41: Chapter 41 After the Embers

The incident at the old industrial park in the west of the city was reported in the local news the next morning.

The headline was very steady.

"Police, in joint action with multiple departments, investigated and shut down an illegal old goods trading venue. A brief fire suspected to be caused by aging wiring occurred on-site; no casualties have been reported."

Lu Chen sat in front of the computer in his rented apartment, watching the news page refresh, his takeout still unopened beside him. He stared at the words "brief fire" for a long time before finally picking up his chopsticks, only to realize he had almost snapped the disposable chopsticks in half.

If this copy were put in a game announcement, it would be the equivalent of writing a world boss spawn as "minor resource fluctuation in the scene." The officials were very good at writing, and ordinary people indeed needed this kind of framing. If they actually wrote about the longevity lamp, lifespan transfer, the old goods black market, and Purifying Flame sealing, the entire city would explode the next day.

Next to the computer, the projection of the Core of the Torch floated quietly.

The longevity lamp wick had already been sealed into the containment slot. The wick, looking like a piece of shriveled blood vessel, curled slightly within the greyish-white seal marks, still trying to extend dark teal longevity threadss outward, but it was pressed down by a layer of Purifying Flame, unable to move.

Lu Chen was in no hurry to count his gains; instead, he first pulled up the analysis list.

[Sealed Object: longevity lamp Wick]

[Contamination Rules: Life State Transfer, Lifespan Thread Attraction, Bidder Active Binding]

[Analyzable Directions: Life State Anomaly Identification, Medical Route Warning Sample, purification patch Upgrade Plan, Lamp-type Old Goods Containment Vessel, lifespan transfer Contamination Record Model]

Looking at these entries, Lu Chen's gaze finally softened slightly.

Anomaly recovery couldn't just be about locking the danger away. Every anomalous old goods should become Materials for the growth of the Xinhuo Council. Ability Seeds, containment tools, medical standards, Grey Net algorithms, and task rule samples should all be extracted from each containment. Otherwise, the members would just be constantly putting out fires instead of making the organization better at extinguishing them.

He wrote down a new rule in the Torch backend:

[Sealed Object Analysis Process: Draft]

[After all high-risk anomalous old goods are put into storage, the Core of the Torch will first analyze the rule samples, and then Zero will generate accessible entries. The members' view will only display content that has completed testing and permission review.]

Only after writing this line did Lu Chen open his takeout.

At the same time, the Old Goods Circle in the west of the city was already much livelier than the news.

Bai Ya sat in his old warehouse, listening to a middleman whisper rumors of last night.

"It wasn't a fire," the man said. "If it really were a fire, how could only those wicked goods have burned to nothing? I heard there was a figure on the auction stage, the fire was greyish-white, and once it pressed down, the longevity lamp went out."

Someone also heard a phrase, something like... 'Torch will surely arrive'?

"What is Torch?"

"No idea. An organization? A code name? Or the name of that flame?"

"In any case, there's going to be one more rule in the Old Goods Circle from now on."

"What rule?"

"Goods can be old, but lives can't be cheap. If you run into something that sucks away lives, ask first if Torch will come."

Bai Ya held his teacup, his expression unchanged.

These people had heard of "Torch," but they didn't yet know of the "Xinhuo Council." This level of information was just right. Letting the black market know the full name of the organization too early would only breed unwanted associations. It was actually better this way: the fear was there, but the name remained blurry. The rumors would help the Xinhuo Council suppress the Old Goods Circle first.

Someone asked Bai Ya, "You've been hanging around Old Goods Street for a long time, have you heard of Torch?"

Bai Ya took a sip of tea and thought about it seriously. "Sounds like a heating company."

The warehouse fell silent for a second, and then someone cursed.

"That mouth of yours will get sewn shut by some wicked thing sooner or later."

Bai Ya smiled and didn't argue.

The reaction from the wealthy circles was more direct.

Tang Zhiwei received seven phone calls in one morning. Some asked if it really was a fire last night, some wanted to find out where the longevity lamp ultimately went, and some asked in a roundabout way if she knew "the person behind that flame."

Sitting in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, her tone remained steady throughout.

"I only know one thing."

"With some things, you'd better think it through before buying them."

"Are you collecting it, or is it collecting you?"

The other end of the line fell silent for a long time.

Things on Zhao Ye's side were much simpler.

He returned to the security company and trained as usual. The Evil Suppressor seed had stabilized his anti-contamination ability quite a bit, but his physical energy consumption was also more pronounced than before. After training, he leaned against the wall, panting, and a colleague glanced at him as he walked by.

"Have you been secretly signing up for private coaching sessions behind our backs lately?"

Zhao Ye looked up and said honestly, "No, I'm broke. Can't afford it."

His colleague stared at him for a while and muttered, "Then why do you look like you've been trained to death by a private coach?"

Zhao Ye thought about it.

Being shined upon by the longevity lamp, having his name called by a paper doll, being targeted by old goods, and being humiliated by his contribution points balance.

Any one of those four was harsher than a private coach.

Meanwhile, Lin Zhao opened the Xin Huo Interface inside the Safe House and stared at the exchange requirements for the Tier 1 Ability Seed, falling silent for a long time. He was already an Apprentice, but he was still short on contribution points. The catalog laid out the routes, effects, and growth directions very clearly—and the clearer it was, the more his heart itched.

The words indicating whether it was exchangeable or not were also very clear.

Lin Zhao didn't complain. He simply added another item to his training schedule.

Deep within Xinhuo Hall, Lu Chen watched these scattered pieces of feedback and finally finished his takeout.

The auction was over.

But the embers were only just beginning to fall into reality.

In the night, strange posts also began to appear on the city forum.

Someone posted to ask, "Did some big shot have an accident over in the west of the city last night? Why is the whole area nearby sealed off?"

The replies below quickly went off-topic.

"Don't ask. If you ask, it's aging wiring."

"The city's current universal explanations: wiring issues, mental stress, property maintenance."

"A friend of my friend was on the scene, and they said it wasn't fire, but a greyish-white mass."

The post didn't survive half an hour before being deleted, but screenshots had already circulated in small group chats. Ordinary people didn't know the truth, yet they could sense that something was changing in the dark corners of the city.

Lu Chen did not stop these vague rumors.

Completely blocking the news was unrealistic and would only make people want to dig deeper instead. Keeping it at the level of "a bit spooky but without evidence" was what suited the current Qinghe best. Fear would keep ordinary people away from old goods, and vagueness would prevent them from completely losing control.

He archived the forum screenshots in the Grey Net public opinion records and added a note in the backend.

[Rumors among ordinary people can serve as a low-level buffer for anomaly avoidance.]

[Complete clearance is unnecessary, but information that could locate Torch members must be avoided.]

Only after doing all this did Lu Chen turn off the computer screen.

Outside the window was a very ordinary city nightscape. Delivery scooters passed by downstairs, people were arguing in the distance, a child was crying, and a hallway light flickered.

Most people in this city still didn't know about the longevity lamp, didn't know about the Purifying Flame, and didn't know how many people's lives were almost taken away by a single lamp last night.

This was the current significance of the Xinhuo Council.

It was not to make everyone see the fire.

But to let the fire stop the darkness in places they couldn't see.