84: Chapter 84 The Boy on the Platform

Everyone in the Jiangbei Old District knows not to go to the Old City East Station at night.

But knowing is one thing; there are always people who pass by there for various reasons.

The boy first saw that vehicle on his way back from delivering food to his mother.

His name is not "Boy."

At least not on his ID card.

It is just that when he posted comments online, he didn't dare use his real name or a profile picture, so he just typed two characters: "Boy."

Later, when Sprite forwarded that comment to Torch, Bai Ya glanced at it and remarked that this codename was certainly convenient.

The boy's home is on the edge of the Jiangbei Old District, where his mother runs a tiny grocery store with a faded plastic light box hanging at the entrance.

At night, whenever the wind blows, the light box creaks, sounding as if someone is knocking from inside.

He used to find the sound annoying.

Now, he would rather listen to the light box creak than hear a car door open.

That night, after delivering food to his mother at the hospital, he took a shortcut past the Old City East Station.

The station had long been abandoned; half the characters on the station sign had fallen off, the iron railings were rusted, and the entrance to the underground passage was blocked by chains.

Just as he was preparing to walk around it, he suddenly heard the sound of brakes.

A bus stopped in front of the station sign.

It had no license plate.

It had no driver.

The interior of the bus was lit with a dim yellow light, the color of an old television right before it breaks down.

The neighbor auntie stood under the station sign, carrying groceries, her expression blank.

The boy wanted to call out to her, but his throat felt as if it were blocked by something.

The bus doors opened, and a faint announcement came from inside.

"The Old City East Station has arrived."

The auntie got on the bus.

The moment the doors closed, the time on the station sign jumped.

The boy saw the electronic time on it change to three days ago.

The next day, a delivery slip appeared at the neighbor's door.

The recipient was that auntie.

The status was "Unsigned."

The boy kept this to himself for a long time.

He had told his mother, but his mother told him not to spout nonsense.

He wanted to call the police, but he didn't know how to bring it up.

Should he say a driverless bus took someone away?

Should he say the time on the station sign goes backward?

Even he felt like it sounded made up.

It wasn't until Han Yue posted a missing person notice in the community, until he saw the Time-Space Apostle post online, and until more people went missing in the Jiangbei Old District.

He finally left a comment under the post.

[I know where it stops.]

After sending that comment, he regretted it three times, deleted it twice, and finally sent it again.

The person who came to find him was Lin Zhao.

Lin Zhao was wearing an ordinary jacket and carrying a bag containing bread and hot milk.

The boy initially thought he was a scammer and turned to run, but he didn't make it two steps before Lin Zhao caught up to him.

Lin Zhao was panting even more noticeably than he was.

"Don't be afraid."

The boy looked at the short baton in his hand and shrank back a step.

"When you say that, could you please not hold a baton?"

Lin Zhao looked down, embarrassed, and tucked the short baton back into his clothes.

"I'm used to it."

The boy didn't take the milk.

"Are you police?"

"No." Lin Zhao thought for a moment and added, "But we aren't bad guys, either."

The boy looked at him warily. "Bad guys say that too."

Lin Zhao was speechless and had to place the bag on the steps.

"Then don't trust me yet. You just have to tell me where the vehicle you saw stops. I promise, I won't let you go there alone."

This sentence was more useful than "Don't be afraid."

The boy was silent for a moment, then finally said in a low voice, "Old City East Station, the underground passage. The door is locked, but after midnight, the lock opens by itself."

"Have you been inside?"

The boy shook his head, his face pale.

"I didn't dare. But I saw an electronic screen inside."

"What did it say?"

The boy looked up at Lin Zhao.

"Next stop, Qinghe."

When Lin Zhao synced this message to the Grey Net, Zhao Ye was just preparing to depart.

After hearing it, his first reaction was to curse.

"This piece-of-junk bus even calls out stops in other cities."

Shen Qinghe looked at the map of the Jiangbei Old City East Station and didn't smile.

"The boy cannot stay at home now."

"Safe House?" Lin Zhao asked.

Tang Zhiwei quickly gave a reply: The temporary safe point in Jiangbei hasn't been built yet; he can be transferred to an observation point arranged by Gu Xingzhou first, but do not expose his Torch identity.

When the boy heard he had to leave home, his first reaction was to refuse.

"What about my mom?"

Lin Zhao didn't know how to answer for a moment.

He wasn't very good at comforting people, especially since the other person was just a child.

Finally, he squatted down and pushed the hot milk toward him.

"Someone will be watching over your mom. If you stay here, in case that ticket has your name on it, then she really won't have anyone to look after her."

The boy's eyes turned red, but he didn't cry.

He just picked up the milk and asked in a low voice, "Can you really make that bus stop?"

Lin Zhao wanted to say yes.

But the words on the tip of his tongue, he remembered something Zhao Ye once said: Don't make promises to ordinary people about things you can't achieve.

So he said, "I don't know if we can stop it immediately."

"But we will go."

The boy nodded.

In the distance, in the direction of the Old City East Station, the abandoned electronic screen lit up for a second despite having no power supply.

[Confirming passenger.]

Before leaving home, the boy looked back for a long time.

The rolling door of the grocery store was pulled halfway down, and his mother was sitting inside calculating accounts, the abacus beads clicking in disarray.

She didn't know her son was being transferred, thinking only that he was going to stay at a classmate's house for the night.

Han Yue helped tell this lie, and after telling it, he was the one who felt upset first.

The boy stood at the street corner, refusing to leave.

Lin Zhao didn't rush him.

He used to think that protecting ordinary people meant moving them away from danger zones—fast actions, clear routes, no nonsense.

But now, watching the way the boy looked at the grocery store, he suddenly understood that a person is not an object that can simply be moved from a dangerous coordinate to a safe one.

The boy asked in a low voice, "What if my mom asks about it?"

Lin Zhao said, "Someone will be watching her."

"Who?"

"Han Yue, and people from the community."

The boy didn't quite believe it.

Lin Zhao also knew this guarantee wasn't strong enough, so he had to write his contact information on a piece of paper and hand it over.

"If something really happens to her, you can curse me."

The boy looked up at him.

"What good will cursing you do?"

Lin Zhao paused.

"Then I'll go save her."

This sentence wasn't pretty either, but the boy finally accepted the paper.

In the distance, the grocery store light box creaked again.

When the boy turned around, his eyes were red, but he still didn't cry.

Lin Zhao followed behind him, suddenly remembering that he wasn't much better off when he first entered Xinhuo Hall.

It's just that he had the identity of an adult to hide behind back then, so no one saw that he was afraid.

The boy didn't have such cover.

He was afraid, and it was obvious.

But he still told them the location of the station.

The next line of text slowly emerged.

[Passenger Name: Boy.]

When Lin Zhao saw this line of text, his throat tightened.

He suddenly really wanted to curse.

Not at the boy, nor at himself, but at that invisible vehicle.

It didn't pick the strong, it didn't pick adults, and it didn't pick those who thought they could control anomalies.

It only picked a child who would be afraid, who would hesitate, who would worry about his mother, and then wrote his name on the ticket.

This was more disgusting than killing someone directly.