58: Chapter 58 Reporting of Abnormalities from Other Locations

When Gu Xingzhou spread the three reports out on the table, no one in the office spoke.

The first came from Jiangbei.

On the surface, the Paper Sedan incident had been contained, and the area around the affected residential complex was under temporary control; the official explanation given to the public was safety hazards caused by aging gas pipelines. However, in the internal report, the Red Line traces had not disappeared and had even begun to overlap with another rumor.

The driverless night bus.

At several bus stops in Jiangbei, non-existent routes had appeared late at night. Some people were waiting at the stops, and even though no vehicles arrived, surveillance footage showed them being ushered onto a bus by something. Those found the next day were not necessarily dead, but their memories were scrambled, and they repeatedly said they had "taken a ride yesterday."

The second came from Linhai.

After the building was sealed following the Reverse Elevator incident, the anomaly did not completely cease. Some residents had moved away, yet they repeatedly returned to the old floors of that building in their dreams. When some woke up, the soles of their shoes were covered in dust that did not belong to their current residences. Official tests could not detect the source of contamination, so they could only relocate the affected individuals separately.

The third came from abroad.

A private laboratory announced a biochemical leak, but their internal memorandum mentioned "age displacement." Some laboratory personnel exhibited signs of aging within three hours, while others' physical ages regressed to that of minors, yet they retained their adult memories. The laboratory had purchased several Eastern Old Goods of unknown origin, and the description of one damaged lamp bore similarities to the longevity lamp.

Gu Xingzhou finished reading the three reports and then opened the records of anomalies in Qinghe from the past two months.

The Sleepwalking Mirror at Nanliu Residential Complex. The crying face copper coin on Old Goods Street. The longevity lamp auction in the west of the city. The Wall Lamp Name-Calling incident. The abnormal echoes in the stairwells. Each one was serious, yet the results were completely different from those in other cities.

It was not that there were fewer anomalies in Qinghe.

It was just that in Qinghe, the anomalies were suppressed by something before they had a chance to spread.

In the last column of the report, he no longer wrote "suspected intervention by the Gray Fire Organization."

That had been the earliest temporary codename.

After the auction, informant testimonies, rumors from the Old Goods Circle, and snippets of conversation leaked privately among the wealthy circles all repeatedly mentioned another term.

Torch.

The full name was unknown.

The organization that called itself, or was referred to as, Torch appeared to possess the ability to identify, seal, and rapidly respond to anomalies, as well as the ability to obscure information.

Gu Xingzhou added a bracketed note after the words "Gray Fire Organization."

[Suspected self-designation: Torch.]

He knew this assessment was not complete.

But to continue pretending not to hear "Torch will arrive" would be self-deception.

On the other side of the conference room, someone proposed a more radical idea.

Since the casualties from anomalies in Qinghe were low, could they attempt to contact those suspected Torch members to obtain samples of their marks or their handling tools?

Gu Xingzhou did not immediately refute this, simply pushing the casualty data from the west city auction across the table.

It was the same Old Goods contamination, and it similarly involved the wealthy circles and the black market; yet in Qinghe, there were no deaths, while in Jiangbei, they hadn't even managed to seal the traces. The difference lay not in equipment, nor in the speed of the blockade, but in the fact that the scene in Qinghe had a set of disposal procedures that they could not yet replicate.

"If you treat the other party as a specimen," Gu Xingzhou said, "then do not expect them to treat us as a partner."

This sentence made the conference room quiet again.

At the same time, the Grey Net map area in Xinhuo Hall was also updating.

Lu Chen stood before the Fire Keeper seat, watching the anomaly points of Qinghe, Jiangbei, and Linhai displayed side by side.

Qinghe had the most red dots.

But after those red dots lit up, they were often quickly marked and circled by Torch, then dimmed, stabilized, and archived.

The number of red dots in Jiangbei and Linhai was smaller, but they spread faster. Each red dot was like a drop of ink in water, with irregular dark traces extending from it. Official blockades could slow the spread, but it was difficult to truly contain the core of the anomaly.

Zero provided a comparison.

[Qinghe City: Anomaly occurrence frequency is high, spread rate is low.]

[Jiangbei City: Anomaly occurrence frequency is moderate, spread rate is rising.]

[Linhai City: Stability of anomaly residue is poor, dream contamination is spilling over.]

[Overseas laboratory incident: Suspected Old Goods experiment led to rule displacement.]

Bai Ya stood before the intelligence corridor, staring at the red line in Jiangbei.

"The Old Goods line is flowing outward."

Shen Qinghe looked at him.

"Longevity Society?"

"Not necessarily all of them," Bai Ya said. "The black market was scared once by the auction, so it's hard to move goods in Qinghe in the short term. The harder it is to move goods, the more people want to transfer things to cities outside. The Old Goods Circle isn't afraid of filth; what they fear is dirty things landing in their own hands."

Zhao Ye said coldly, "So they throw the bomb to someone else."

Bai Ya spread his hands.

"That is the moral standard of the black market."

Tang Zhiwei looked at the Grey Net map, her expression not looking good.

She could see that this was not a problem with one organization. Old Goods merchants, the wealthy, collectors, underground middlemen, and outside channels—every layer was treating anomalies as commodities in circulation.

And once commodities start to flow, they won't just stop in one city.

Zhou Yan stood in the file assistance area and quietly added a sentence.

"The Paper Sedan and the Night Bus might not be two separate things."

Everyone looked at him.

Zhou Yan projected a page of local chronicles onto the side of the stone monument.

"In the old chronicles of Jiangbei, there is a saying that funeral processions and wedding processions at night must not take the same road. If red and white clash, the road will remember the people. The Paper Sedan picks up the wedding party, and the Night Bus sends them on their way; both may share a trace of an old law that 'takes people away from their original time.'"

Hearing this, Lu Chen's gaze fell on the dark red dot of Jiangbei.

Trace of an old law.

These four words were more dangerous than a simple anomaly.

Abnormal Old Goods could be sealed, and residual contamination could be purified, but if several events began to share the same trace of an old law, it meant they were no longer isolated incidents, but were resonating with each other.

Zero's notification appeared accordingly.

[Resonance detected in Jiangbei anomaly traces.]

[Risk Level: Rising.]

[Potential precursor to a regional anomaly.]

The hall was quiet for a moment.

The Candidates in the outer ring could not see the complete report; they could only see a dark red light point in the direction of Jiangbei flashing continuously.

Lin Zhao sat in the trainee seat, his fingers slowly clenching.

For the first time, he clearly realized that the reason the city he lived in could still enter the night normally was not because the world was gentle.

It was because someone was blocking the things that should have fallen down outside the night.

In the outer ring of the third-generation Candidates, the two projections from Jiangbei looked grim.

They could not see the complete report, but they could feel a familiar unease from the vibration of that dark red node. A young woman asked in a low voice if Torch could go to save people now. Another middle-aged man clenched his fists and did not speak, but his eyes remained fixed on the direction of Jiangbei.

Zero did not answer them.

Candidates had no qualifications to demand that Torch be dispatched. Nor would Torch throw members who were not yet prepared into an anomaly in an outside city just because of someone's fear.

Lu Chen saw their reaction but offered no comfort.

The rules must be established first. Otherwise, Torch would sooner or later be dragged by cries for help into becoming another uncontrolled scene.

Lu Chen did not immediately order them to leave the city.

The Xinhuo Council was not yet ready.

But the Grey Net had already seen the fire line further away.

This meant that one day, Torch would not be able to just guard Qinghe.