69: Chapter 69 Visitors from Jiangbei

Two days later, Han Yue arrived in Qinghe.

He did not enter the Xinhuo Hall.

Instead, he was directly arranged to enter the Qinghe No. 1 Safe House.

In reality, he looked even more exhausted than in the Candidate projection.

The skin under his eyes was dark, his clothes were badly wrinkled, and his backpack contained several handwritten records and an old mobile phone.

The materials he carried were very thick.

They were filled with various anomaly information that had occurred after the Jiangbei incident.

Locations where paper sedan chairs appeared.

Lists of missing persons.

Times when the driverless night bus appeared.

Areas where red lines were distributed.

As well as records of changes after the official lockdown.

Some pages even had sticky notes attached; the handwriting was messy but as clear as possible.

Han Yue did not know how valuable these materials were.

He just felt that someone ought to know the truth.

Inside the Safe House, Xu Minglan was responsible for checking his physical condition.

Han Yue had no obvious external injuries, but his heart rate was high, he was severely sleep-deprived, and his nerves were taut.

Xu Minglan asked, "How long has it been since you slept well?"

Han Yue thought for a moment.

"Three days, or four."

"Every time I close my eyes, I hear someone carrying a sedan chair downstairs."

Shen Qinghe stood nearby, activating her Pure Flame Vision to observe.

A cold white flame appeared in her eyes.

Soon, she discovered an anomaly.

Behind Han Yue, there was actually a very faint red line connected to him.

That red line didn't look like it was wrapped around him; it was more like it had been dragged from afar, just using his shadow to linger.

Zhao Ye instinctively wanted to cut it off directly.

But he was stopped by Shen Qinghe.

"Don't move yet."

Zhao Ye looked at her.

Shen Qinghe whispered, "This might be a clue."

Bai Ya subsequently used the Grey Net to record it.

It turned out that the red line was not connected to Han Yue himself, but was using him to point towards a certain path.

A certain route that spanned across the city.

"He is not the target," Bai Ya said.

"More like a signpost."

Han Yue's face turned even paler.

"What do you mean?"

Shen Qinghe retracted her Pure Flame Vision, her tone as steady as possible.

"It means you didn't do anything wrong."

"The materials you brought are very important."

Han Yue lowered his head, his fingers gripping the notebook tightly.

"Then, can Jiangbei still be saved?"

The Safe House fell silent for a moment.

No one could answer this question immediately.

Lu Chen watched this scene from the high platform in Xinhuo Hall.

He did not offer any comfort.

Torch was not responsible for saying nice things.

Torch was responsible for snatching back places that could still be saved from the hands of anomalies.

Tang Zhiwei arranged for Han Yue to enter the observation area to rest.

Xu Minglan set up low-level protection in the corner of the room and synchronized the records of his contamination traces to the Grey Net.

Bai Ya archived the traces of that red line into the temporary special file for Jiangbei.

Late that night, Han Yue finally fell asleep.

The Safe House returned to quiet.

The streets outside were also completely normal.

The convenience store lights were still on.

Occasionally, vehicles passed by in the distance.

But right at the end of the street, a bus slowly stopped.

It had no license plate.

It had no driver.

The headlights went out.

The body of the bus seemed to emerge from the deeper night, its edges carrying unstable shadows.

The bus doors slowly opened.

As if waiting for someone to board.

Inside the Safe House, all Mark of the Torchs heated up simultaneously.

Xu Minglan stood up immediately.

Shen Qinghe looked out the window.

Zhao Ye had already gripped the evil-breaking short staff.

Bai Ya whispered, "It has tracked us down."

At the street corner downstairs.

The driverless night bus was parked quietly.

From deep within the empty carriage, a muffled stop announcement seemed to drift out.

"Next stop."

"Qinghe."

The handwritten records brought by Han Yue were soon taken over by Zhou Yan.

The more Zhou Yan read, the more silent he became.

Those records had no official format, no professional terminology, and some time points were even written very messily.

But precisely because of this, they retained many details that only people on the scene would notice.

Which household's doorway first saw paper ash appear.

Which alley's streetlights went out first.

Which night someone heard the sound of sedan chair poles hitting the ground.

Which bus stop sign had a non-existent route number appear after the accident.

Piecing these things together was closer to the truth than many reports that had been processed layer by layer.

After reading it, Bai Ya said, "He is not a professional."

Zhou Yan nodded.

"But he is very suitable for making anomaly records."

This sentence was recorded by Zero.

[Han Yue Candidate direction updated: Outer city field recording/community assistance.]

Han Yue himself did not know what this meant.

He just sat in the observation room, holding hot water in both hands, his eyes still somewhat vacant.

Xu Minglan did not rush to ask too much.

She knew that after experiencing fear, a person needs to first confirm that they are truly safe.

The Safe House lights were very stable.

No red lines.

No sedan chair sounds.

Nor that bus with the slowly opening doors.

At least before that bus appeared, Han Yue briefly believed that he had finally escaped.

But anomalies never stop according to human wishes.

After discovering that red line, Shen Qinghe immediately synchronized the situation with Lu Chen.

Seeing that faint line in the Grey Net, Lu Chen's expression did not change.

Jiangbei was not over.

Han Yue was not trouble.

He was a loose thread handed over by Jiangbei.

If Torch wanted to truly step out of Qinghe, it had to follow this thread to see the other end of the line.

It was just that that end would not gently wait for them to be ready.

It had already taken a step ahead and found Qinghe.

Before Han Yue fell asleep, he had asked Xu Minglan a question.

"If I hadn't come to Qinghe, would that line have followed someone else?"

Xu Minglan did not answer immediately.

Medically, she was accustomed to giving conclusions that were as accurate as possible.

But anomalies never answer questions according to medical logic.

In the end, she could only say, "Perhaps."

Han Yue nodded.

"Then my coming here was right."

His voice was very soft.

"At least now you can see it."

Xu Minglan looked at him and suddenly understood why Torch would choose this kind of person as a Candidate.

He was not strong.

He was even exhausted and terrified.

But when he wanted to escape the most, he still chose to bring the records to a place where someone might understand them.

This was the kind of thing that Torch would choose.

It was not fearlessness.

It was that even in fear, he still did not leave others to the darkness.

Outside the Safe House, when that driverless night bus appeared, Han Yue frowned in his sleep.

It was as if he heard the stop announcement in the Jiangbei Old District again.

This time, Torch did not let him hear it alone.

When Bai Ya organized Han Yue's materials into a file, he unusually did not make any jokes.

These handwritten records were very rough, but they had a kind of clumsy seriousness.

Every page seemed to be saying: I don't know how to save them, but at least I recorded what happened.

For Torch, this was enough.

Not every Candidate needed to be able to wield a weapon.

Some people, by remembering what happened in the darkness, were already lighting the way for those who would come after.