noodles when, upon hearing the third sound, the cup in his hand dropped to the floor with a "thud." He looked up blankly and saw all the digital price tags on the shelves simultaneously flash the same number.

20:00.

It was still bright outside, half an hour before dark.

By the time Lin Zhao arrived, the entire street had been temporarily cordoned off. Gu Xingzhou's people moved fast; using a gas leak as an excuse, they had set up a perimeter line at the intersection. Outside the line, some people were grumbling, some were holding up their phones to record videos, and others were craning their necks to peek inside, their faces full of curiosity.

Chen Jue followed behind him, a temporary Guardian Lamp bag slung over his shoulder, his pace somewhat hurried: "Are you sure we don't need to call Brother Ye over?"

"He's holding down the dark lines over at the Linhai Fire Beacon." Lin Zhao pressed a Guardian Lamp sticker onto a lamppost, the firelight slowly spreading along the metal pole. "Officer Shen is watching Liu Bridge Station in Jiangbei, and Bai Ya is tracking the distant sea signal at Xinhuo Hall. It's just us two now."

Chen Jue's mouth twitched: "The way you put that really isn't very reassuring."

"Then go back?"

"Who said I wanted to go back!" Chen Jue immediately widened his eyes.

Lin Zhao didn't bicker with him further; his footsteps stopped at the entrance of the clock shop.

The lock on the door wasn't broken, and the glass was intact, yet the clocks inside were all turning of their own accord. The pendulum of the wooden grandfather clock in the very center swung back and forth. With every swing, the floating dust in the shop seemed to be blown away by a breeze, slowly dispersing to reveal a line of faint black characters on the ground, as if they were seeping out from the floor tiles.

[Do not chime after dark.]

Chen Jue swallowed hard: "This thing… how did it end up in Qinghe?"

Lin Zhao pressed down on the Fire Seal on his wrist. The Fire Seal grew slightly warm; it didn't give an attack alert, only flashing a line of warning.

[Low-level clock-ringing contamination.]

[Prohibited: Respond to ringing.]

[Prohibited: Ask for the time.]

"Don't look at your watch, don't ask what time it is." Lin Zhao said in a deep voice.

Chen Jue froze for a moment and quickly shoved the phone in his pocket deeper.

But outside the cordon, someone had already fallen for it.

A man riding an electric scooter lowered his head to glance at the phone on his handlebars, muttering: "Eight o'clock? Is my watch broken..."

As soon as he finished speaking, his whole body suddenly stiffened.

The electric scooter was still sliding forward, its wheels carrying him into the roadside railing. He didn't fall; his feet were braced on the ground, but his eyes were staring straight ahead into the Void Realm, as if he heard someone calling his name from afar.

Lin Zhao rushed over in a few steps and pressed down on his shoulder: "Mister, look at me."

The man's lips moved, his voice stiff: "Time to chime..."

"It's not time."

"It is, the clock rang."

The Guardian Lamp sticker in Lin Zhao's hand lit up. The grey-white firelight crawled along the man's shoulder up to his neck, wrapping around his consciousness like a thin veil. But the man's eyes remained vacant, his mouth repeating two words over and over: "Chime... chime..."

Chen Jue grew anxious and reached out to grab the man's phone.

"Don't touch it!" Lin Zhao barked at him.

The next second, the phone in the man's pocket lit up on its own.

On the screen, it wasn't the time, but a fragmented video, as if transmitted from a very distant place.

In the image, a strange street was pressed very low by the night. A clock tower stood at the street corner; there was no clock face on the tower, only an empty, hollow circular hole. A dozen people stood in the hole, each clutching a clock, heads bowed, like rows of puppets without a Soul.

A woman stood with her back to the camera, her hair soaked by rain, speaking in a low voice, her speech rapid, as if she were racing against time.

"This is the sixth shelter point of the Rhine Line."

"The bell sounds will look for names. Do not say full names on public channels, do not say what time it is, do not let children hear alarm clocks."

Someone was crying behind the camera, their voice trembling: "They said... as long as we chime, we can let the people across the sea come home..."

The woman turned her head abruptly.

For the first time, the image captured her face. Her complexion was terrible, her lips pale, but her eyes were startlingly bright, like a flicker of fire that refused to go out.

"That is not coming home."

"That is reporting for duty."

The video cut off abruptly at this point.

Bai Ya's voice came through the channel, accompanied by some electrical static, his throat tight: "Intercepted the source. This woman is Rhine."

Zhao Ye was absent, but his voice still carried a hint of laziness, though the tone was exceptionally heavy: "To be precise, she is the current person in charge of the Rhine Line. Rhine is not one person; it is an escape route. The person in front dies, the person behind takes over the name, and continues walking."

Chen Jue cursed under his breath: "These people... they can even relay names?"

Lin Zhao was still pressing on the man's shoulder, the Guardian Lamp firelight sinking bit by bit into the other's brow. He looked at the clocks in the shop turning of their own accord, his voice very soft: "As long as someone survives, someone will take over."

This sounded as if he were talking about Rhine, and also as if he were talking about Torch.

Inside the clock shop, the wooden grandfather clock suddenly chimed heavily.

Dong—

All the streetlights at the intersection simultaneously went out by half.

In the dimness, more people froze in place, their eyes slowly turning vacant, and they began to mutter to themselves.

Chen Jue's expression changed: "Lin Zhao!"

Lin Zhao didn't look back.

He slapped the second Guardian Lamp sticker hard onto the ground. The grey-white firelight spread along the sidewalk, but it only spread two meters before it was suppressed by the invisible bell sounds, unable to advance even half an inch further. It felt like using a thin board to block a tide; the board was about to crack the next second.

Lin Zhao gritted his teeth and pressed his palm onto it.

The Fire Seal on his wrist burned like red-hot iron, drilling through his Meridians and into his bones.

He suddenly thought of Han Yue, thought of Chen Fu, thought of many people who hadn't managed to finish writing their names on the registry.

Those people fought to the end, not to make those who came after live in constant fear.

"Chen Jue." He said in a low voice, his voice shaking, yet steady.

"What?"

"Take the people back, as far away from this street as possible."

"What about you?"

"I'll guard this spot."

Chen Jue wanted to say more, but seeing Lin Zhao's deathly pale profile, he swallowed his words. He turned around and grabbed the two people in front who were still dazed, shouting: "Everyone move back! Whoever dares to ask what time it is again, I will smash their phone on the spot!"

No one believed he would really smash it.

So he really grabbed a phone and smashed it hard on the ground.

The screen shattered, and the jumping time instantly went dark. The owner was startled and began to curse, but halfway through, he looked up and saw those old clocks turning on their own in the shop, and his voice stuck in his throat.

Lin Zhao didn't smile.

He heard something lightly crack within the Guardian Lamp firelight.

Deep inside the clock shop, the glass door of the wooden grandfather clock slowly opened.

There was no pendulum inside.

Only a small black slip of paper.

Outside the cordon, Zheng Xiang had also rushed over.

He didn't rush inside but set up a folding table on the roadside to register the names and contact information of the residents who had been stopped. Some found it troublesome and called him crazy, but he didn't argue back, only handing them the pen, his tone flat.

"Write down a phone number. In case you suddenly feel like you need to go back and chime in a while, we'll at least know whose family to contact."

The person stopped cursing halfway and, looking at the eerie clock shop across the street, took the pen with a pale face and wrote down the number.

This clumsy method wasn't cool, nor was it mystical. But this street in the east of Qinghe City didn't explode due to the first wave of chaos because of these clumsy methods. Some were blocking cars, some were handing out water, some were watching their own children to make sure they didn't look at their phones, and some were taking down all the wall clocks in their convenience stores and stuffing them into cardboard boxes.

Torch couldn't stand beside everyone every second. In reality, there must be these inconspicuous hands that, before the anomaly drags people away, pull them back first.

The Grey Net interface jumped lightly in Lin Zhao's field of vision, popping up a line of cold text.

[The sixth shelter point of the Rhine Line has fallen.]

The clock in the shop rang again.

This time, all the phones on the entire street lit up simultaneously.