191: Chapter 191 The Star Chart Loses Its Voice

Rhein's fourth letter did not come from the sea.

It appeared in the printer at the Qinghe No. 1 Safe House.

The machine had long been disconnected from power; Tang Zhiwei had unplugged it herself, and a note she wrote was stuck to the side: "Broken, don't touch, whoever touches it fixes it."

At 3:17 AM, it started making noise on its own.

The sound was very faint, like someone muffling a cough in their throat. Lin Zhao, who was keeping watch, looked up first, the boundary guarding lamp plaque in his palm slightly hot. He didn't touch the printer, instead kicking Chen Jue, who was sleeping lopsidedly nearby, awake.

"Get up."

Chen Jue almost fell off his chair; before even opening his eyes, he reached for the Fire Seal at his waist: "Did the Night Bus arrive? Did the Clock Collector break in?"

"It's not the Night Bus."

Sheets of paper were spat out from the machine one by one.

There were no words, only a sea map. The black coastline looked as if it had been soaked in water, its edges blurred and indistinct. The three Fire Beacons of Qinghe, Jiangbei, and Linhai were connected by an extremely thin grey line. Outside the line, there was an expanse of blank sea that shouldn't exist, as if someone had forcibly gouged a piece out of the map.

When the last sheet was printed, a line of crooked English appeared on the paper, the ink slowly blurring and turning into Chinese.

[After the bell tolls are collected, do not call out to the people on the shore.]

When Tang Zhiwei arrived, her expression was colder than the printer paper.

"Who turned its power on?"

No one could answer.

Lin Zhao placed the boundary guarding lamp plaque in front of her; the edges of the plaque were still radiating heat: "It started on its own."

Tang Zhiwei crouched down to look at the hanging plug, suppressing her anger as she took out her phone to take a picture. The moment she pressed the shutter, she froze.

On the screen, the hands of the clock on the Safe House ceiling were ticking forward, but with every movement of the second hand, there was none of the slight mechanical sound that should have been there. The sensor lights in the hallway turned on and off, the access control opened and closed, the water pipes vibrated, and a Night Bus drove past outside the window; all movement seemed wrapped in a thick layer of cotton, leaving only the visuals, with not a shred of sound remaining.

"Don't make a sound." Shen Qinghe's voice came through the channel.

She paused after saying it.

There was no usual background static in the channel; her voice sounded like it was floating in an empty room, dry and astringent.

Beside the Linhai Fire Beacon, Bai Ya woke from a light sleep. The Patrol Crow Lamp hung from his fingers; the little black-feathered lamp was clearly still lit, but the few raven shadows perched on the windowsill didn't make a sound. They opened and closed their beaks, but no sound could come from their throats, like a flock of birds whose voices had been cut out.

Bai Ya stared at those raven shadows, his expression slowly darkening.

"Someone is collecting voices."

Outside the second anchor point in Jiangbei, Zhao Ye was patrolling the line along the street. The pot at the breakfast stall at the end of the street was boiling, white steam rolling upwards, and dough sticks slid into the side of the pot, but the sizzling sound that should have been there had vanished completely. The stall owner hadn't noticed yet, only feeling his ears stuffy, and raised his hand to pat his auricles.

Zhao Ye walked over and pressed down on his wrist.

"Don't pat them."

The stall owner was startled and opened his mouth to say something, but when the sound came out, it was as if something had sliced half of it away, leaving only an airy whisper: "Why are my ears..."

The Fire Seal on Zhao Ye's wrist suddenly heated up.

The Grey Net notification popped up simultaneously.

[Sound anomalies at multiple points in Qinghe, Jiangbei, and Linhai.]

[Alarm sounds, mechanical bell tolls, calls for help, and ringing sounds are disappearing first.]

[Suspected overflow of the Clockless Shore old law.]

In the Xinhuo Hall, Lu Chen stood before the three-city fire map.

He did not immediately activate the Law-Suppressing Bell Shadow.

At the edge of the Fire Map, that grey-black line extending from Linhai was slowly thickening. It didn't look like a road; it looked more like a soaked rope, dragging all the way from the Distant Sea, inching along the boundary of the Fire Map, probing for gaps to slip through.

Zero's voice was also much lower than usual, as if covered by a layer of fog.

"Bell law-related contamination detected; the core target is the Law-Suppressing Bell Shadow."

Lu Chen looked into the depths of the Fire Map.

From Liu Bridge in Jiangbei to the Clock Street in Qinghe, the Law-Suppressing Bell Shadow had already tolled silently twice. It had never truly manifested, only suppressing the rules for half a breath at critical nodes, preventing the Fire Seals, anchor points, and Lamp-Keeping Zone from being scattered by the anomaly.

But this time, the enemy wasn't here to break the Fire.

They were here to collect the bell.

The printer spat out half a sheet of paper, the ink even fainter than before.

It was the second half of Rhein's message.

[The Clock Collector has reached the shore.]

[It does not kill the first person who calls for help.]

[It takes the call away and leaves it for the second person to hear.]

Chen Jue felt his back crawl as he watched and cursed under his breath. The sound dissipated into the air the moment it left his mouth, unable to travel even half a meter.

Lin Zhao glanced at him: "It's no use cursing louder; sound doesn't travel far right now."

"I'm not afraid."

"Whether you're afraid or not is irrelevant." Lin Zhao hung the boundary guarding lamp plaque by the Safe House door, the plaque lighting up with a pale grey glow. "Don't let the people outside see it."

Outside the Safe House, the first ambulance drove into the street entrance.

The police lights were flashing, red and blue light alternating across the walls.

The siren was silent.

The ambulance doors opened, and a nurse helped a man covered in blood down. The man's mouth was open, with only a vague sound of airflow in his throat; he gestured frantically, his eyes full of terror. Xu Minglan hurried over, placing her palm against his forehead, and the medical Fire Seal lit up.

The man finally squeezed out a broken sentence, his airy voice trembling violently.

"On the phone... I heard my dad calling me."

"He's been dead for ten years."

"But the sound... was coming from my son's room."

Xu Minglan looked up sharply.

In the residential buildings in the distance, one lamp after another lit up. There were no screams, no footsteps, no doorbell sounds.

Only many windows opening simultaneously.

People behind the windows poked their heads out, gazing blankly into the darkness, as if they had heard someone calling their names.

Lu Chen raised his hand and pressed it onto the edge of the Fire Map, his fingertips applying slight pressure.

The Law-Suppressing Bell Shadow did not toll immediately.

Under the firelight, the three points of Qinghe, Jiangbei, and Linhai dimmed simultaneously for an instant. It was as if an invisible hand had reached into the world of men, specifically picking out those sounds that could warn of danger, call people home, and save lives, snatching them away in one grab.

Lu Chen looked at this silent city, his eyes as dark as the night.

"Protect the people first."

"The bell tolls can be snatched back later."

Tang Zhiwei soon discovered that the more troublesome part wasn't the inability to hear.

It was that all processes relying on sound were quietly failing.

There were no notification sounds for elevator arrivals, no alarms for access control anomalies, no buzzing for pharmacy freezer power cuts, and no one noticed when the fire escape downstairs was forced open. The Safe House used to be accustomed to breaking anomalies down into individual compartments—who managed access control, who managed medical, who managed vehicles, who managed containment—each doing their own job. But the Clock Collector only reached out a hand, and many originally inconspicuous notifications were all cut off.

She dragged the whiteboard to the center of the hall and used a red pen to heavily cross out the old procedures.

[All sound notifications are void.]

[Replace with lamp signals, gestures, text, and Fire Seal vibrations.]

[Manual roll call every fifteen minutes.]

When she wrote the two characters for "roll call," her pen tip paused.

Chen Fu used to hate roll calls the most, saying that if even one box of goods in the warehouse was counted wrong, it would be fatal, and people definitely couldn't be counted wrong. Tang Zhiwei had found him nagging back then, but now she wrote these three characters the largest and reddest.

Chen Jue returned after moving the spare lamps; seeing the words on the whiteboard, he didn't speak, only placed the handheld lamps one by one at the entrance, arranging them neatly by brightness.

After Lin Zhao finished checking the lamp plaque, he suddenly asked him: "Do you still remember Han Yue's voice?"

Chen Jue's hand paused.

"I remember."

"Then don't let anyone else take it away."

Chen Jue gave a low "Mm," his fingertips gripping the lamp in his hand tightly.

Xu Minglan soon identified another type of affected person.

They hadn't heard the voices of the dead; they couldn't hear the voices of the living.

An old man sat in the hallway, his son supporting him right beside him, leaning into his ear to call him, yet he kept looking around blankly: "Where did you go? Why aren't you speaking?" The son, eyes red, called out again and again, but the old man still seemed separated by a thick pane of glass, hearing nothing at all.

Xu Minglan walked over, her palm gently pressing on the old man's shoulder, the medical Fire Seal glowing warmly. She didn't say "don't be afraid," nor did she explain the anomaly; she simply pulled the old man's hand and placed it on his son's wrist.

"Tap," she said. "Three short, one long, like how you used to call him home for dinner."

The son was stunned, then, with tears in his eyes, tapped on his father's wrist, one by one.

Three short, one long.

Three short, one long.

The old man's fingers moved slowly; he grasped his son's hand in return, his eyes reddening bit by bit.

Tang Zhiwei saw this scene and added another line next to "Text Confirmation" on the whiteboard.

[Use touch confirmation when necessary.]

The Torch never lived by fire alone.

Sometimes, a hand that is still warm, a rhythm that can be remembered, is also a lamp.

The grey line at the edge of the Fire Map was still seeping inward, the silent contamination sweeping across the streets like a tide. Yet the people in the three cities were not in chaos. Some used lamp signals, some wrote notes, some walked forward holding the wrists of those beside them, and some stood at intersections holding up cardboard signs to guide the way.

The voices had been collected.

The connection between people still remained.

Lu Chen looked at those tiny, glowing nodes on the Fire Map and gently withdrew his fingertips.

The Law-Suppressing Bell Shadow could wait.

First, let these people standing in the darkness find their footing.

From the direction of the Distant Sea, the footsteps of the Clock Collector had already stepped onto the shore.

The first battle was not a collision between bells.

It was the warmth of the living, and the silent darkness, competing to see who would last longer.