71: Chapter 71 The Third Recording on the Cellphone

After the projection of the driverless night bus outside the Qinghe No. 1 Safe House was sealed, the Grey Net did not immediately fall silent.

The dark red path pinned down by the Fire Seal continued to flicker slowly on the map, one end pointing toward the Jiangbei Old District, while the other end kept tugging at several old nodes within the Qinghe Old Object Chain archives.

E-17 self-pickup locker.

Records of old mobile phone circulation.

Luo Wei's sealed file.

These originally scattered clues were reconnected into a thin line during the Grey Net's review.

It did not resemble a simple traffic route, nor did it look like an ordinary circulation map for old goods; it was more as if someone had stitched together logistics, phone numbers, locker doors, delivery confirmation records, and anomaly rules from reality.

Zero's prompt immediately appeared.

[There is an intersection between the remnants of the driverless night bus and the delivery rules of the Old Object Chain.]

[Suspected contamination of the same batch of real-world distribution channels.]

[Recommendation to re-examine sealed Old Object Chain samples.]

Deep within the Xinhuo Hall, a faint, grayish-white light flickered on in the Sealing Corridor.

Luo Wei's original mobile phone had never flowed back into reality.

From the moment it was sealed, it had been placed in a storage compartment within the Core of the Torch, with its SIM card removed, power cut, signal isolated, and its outer shell remnants sealed by the Purifying Flame.

In previous assessments, it was not considered a complete anomaly core, but merely a receiver fragment left behind by an Old Object Chain delivery incident.

But now, that mobile phone, which had long since run out of battery, lit up on its own inside the storage compartment.

The screen went black for a moment, then a line of grayish-white text appeared.

[Restoring audio file.]

Lu Chen sat in the Fire Keeper's seat, his fingertips gently tapping against the stone tablet.

The view from the Sealing Corridor was immediately projected to the edge of the Grey Net.

The phone lay quietly in the storage compartment, its screen shining like an open eye.

It had no signal, no battery response, and even had the seals of the Purifying Flame pressing down on its casing, yet the third recording was still slowly emerging.

The first segment was a normal voice message left by Luo Wei before his death.

The second segment was static noise left by the Old Object Chain.

The third segment had no creation timestamp.

Lu Chen did not rush to play it, instead having Zero seal off the external echoes first.

Only after the fire patterns around the Sealing Corridor stabilized did he allow the recording to play.

Footsteps in a corridor were the first to sound.

Very light.

Like someone dragging their soles, walking from the distance step by step.

Then came the sound of a self-pickup locker opening.

Click.

Click.

Something was placed into the locker, and then someone slowly pushed the door shut.

From deep within the recording, a voice that did not sound human emerged.

"Did you sign for the item?"

The voice did not ask a second time.

But the phone screen inside the storage compartment suddenly flashed.

At almost the same moment, in another old residential building in Qinghe, Luo Wei's mother woke up from her sleep in a start.

Her mobile phone lit up on the bedside table.

The sender was displayed as Luo Wei.

That number had long since been disconnected.

The text message content was only one line.

[Your package has not been signed for yet.]

The old woman stared at that line of text for a long time, her fingers trembling so much she could barely hold the phone.

She did not cry immediately, nor did she call back; she just sat on the edge of the bed, feeling as if something had gently scooped something out of her chest.

She knew her son was no longer around.

But in that instant, she almost pressed reply.

The street lamp outside the window suddenly flickered twice.

She slammed the phone face down on the bed.

The Grey Net captured the fluctuation at the same second.

Lu Chen looked at the two lines lighting up simultaneously, his gaze darkening.

"The original phone is here."

Zero responded.

[Confirmed.]

[The real-world text message was not sent by the original phone.]

[Suspected that the Old Object Chain borrowed the identity remnants to carry out a secondary delivery.]

This statement caused the firelight in the hall to falter slightly.

The Old Object Chain had not taken back Luo Wei's mobile phone.

It had simply remembered the name Luo Wei, remembered that number, and remembered the receiver it had once locked onto.

As long as the rules were not completely sealed off, it could, like sending a letter without a stamp, project the echoes from after death back to the living.

Lu Chen pulled up the old records of the East Suburb Logistics Park again.

E-17 self-pickup locker.

The shipping label with Shen Qinghe's name on it.

The [Recycled] label behind the broken mirror.

At the time, these things had all been sealed and archived, but looking at it now, that was not an isolated node, but the first exposed bone of the Old Object Chain's delivery rules.

Shen Qinghe's permission prompt was also lit up at the same time.

She did not rush to apply for deployment, but instead first pulled up the real-world data for the building where Luo Wei's mother lived.

There was no anomaly outbreak there, nor had an Old Object core formed; there was only a very faint delivery echo clinging to the old woman's phone.

"Cannot go there directly."

She quickly gave her assessment.

Zhao Ye frowned.

"Why?"

"She just received a text message from the deceased's number. A stranger knocking on the door at this time would only make her more likely to respond."

Bai Ya took over the remnant lines synchronized by the Grey Net, his fingertips tapping gently on the interface.

"First, cut off the activity of the text message. Don't touch the memory."

After he said this, the hall was briefly silent for a moment.

No one suggested making the old woman forget that text message.

The Xinhuo Council did not rely on erasing the fears of ordinary people to maintain order.

What it sought to do was ensure that the fear would no longer continue to bite.

Thus, the Grey Net only cast a very shallow Purifying Flame, like placing a seal on that text message.

The old woman still remembered what she had received, and still remembered the heartache of that moment, but the text on the screen stopped flickering, and the street lamp outside the window stabilized once more.

Lu Chen watched this scene, his gaze not softening.

The most insidious part of the Old Object Chain was never how strong a monster it could create.

It was that it knew people would miss the dead, knew a mother would be unable to resist replying to her son's number, and knew that a single phrase, "Not signed for yet," could drag the living back onto that path.

The phone in the storage compartment vibrated again.

At the end of the third recording, the static noise was stretched out bit by bit, like tape being ripped off a cardboard box.

A new voice sounded, pressed against the receiver.

"Next item, delivered."

New recipient information slowly appeared on the screen.

[Recipient: Li Guibing.]

Lu Chen had not heard this name before.

But the Grey Net had already begun searching on its own.

Old Goods Circle storage contracts.

Grey logistics between Jiangbei and Qinghe.

Wholesale records of old mobile phones from the Chengnan communication market.

Several lines lit up simultaneously, finally landing on the same name.

Li Guibing.

The person who could truly speak with authority in the Old Goods Circle around Qinghe and Jiangbei.

That same night, outside the main gate of Li Guibing's private warehouse, a cardboard box with no sender was placed by someone.

The face of the person delivering the package could not be seen on the surveillance footage.

The cardboard box was very light.

Inside, there was only an old mobile phone.

The cracks on the casing, the screensaver photo, and the last call records were exactly the same as Luo Wei's original phone.

But Lu Chen was very clear that the real original phone was still in the Torch Sealing Corridor.

This was not the original item.

This was a delivery replica.