20: Chapter 20 Old Goods Chain

East Suburb Logistics Park has been mostly abandoned.

In its early years, it was Qinghe's largest transit warehouse. Later, after the new logistics center was built, only a few rows of warehouses, half a wall, and an area of self-service lockers that no one wanted to maintain remained.

At 11:00 PM, two streetlights outside the park were broken.

The remaining light fell on the concrete ground, revealing patches of white cracks.

Shen Qinghe, Zhao Ye, and Bai Ya stood outside the fence.

This was the first mission for the Xinhuo Council that could truly be called a three-person operation.

Shen Qinghe watched the scene.

Zhao Ye watched for danger.

Bai Ya watched the Old Object Chain.

The division of labor was very clear.

The only thing not very clear was that Bai Ya himself didn't seem to want to go in at all.

He stood on the outermost edge, pulling his jacket tighter.

"Is it too late for me to say I'm feeling unwell now?"

Zhao Ye glanced at him.

"You can try."

"I'm asking the organization, not you."

"The organization wants you here."

Bai Ya sighed: "Do active members always speak so bluntly?"

Shen Qinghe interrupted them.

"Less talk once we go in. The self-service locker area has blind spots for surveillance and might also have induced sounds. Do not respond to any questions related to receiving packages, signing for them, or picking them up."

Bai Ya raised his hand: "I'm familiar with this; it's common courier scam jargon."

Zhao Ye said: "An anomalous version of a scam."

Bai Ya glanced at him: "It's rare for you to say something decent."

Zhao Ye couldn't be bothered to pay attention to him.

The three of them climbed over the perimeter fence and walked inward along the shadows of the warehouses.

Bai Ya didn't get too close, walking while looking at the walls, shelf numbers, and old cardboard boxes on the ground. He quickly discovered a secret mark on the side of a damaged wooden crate.

Three short vertical lines with a small black ink dot pressed in the middle.

"A resale mark from the Old Goods Circle."

Bai Ya squatted down, shone his phone flashlight on it, and quickly turned it off.

"It means the goods cannot be opened directly and must be transferred to someone who knows the rules."

Shen Qinghe asked: "Who left it?"

"Don't know."

Zhao Ye frowned: "Aren't you an expert?"

Bai Ya looked up: "Being an expert doesn't mean being omniscient. I'm an old goods merchant, not the local deity."

Shen Qinghe swept a glance at the two of them.

"Continue."

The self-service locker area was in the deepest part of the park.

A whole row of metal lockers stood against the wall; most of the doors were rusted, and the screens had long since shattered. When the night wind blew, several loose locker doors swayed gently, making clacking sounds.

The target given by the Grey Net was E-17.

Zhao Ye went over first, scanning with his flashlight.

"No movement."

Bai Ya stood two meters away, whispering: "Usually, right after saying that, there is movement."

As soon as the words fell, the broken screen at the end of the self-service locker area suddenly lit up.

A line of green text appeared.

[Please pick up the package.]

Zhao Ye looked back at him.

Bai Ya shut up.

The screen jumped again.

[Pick-up code: 0217]

[Locker number: E-17]

Shen Qinghe did not respond, nor did she approach the screen.

She lowered her head to look at the inside of her right wrist.

The Mark of the Torch was heating up, but there was no intense stinging pain.

This meant the anomaly had been triggered but had not yet completely spiraled out of control.

"Zhao Ye, guard the perimeter. Bai Ya, check the locker for marks. Do not touch the locker door directly."

Zhao Ye nodded and stood to the side of the self-service locker, avoiding facing the door directly.

Bai Ya cursed softly but still walked over.

The E-17 locker door was cleaner than the others.

It wasn't new, but rather looked like someone had wiped it down. A courier slip was stuck in the door gap; the edges of the slip were yellowed, as if it had been there for a long time.

Bai Ya didn't use his hand, but instead used plastic tweezers to grip the edge.

The courier slip slid out slowly.

There was no sender on it.

In the recipient column, Shen Qinghe's name was written.

Zhao Ye's face darkened.

Shen Qinghe's breathing also paused for half a beat.

At the very bottom of the courier slip, there was another line of small text.

[You have already looked in the mirror.]

Bai Ya looked at that line of text, his voice dropping.

"This isn't a random delivery."

"It knows you."

Shen Qinghe didn't reply.

She had seen too many anomalies use names to establish a connection. Once a name was responded to, it would become a hook.

She only said: "Open the locker."

Zhao Ye wrapped the end of his crowbar with cloth, not touching the locker door directly.

Bai Ya reminded him from the side: "Don't open it from the front. If something rushes out of the old locker, the person in front is the unluckiest."

Zhao Ye slanted a look at him.

"You have quite a lot of experience."

"Cowardly people live longer."

Zhao Ye couldn't be bothered to refute him and applied force from the side.

Click.

The E-17 locker door popped open a crack.

There was no cardboard box inside.

Only a small piece of broken mirror.

The broken mirror was about half a palm in size, wrapped in black thread at the edges, with a faded label stuck to the back.

[Recycled]

Shen Qinghe's pupils contracted slightly.

She immediately thought of the mirror fragment from the Nanliu Residential Complex.

Zhao Ye thought of it too.

"Hasn't that thing already been turned in?"

Bai Ya didn't speak immediately.

He stared at the label on the back of the broken mirror, his face looking much worse than before.

"These three words, 'Recycled', are not a logistics label."

"It looks like someone is imitating Torch's processing results."

Shen Qinghe lowered her voice.

"It's not the core."

She quickly made a judgment.

"The mirror fragment has already been received by Torch; the main body of the anomaly cannot still be in a locker in reality."

Zhao Ye asked: "Then what is this?"

Bai Ya added: "Secondary contamination. Residue. Or rather, someone scraped something off the traces left in reality from that anomaly and repackaged it as goods."

Shen Qinghe glanced at him.

These words were unpleasant.

But they were accurate.

An anomaly core that had already been recovered by the Core of the Torch could not be taken away by others from Xinhuo Hall.

This broken mirror was not the core.

It was more like a secondary residue left in reality by 'The Sleepwalking Mirror' incident, re-captured, marked, and delivered by some Old Object Chain.

In other words, someone was observing the anomalies that Torch had already dealt with.

Someone was picking up the ashes left behind after they put out the fire.

Just then, the self-service locker screen lit up again.

[Sign for it?]

None of the three answered.

The screen continued to flicker.

[If not signed for after the time limit, it will be automatically delivered to the next recipient.]

Zhao Ye tightened his grip on the crowbar: "Who is the next one?"

Shen Qinghe didn't look at the screen.

"Don't ask it."

Bai Ya's expression wasn't good either.

He suddenly squatted down to check the bottom of the E-17 locker.

There was a thin layer of black ash there, wiped into half a symbol with a fingertip.

Bai Ya looked at it for a few seconds, his voice tight.

"I've seen this mark."

"Where?"

"In a preview for an old goods auction."

Shen Qinghe asked: "Whose preview?"

Bai Ya looked up.

"Chang Sheng."

The moment the two words fell, a slight mechanical sound suddenly came from inside the self-service locker.

The black thread behind the broken mirror began to tighten on its own.

Zhao Ye didn't wait for it to finish changing; he directly wrapped the broken mirror with the cloth and stuffed it into the containment bag along with the label.

The Mark of the Torch heated up.

The fire pattern glowed for a moment along the edge of the containment bag.

The reflection in the broken mirror immediately dimmed.

A Grey Net prompt appeared.

[Anomalous residue temporarily contained.]

[Suspected man-made delivery node discovered.]

[Recommendation: Submit to Xinhuo Hall for archiving.]

The three of them quickly evacuated the self-service locker area.

Before leaving, Shen Qinghe looked back at that row of abandoned lockers.

The E-17 locker door was still open.

It was empty inside.

But on the broken screen, a line of text slowly emerged.

[The next one is on the way.]

In Xinhuo Hall, Lu Chen watched the records they transmitted back, his face sinking.

Black broken mirror, [Recycled] label, E-17 self-service locker, Old Goods mark, the two words 'Chang Sheng'.

These things strung together showed that the anomaly was no longer just appearing naturally.

Someone was transporting.

Someone was packaging.

Someone was testing the boundaries of the Xinhuo Council after dealing with anomalies.

Zero's prompt appeared immediately.

[Old Object Chain node confirmed.]

[Grey Net record updated.]

[Recommendation: Increase priority of anomaly transaction chain.]

Lu Chen stared at the two words 'Chang Sheng', not speaking immediately.

The Xinhuo Council had just completed the task loop.

But the Old Object Chain behind this world had already begun to reach its hand into Qinghe.

He raised his hand and created a new record in the Grey Net archive.

[Anomalous organization clue: Chang Sheng.]

[Status: Pending investigation.]

The Fire Seed stele burned quietly.

Deep in the Grey Net, the node belonging to the East Suburb Logistics Park was marked in red separately.

The thing that looked like a 'courier' in the reader's eyes was not forgotten.

It was contained and archived by Torch, becoming the first clear evidence of delivery exposed by the Old Object Chain.