82: Chapter 82 Jiangbei Special Project

When the Jiangbei Special Project file was established, the Grey Net in Xinhuo Hall looked like an old map that had been unfurled once again.

The traces of the Night Bus outside the Qinghe Safe House, the third recording on Luo Wei's phone, the E-17 self-pickup locker at the East Suburb Logistics Park, the warehouse list handed over by Li Guibing, the red thread records brought by Han Yue from Jiangbei, and the officially redacted files provided by Gu Xingzhou—all these clues were suspended in mid-air, connected by grey lines.

Viewed individually, each one seemed like a different anomaly.

But when they were placed together, Lu Chen quickly saw the problem.

They were all "delivering."

Someone was sending old items to designated locations, someone was making targets sign for them, and someone was using bus stops and time to lure people to places they shouldn't reach. Luo Wei's phone, the Night Bus stop sign, the paper sedan chair behind the red thread, the fragments in the parcel locker—they all looked like parts dismantled from a set of rules.

Lu Chen looked at the Grey Net, his fingers pausing on the armrest.

"Jiangbei wasn't just caught in the crossfire."

His voice was low.

"It might be a transit point."

No one in the hall spoke immediately.

Zhao Ye was the first to speak: "You mean, the bus didn't originate from Jiangbei? Jiangbei is just a stop?"

Shen Qinghe looked at the map: "It could also be a mix of a platform, a warehouse, and a sorting center. It's not operating according to the logistics we understand, but is using real-world logistics to overlay its own rules."

Zhao Ye frowned: "Can you make it simpler?"

Bai Ya translated for her: "In that place called Jiangbei, someone might be sorting goods for dirty things."

"I understood that."

At this moment, a new data symbol lit up on the outer layer of the Grey Net.

Gu Xingzhou sent over a more complete set of Jiangbei data through limited contact channels. It still had the official internal codes and some personnel information redacted, but compared to before, one could now see the disappearance points in the old district, the sighting locations of the Night Bus, and a few records of failed containment.

At the same time, Li Guibing's people also delivered a warehouse list to the Qinghe Safe House.

Li Guibing himself did not enter Xinhuo Hall, staying instead in the reception room arranged by Tang Zhiwei in reality. He was wearing a black jacket and a watch that didn't look cheap on his wrist, but his expression was not good.

When Zhao Ye went to retrieve the data, he asked casually: "Just how many dirty things have you touched?"

Li Guibing's face twitched.

"If I really knew those were called dirty things, I would have burned them long ago."

Bai Ya stood nearby, flipping through the list without looking up: "People in the Old Goods Circle say that eight hundred times a day. The difference is you used to say it to others, and now you're saying it to yourself."

Li Guibing looked at him: "Stop being so sarcastic. You haven't spent any less time in the Old Goods Circle than I have."

"That's why I've turned over a new leaf and now work for the organization." Bai Ya finished, pausing for half a second, "Although there's no salary for now."

Tang Zhiwei walked by and slapped a form onto the table.

"There are contribution points."

Bai Ya took a look: "Contribution points can't pay the rent."

"Then you can move into the Safe House."

Bai Ya immediately shut up.

This somewhat irreverent conversation made Li Guibing's tension ease slightly. It wasn't that he hadn't seen big scenes—auctions, black market goods, the messy affairs of the wealthy circle, he had seen it all. But anomalies didn't care about human relationships, didn't accept money, and wouldn't spare him just because of who he knew.

He pushed the list in front of Zhao Ye.

"Three old warehouses in Jiangbei, two transfer lines in the south of the city, and goods from an abandoned communication market—they all might have ended up near the Old City East Station."

Zhao Ye flipped through two pages, unable to make heads or tails of it.

"Couldn't you have just given this earlier?"

Li Guibing's expression became even uglier: "If some of these things were given out, there'd be no way for my side to have a clean ending."

Bai Ya said indifferently: "Your side wasn't clean to begin with."

Li Guibing wanted to curse, but held back in the end.

He knew now was not the time to put on airs as a big shot.

In Xinhuo Hall, Lu Chen merged the documents into the Grey Net. The grey lines began to rearrange, and a blurry grey circle appeared around the Old City East Station in Jiangbei.

Zero's notification appeared.

[Jiangbei Special Project task pool opened.]

[Recommendation to establish an outer city temporary response team.]

Lu Chen was not in a hurry to send people.

Jiangbei was not Qinghe. There were no stable Safe Houses, no complete anchors, and the official containment efforts did not fully heed Torch's coordination. Rashly throwing people in would only turn the special project into a rescue mission.

He confirmed the task force list one by one.

Shen Qinghe was responsible for rule judgment. Zhao Ye was responsible for on-site suppression. Bai Ya was responsible for the Old Goods Circle and Fire Seal tracking. Lin Zhao was responsible for evacuating ordinary people. Xu Minglan was responsible for handling contaminated personnel. Tang Zhiwei would prepare a temporary safe point. Han Yue would serve as a local guide. Sprite would provide remote support for network clues. Li Guibing would provide the list of old goods and logistics.

This time, Lu Chen was not planning to crash in personally.

If Torch wanted to go out of the city, it had to learn to move out using a system.

That night, Sprite sent a screenshot of a post.

It was an old post from a long time ago; the page had already been deleted, leaving only a cache.

Poster's codename: Time-Space Apostle.

The title had only one line.

"Don't Trust the Time on the Old Bus Stop Signs in Jiangbei"

Bai Ya's fingers froze when he saw the screenshot.

"This person has popped up again."

Shen Qinghe asked: "You know him?"

"He was listed in the peripheral files for a few days." Bai Ya zoomed in on the screenshot, "I thought he was just a weirdo horror-story enthusiast who got scared out of his mind."

Zhao Ye leaned over to take a look.

The first sentence of the post was: If you see that the time on the bus stop sign is different from your phone, don't wait for the bus.

When Han Yue was connected to the temporary meeting, he was still a bit reserved.

He was not an official member of Torch, not even an Apprentice; he was just someone in the Jiangbei Old District who had been chased by anomalies and had luckily managed to bring out information. But when the Grey Net projected his hand-drawn red thread distribution map, everyone went silent.

The paper was crumpled, with water stains on the edges. The lines on it were not neat; some places had been repeatedly blackened out by him, and next to some building numbers, he had written, "Asked three times, no one dared to speak."

Shen Qinghe looked at it for a long time.

This kind of data was not professional.

But it was real.

Official files would delete the unexplainable parts, and black market lists would deliberately hide the parts that could be sold for money. Han Yue's records didn't have so much calculation; he just wrote down the dead, the missing, the strange events, and the fears he knew on paper.

After reading it, Zhao Ye, for once, didn't rush him.

Han Yue said in a low voice: "I don't know which ones are useful."

Bai Ya replied: "Everything you wrote down is useful."

Hearing this from Bai Ya's mouth sounded a bit awkward. Han Yue was stunned for a moment, then nodded.

Tang Zhiwei pushed the preparation form for the Jiangbei temporary safe point in front of Lu Chen.

The venue hadn't been decided yet, there were only two vehicles, medical supplies were insufficient, and there were even fewer people who could be trusted.

For Torch to enter Jiangbei was far less glamorous than the phrase "Special Project initiated" sounded.

Looking at these realistic problems, Lu Chen suddenly felt that source essence was sometimes simpler by comparison. If source essence was lacking, one could go seal an anomaly. But when manpower, trust, and logistics were lacking, that was what truly stalled progress.

He touched the split sole of his shoe and cursed under his breath.

"This Jiangbei really doesn't let anyone have peace of mind."