5: Chapter 5 An Invitation from the Flame

Shen Qinghe stared at the grey message on the case file; her first reaction wasn't surprise, but that someone had entered her office.

Her hand was already pressed against the drawer handle. There was no gun in the drawer, only a pair of evidence gloves, a voice recorder, and half a pack of stomach medicine. Having worked overtime since the early hours, she hadn't even eaten dinner, and her stomach was cramping, yet this thing had appeared on her desk.

In the office, the three colleagues were each busy with their own work. Lao Zhang was fast asleep slumped over his desk, someone was getting water in the pantry, and the surveillance indicator light was blinking. In the past half hour, the door hadn't opened, and the windows were locked.

Shen Qinghe picked up her phone and aimed it at the case file.

There was nothing on the screen.

She looked up; the grey message was still there.

"Fine," she said in a low voice. "You're determined to find some trouble for me today."

She put on the evidence gloves and pinched the edge of the envelope. It felt ice-cold, not like paper, but rather like grabbing a piece of solidified fog. The envelope unfolded on its own; there was no letter paper inside, and dark golden text floated before her eyes line by line.

[Candidate: Shen Qinghe.]

[The case you are currently investigating is not an ordinary missing person case.]

[At twelve o'clock tonight, go to the third floor of the North Ring Old Building.]

[Mission Objective: Retrieve the residual doorplate fragment.]

[Mission Hint: Do not respond to any voice that calls your name.]

[Upon completion, you will gain the qualification to enter Xinhuo Hall.]

[You may refuse. If you refuse, the grey message will become invalid.]

[The Fire Keeper is waiting for your choice.]

"Candidate, mission, Fire Keeper..." Shen Qinghe read halfway through and felt it was absurd. "You certainly have a process for recruiting people."

The grey message ignored her.

She tentatively asked, "Is Luo Wei still alive?"

The text paused for a few seconds.

[Current clearance insufficient, unable to query complete file.]

[The abnormal entity at the North Ring Old Building has disappeared, but residuals remain at the scene.]

The trace of mockery on Shen Qinghe's face faded.

Last night, someone had indeed called the police near the North Ring Old Building, saying a loud noise came from the third floor. After the patrol officers arrived, they only saw fresh dust covering the floor, and nothing else. This information hadn't been made public; the grey message shouldn't have known.

What made her even more irritated was Luo Wei.

This case had been shelved for a long time. No body, no witnesses, no evidence to shift the case into a formal investigation. Every meeting ended with just one sentence: "Continue the investigation." The neighbors said Luo Wei had gone crazy, the internet said the old building was haunted, and her superiors only saw a missing person case that had been slow to progress.

She pulled up the nearby surveillance footage and flipped back through it frame by frame. At 3:21 AM, a thin male figure left from the small path next to the old building, his hat brim pulled very low, carrying a black bag in his hand. The image quality was so poor that she couldn't even distinguish the color of his clothes.

Shen Qinghe stared for a long time until her eyes grew sore, and she couldn't help but curse, "Was this surveillance installed to guard against ghosts?"

Lao Zhang turned over beside her and asked vaguely, "What did you say?"

"Nothing, the equipment is old."

The colleague from the pantry came back carrying a cup and casually threw a bag of bread onto her desk. "Not eating again? That Luo Wei case is going to dry you out like a husk."

Shen Qinghe caught the bread without opening it and just said, "Thanks." Only after the person walked away did she realize she had been holding her breath the whole time. The grey message was pressed right next to the bread bag, as if deliberately reminding her that she might not even be able to eat this meal tonight.

She closed the screen and did not report the grey message.

It wasn't because she immediately believed in some Xinhuo Council, but because this thing couldn't be filmed, couldn't be saved, and couldn't be entered into the existing chain of evidence. Rashly asking people to go with her would have no meaning other than sending a few more unprepared people inside.

At 11:40 PM, Shen Qinghe went to the North Ring Old Building alone.

She had changed into casual clothes and brought a flashlight, a telescopic baton, a first-aid kit, and a bottle of coffee that had already gone cold. She didn't bring her gun. She wasn't crazy enough to carry a gun in violation of regulations because of a ghost letter.

Standing downstairs, she suddenly felt a bit of regret.

The wind blew out from the broken windows, sounding like someone was panting upstairs. She looked up for a few seconds, took out her phone, and scheduled an email to be sent to a colleague. The content only stated the address of the old building and the expected return time; she didn't mention the grey message.

If she didn't cancel it before dawn, the email would be sent automatically.

"At least don't disappear without leaving a single clue," she muttered to herself.

At 11:59 PM, she walked into the stairwell.

Inside Xinhuo Hall, a layer of blurry imagery emerged on the surface of the stone tablet. Lu Chen could only see a few meters around the Candidate, and the image was occasionally cut off by grey fog.

"The Candidate has entered the mission area," Zero said.

Lu Chen watched the screen, his palms full of sweat, but he didn't make a sound.

On the third floor of the old building, 301, 302, and 303 were lined up neatly. Shen Qinghe shone her flashlight on the wall between 302 and 303; the plaster was peeling, and the dust was thick enough to leave footprints.

"Officer Shen."

A man's voice rang out from behind her.

"Save me, I am Luo Wei."

Shen Qinghe's shoulders tensed up abruptly.

She didn't turn back, gripping her telescopic baton as she continued to search the base of the wall.

"Aren't you a police officer?"

The voice moved a bit closer.

"Why won't you save me?"

This sentence stabbed into her like a needle. Shen Qinghe's footsteps paused for half a second, and the image of Luo Wei's mother coming to the branch office again and again to ask about the progress flashed through her mind.

She almost turned around.

The warning on the grey message jumped out from her memory just in time.

Shen Qinghe gritted her back teeth and cursed in a low voice, "You really know how to pick your words."

The flashlight swept across the corner, and a white fragment was revealed beneath the dust. She crouched down and tucked the doorplate fragment into an evidence bag.

Just as the cold crept up her wrist, the entire corridor suddenly went dark.

"Found you."

The voice rang out right against her ear.

The screen on the stone tablet shook violently; a pale palm reached out from the wall, aiming straight for the back of her neck.

"Three steps to the left!" Lu Chen blurted out.

Shen Qinghe had no time to distinguish the source of the voice and lunged sideways. The pale fingers grazed her hair, leaving five wet, black marks on the wall.

She turned and struck with her baton.

Bang!

The palm exploded into grey fog, and the recoil made the web of her hand go numb; she almost dropped the baton.

"You call this a residual?" She cursed while panting, clutched the evidence bag, and ran downstairs.

The crying and shouting behind her became increasingly chaotic. There was Luo Wei, a woman, a child, and someone using her father's voice calling her by her nickname.

That sound caused her to stumble, and she nearly missed a step on the stairs.

She grabbed the railing, her face deathly pale, but she stubbornly refused to look back. After rushing out of the old building, she leaned against the wall and dry-heaved twice. Her hand was shaking uncontrollably, no matter how hard she tried to suppress it.

The grey message appeared again.

[Candidate mission complete.]

[Evaluation: Qualified.]

[Enter Xinhuo Hall?]

Shen Qinghe looked at her trembling hand and suddenly laughed; the laugh was short and a bit annoyed.

"Qualified?"

"Your standards really aren't very high."

The grey message waited quietly.

She looked back at the pitch-black old building, then looked down at the doorplate fragment in the evidence bag.

"Enter."

Before the grey fog rose, Shen Qinghe remembered to cancel that scheduled email.

Inside Xinhuo Hall, Lu Chen watched the gradually solidifying figure and quietly released his hand, which he had been clenching tightly. His palm was marked with four red indentations from his fingernails.