Forgotten Photo Studio

Chapter 17 Energy Planner A Zhe

In the lobby of the Forgotten Photo Studio, the air was as stagnant as glue.

The flame of the eternal lamp no longer leaped, but burned straight upwards, drawing a thin and stiff yellow line, as if it too felt suffocated under this invisible pressure.

The old-fashioned filing cabinet in the corner occasionally made a very faint "click" sound, as if something inside was fidgeting restlessly.

Chen Zhiwei leaned back in the old sofa, a cold towel on her forehead, her face still pale.

Xu Yan knelt down beside her, using tweezers to pick up a cotton ball soaked in medicine and carefully wipe the deep, bone-revealing wound on her tiger's mouth.

The medicine was very irritating, and Chen Zhiwei's body tensed up almost imperceptibly, but she didn't make a sound.

Her other hand remained on the compass beside her. The needle no longer throbbed, but lay flat as if exhausted, only occasionally swaying very slightly, in sync with her slightly rapid breathing.

“The crack in the bell can be repaired with the Spirit Nourishing Ointment, but the crack will remain.” Her voice was hoarse, filled with deep weariness. “It shielded me from the worst backlash.”

Xu Yan nodded silently, his movements focused yet clumsy.

He's not the type to take care of people, but at this moment he's doing every detail with utmost care.

The smell of ozone from the burning data in the subway station still seemed to linger at the tip of my nose, mixed with the bitter scent of the herbal ointment, creating a conflicting yet eerie tranquility.

However, this peace is extremely fragile.

Just as he was about to change the bandage, a sharp pain suddenly shot through his right shoulder blade, as if he had been stabbed hard by an ice pick.

He froze, let out a muffled groan, and almost dropped the tweezers.

"Senior brother?" Chen Zhiwei immediately noticed and opened her eyes.

"...It's nothing." Xu Yan took a deep breath, suppressing the sudden, sharp pain. But the cold sensation did not completely subside, as if a piece of ice that would never melt was firmly imprinted there.

Worse still, the faint, damp whispers echoed in my ears again, intermittent and indistinct, yet like venomous snakes burrowing straight into my brain.

It is not an illusion.

It's back, and clearer and hungrier than ever before.

Chen Zhiwei's gaze fell on his suddenly tense profile, then slowly moved to his seemingly unharmed right shoulder, her eyes filled with worry.

“Ever since I came back, the atmosphere in ‘home’ has been off,” she said softly, her fingers unconsciously tracing the cold edge of the compass. “Something… has followed me in. It’s cold and old.”

As if to confirm her words, the screen of Xu Yan's encrypted terminal on the counter suddenly lit up by itself.

There was no notification, no information.

There was only a distorted, constantly changing black and white noise, like an old television set that had failed to tune.

Amidst the swirling noise, an extremely brief, blurry, human-face-like outline occasionally forms, only to be swallowed up by even more static electricity.

It emits a very low, meaningless buzzing sound.

Xu Yan's eyes sharpened, and he reached out to take the terminal.

The moment his fingertip touched it, the noise on the screen suddenly subsided, and it switched to an extremely complex audio waveform analysis interface.

A highlighted frequency band is playing automatically on a loop, and the harsh sound waves, mixed with countless cries and electrical noises, are visualized, forming a cluster of sharp, constantly trembling peaks and valleys.

A line of small text pops up below, from a highly encrypted temporary channel:

[Match accuracy 87.3%. Attached: Excerpt from your home's 'background noise' spectrum analysis report. Interested? Let's chat? You choose the location, a safe house in the wilderness, I'm alone. —AZ]

Xu Yan's gaze was fixed on the marked frequency.

Although the sound quality has been processed, the core, unsettling, and sorrowful tone is of the same origin and nature as the energy fluctuations of the "sad eyes" in the subway station.

And this "AZ" was able to accurately detect the abnormal frequency emanating from the newly attached "ghost hand" on him, even from a distance?!

This is not a test; it is a precise diagnosis and an irresistible lure.

He gripped the terminal tightly, his knuckles turning white.

Xu Yan stared at the screen, her fingertips tapping lightly on the table.

The noise flickered incessantly, like someone calling to him through the darkness. He didn't move immediately.

The dull pain in his shoulder made his breathing difficult, and what made him hesitate even more was Chen Zhiwei, who was still fast asleep on the sofa.

Her injuries were far more serious than they appeared.

In the subway station, she bravely resisted the "pulling" for him, and blood seeped from the corner of her lips; he remembered it clearly.

Now, he is leaving alone to meet an "energy planner" whose credibility is unclear.

A moment of resistance flashed through Xu Yan's mind.

If he leaves, and there are any further disturbances in this old building, can Chen Zhiwei handle it?

But if he doesn't leave... the thing in the noise will only get closer and closer, and the hand on his shoulder will eventually grab him completely.

He gritted his teeth and suppressed his hesitation.

The fog outside was thick. He pulled up his trench coat, pushed open the door, and went out.

……

The abandoned North District Radio and Television Tower, top-floor maintenance platform.

The night wind howled, making people's clothes flutter.

Beneath my feet lies a blurry sea of ​​city lights, and above me, a sparse starry sky. Here, the space is vast and isolated, and any approaching person is exposed.

When Xu Yan arrived, A Zhe was already there.

He wasn't wearing those exaggerated smart glasses. He leaned against a rusty iron frame, fiddling with a palm-sized holographic projector in his hand. The pale blue light cast dappled stripes on his face.

An octopus-shaped drone hovered silently above his head, its camera slowly rotating to scan the surrounding environment.

"Tsk, the boss is cautious. He chose this place; the signal is so bad that even ghosts wouldn't want to come here." Ah Zhe raised his head, his face still bearing that carefree smile, but his eyes held a hint of scrutiny and seriousness.

His gaze swept quickly over Xu Yan's entire body, lingering for a moment on her right shoulder, a knowing smile curving his lips.

"The stuff." Xu Yan got straight to the point, without any pleasantries.

“Impatient.” Ah Zhe shrugged and snapped his fingers.

A soft beam of light shot out from below the drone, weaving in the air to form a complex, constantly rotating three-dimensional energy structure.

At the heart of the model is a blurry humanoid silhouette, with a pale, parasitic energy body tightly wrapped around its right shoulder, constantly radiating distorted ripples.

“Look, real-time modeling. Your own ‘souvenir’.” Ah Zhe pointed at the pale energy with his finger. “The energy signature is ancient, on a completely different frequency band from the ‘new’ stuff in the central database. But interestingly, it seems to have recently been… ‘activated’. The fluctuation frequency resonates strongly with that ‘Eye of Sorrow’ you just dealt with. Doesn’t it look like… it woke up by a scent?”

His analogy made Xu Yan's stomach churn.

“Propose a solution.”

“Cure it completely? I don’t have that ability. The depth of this thing’s bond with you is beyond imagination. If you try to peel it off by force, you’ll probably be the first one to break.” A Zhe’s smile faded, and he became more pragmatic. “But I can make a ‘filter’ or a ‘damper’.”

He pulled a black metal block, slightly larger than a USB flash drive, from his pocket. It had a smooth surface, no interfaces, and only a few extremely faint breathing lights that were slowly flashing.

“It’s a little gadget I made myself. It doesn’t cure the root cause, but it can absorb and disrupt the specific frequency fluctuations it emits to some extent. If it works well, it can make your ears a little quieter, and when it ‘activates,’ it won’t be so… easy for certain monitoring systems to detect.” He smiled meaningfully. “Of course, it can also reduce its direct impact on your emotions.”

“Conditions.” Xu Yan took the cold metal block.

“Wear this on your next mission.” Ah Zhe tossed over an even smaller, sensor-like patch. “It records the energy throughout the entire mission, especially the data from your precious camera. I’m curious.”

Xu Yan stared at him, her gaze sharp as a knife: "Just curious?"

"Your camera is more sophisticated than any database... I really want to take it apart and see." Ah Zhe grinned, put his smart glasses back on, and a glint of light flashed on the lenses: "For ancient manuals that you can't understand, isn't the best way to understand them to see how they work with your own eyes? Fair price, no cheating."

The deal is done.

Without further ado, the two quickly left the platform one after the other.

(End of this chapter)