42: Chapter 42 The Abnormality Is Not Only in Qinghe

It was already early morning when Gu Xingzhou spread the documents from the auction out on the table.

The special task force's temporary office did not have the main lights on; only a row of cold white screens were glowing.

On the screens, anomaly reports from Qinghe, Jiangbei, Linhai, and a few from overseas channels were lined up in sequence.

Each report was covered by ordinary labels—fire, mental stress, equipment failure, illegal trading, mass hallucinations—but as soon as you put the timelines and casualty data together, the disguise became very thin.

The underground auction at the old industrial park in the west of Qinghe City was officially written off as a short circuit at an illegal Old Goods Circle trading site.

But the internal record in Gu Xingzhou's hand had a few other lines written on it: multiple people experienced temporary loss of life status, traces of unknown flames used for sealing were present at the scene, the finale auction item disappeared, participants had incomplete memories, and the death toll was Zero.

The death toll was Zero.

These few words appeared exceptionally glaring among the pile of anomaly reports.

The leather drum incident in Jiangbei City happened only two days earlier than the one in Qinghe.

An old drum that would call out names at night flowed into the folklore collection circle; the official lockdown was half a day too slow, three people who came into contact with it suffered mental breakdowns, one went missing, and the disposal personnel were secondary-contaminated during the forced incineration, with two still unable to return to normal sleep to this day.

That reversed elevator in Linhai was even more troublesome; the entire abandoned mall was sealed off, but people in the underground parking garage could still hear the elevator announcing floors.

The laboratory report from abroad was even more absurd.

A private conglomerate used antique channels to buy so-called life-extending Old Objects, attempting to verify the transfer of life status, with the result that the entire laboratory building was sealed off.

Externally, it was claimed to be a biochemical leak, but in the internal photos, some people had turned white-haired overnight, while others died on the experimental tables with the faces of youths.

Gu Xingzhou re-sorted these reports by Rank, and finally, his gaze returned to Qinghe.

It wasn't that Qinghe had few anomalies.

On the contrary, with the old mirror, old clock, crying face copper coin, red thread catalog, and longevity lamp, the density of incidents was even higher than in some other cities.

But the commonalities in Qinghe were also very obvious: casualties were kept low, contamination was cut off, there were always traces of grey-white flames at the scene, and some witnesses mentioned someone saying, "Torch will arrive."

The special task force initially called that force the Gray Fire Organization, because all monitoring footage remnants looked as if they had been obscured by grey-white flames.

But after the auction, Gu Xingzhou repeatedly heard another word from the testimonies of the wealthy, informants in the Old Goods Circle, and a damaged audio recording.

Torch.

He added a line of small text after the file title: Gray Fire Organization, suspected to call itself or be called Torch, full name unknown.

Someone knocked and entered; it was his colleague, holding a new informant record.

"The Old Goods Circle doesn't dare to tell the whole story now; they only say that fire pressed down from the sky that night. Others say that the group selling the longevity lamp had their account books burned."

Gu Xingzhou did not smile.

He flipped to the last page and saw a piece of jargon relayed by the informant.

"Don't touch goods that have been looked at by Torch."

"What they fear isn't the fire," Gu Xingzhou said in a low voice, "it's the rules."

The colleague frowned: "The higher-ups are still asking if we can confirm the identities of their members."

Gu Xingzhou was silent for a few seconds, then pushed the two reports from Qinghe and Jiangbei side-by-side toward him.

"Confirming their identities is very likely to provoke them. Look at these two: same type of anomaly, one city was locked down for three days, and casualties expanded; the other city's incident ended in the middle of the night, and ordinary people could still go out normally the next day. There is only one variable of difference."

"Torch?"

"At least that group suspected to be Torch."

The colleague finished looking at the data, his voice lowering: "Then what will the higher-ups do?"

Gu Xingzhou closed the report.

"Continue observing, exercise caution in contact, and do not put anomalies into crowds to test them."

When he said this, he knew himself that not everyone would necessarily listen to the second half of the sentence.

At the same time, Lu Chen was sitting in front of the computer in his rental apartment.

On the table, there were no old work IDs or meeting materials, only takeout boxes, a few handwritten drafts of rules, and the semi-transparent projection of the Xin Huo Interface.

The Grey Net turned anomaly reports from various places into dots of different colors; the dots near Qinghe were suppressed by lines of fire, while the dots in Jiangbei and Linhai were slowly spreading like ink dropped into water.

Lu Chen stared at those spreading traces, his brows slightly furrowed.

Manpower could grow, equipment could be redeemed, and storage slots could be expanded, but there was still one shortcoming that was becoming increasingly obvious.

The Grey Net could discover anomalies first, but members might not be able to arrive first.

On the night of the auction, if Lu Chen hadn't personally suppressed the scene with Purifying Flame, and if the longevity lamp had dragged on for a few more minutes, the casualties would have been completely different.

There would only be more anomaly points in the future; he couldn't wait for cars, take detours, or search for entrances every single time.

He wrote down a new requirement in the backend of the Core of the Torch.

[Standard Mobility Technique for Official Members]

Zero's voice sounded.

"Requires analysis of mobility-type rule samples."

Lu Chen looked into the depths of the storage slots.

The remnants of the Old Object Chain, the severed life-span threads of the longevity lamp, and the path contamination left by the red thread catalog were all being slowly analyzed by the Core of the Torch.

Those things were originally broken rules used by anomalies to pull, transfer, or track people; now, perhaps they could be reversed to become the path for Torch members to arrive at anomaly scenes.

He tapped on the table.

"Don't open it yet."

"Record the requirement in the next hall upgrade."

A wisp of pale gold fire line lit up on the edge of the Xin Huo Interface.

[Mobility-type Standard Technique: Project Initiated]

Lu Chen looked at that line of text and suddenly smiled.

If "Torch will arrive" cannot just be a slogan, then sooner or later, there must be a day when everyone sees why it must arrive.

Gu Xingzhou did not write this judgment too definitively.

Official reports most avoid emotional conclusions, especially when facing an organization that is uncontrolled, of unknown origin, and suspected of possessing sealing capabilities; any choice of words could become the basis for the next step of action.

He only added three sets of numbers in the appendix: the time from incident discovery to diffusion, the number of civilian casualties, and the degree of contamination residue clearance.

Numbers are colder than evaluations, and harder to ignore.

The numbers for Qinghe were too abnormal.

If this city truly had an invisible hand, it was not creating chaos, but pressing it down before it could expand.

Gu Xingzhou knew that once this conclusion was seriously seen by his superiors, the next question would not be "whether to make contact," but "how to make contact, who should make contact, and whether it can be controlled."

And the last question was precisely the most dangerous one.

He did not write "goodwill" in the report, nor did he write "hostility."

Both of these words were too subjective.

Gu Xingzhou only wrote "communicable tendency to be confirmed."

He knew that true contact would certainly not begin with an order.

Since that fire could save so many people in the auction house, it could also burn off the hands they reached out when pushed into a corner.