Forgotten Photo Studio

Chapter 28 Silent Symphony
pure white.

An absolute pure white that strips away all reference points.

Time and space lose their meaning here.

Xu Yan felt as if he were sinking in a thick sea of ​​milk.

Only the cold touch of the talisman on his chest and the persistent, low-frequency burning pain from the brand on his right shoulder, like two nails, anchored his remaining sense of self in this void.

The click of the shutter as the door closed still seems to echo deep in my ears, like a cold period.

After an unknown amount of time, a huge, flawless "screen" silently lit up directly in front of us, displaying a constantly flowing, complex spectrum.

Countless energy lines undulate and intertwine, forming a silent yet violent visual symphony.

Xu Yan could recognize some of the frequencies: the sharp, piercing sound of the "Lonely Building Ghost," the deep, mournful cry of the "Eye of Sorrow," and even a faint, residual data echo belonging to the "Small Boat."

They were stripped of their original form and reduced to cold, lifeless readings.

Immediately afterwards, one after another, blurry figures, like photographic images soaked in developing solution, appeared silently in this pure white space.

It is another contractor.

Xu Yan's gaze swept across the area quickly, like a cold lens.

On the left, a figure shrouded in a tattered black robe, the lamplighter, hunched over, clutches a rusty bronze lamp tightly in his arms, the flame of which is an ominous, eerie green.

Beneath his feet, the shadow was so thick it seemed to melt away, and it was writhing on its own.

On the right, a muscular, bald, strong man wearing a tactical vest is drilling his right arm. His right arm is made entirely of some kind of dark metal that drips black slime, and his fingertips are sharp drill bits that are spinning unconsciously, emitting a low hum.

Further away, a figure almost blends into the environment, only a slight distortion of light can be seen.

A woman with half a metal mask covering her face tapped her fingers anxiously on the outside of her thigh, her breathing rapid.

They maintained maximum distance from each other, their eyes wary and indifferent.

Xu Yan looked at them, at the "things" in their arms, on their bodies, and at their feet that did not belong to the living, and a sudden realization washed over him like ice water: he was not the only prisoner, nor the only experimental subject.

Every person here is a half-human, half-ghost sacrifice, carrying their own curses and shackles, driven by the "center" to tear each other apart for observation.

Just then, in the center of the huge spectrum, all the chaotic energy lines suddenly converged towards the center, outlining a blurry human figure.

That emotionless synthesized voice sounded again:
Everyone has arrived. Welcome to this symphony performance.

[Program: Purification]

[Target Unit: Area C-727, "Anxin Nursing Home"]

The spectrum instantly focused, magnifying the structure of the nursing home, but its interior was covered by a large, ever-expanding, murky dark red energy cluster. The fluctuation frequency of that energy cluster made Xu Yan feel a familiar nausea.

It shares the same origin as that USB drive, but its strength is more than a hundred times greater.

[Anomaly Description: Regional "Tide of Compassion" concentration exceeds standards. A large number of "Remembering Entities" have unnaturally accumulated and mutated, forming a preliminary domain and continuously transforming all living and non-living entities within the area. Classified as an "Infection" level threat.]

[Implementation Plan: Indiscriminate purification. Thoroughly eliminate all abnormal energy signatures and physical carriers in the C-727 area.]

[Instruction priority: highest.]

[Collaboration Mode: Forced Synchronization.]

“Forced synchronization?” The shadow figure holding the eerie green lamp scoffed, his voice like the scraping of a rusty blade. “Heh… you want my ‘old buddies’ to have a fight in there first, to liven things up for you?” He paused, then added sinisterly, “Compassion? Ha, I’ve already used that to feed the lamps. It doesn’t taste very good.”

No one responded to his "humor".

"Indiscriminate purification?" The masked woman took a sudden step forward, her voice shrill with anger. "Won't the scanner malfunction? What if there are still living people inside who haven't been converted?!"

The synthesized sounds were perfectly smooth, with a breathtakingly precise response speed:
[In accordance with Article 7, Section 11 of the agreement, necessary collateral damage is permitted to prevent the spread of pollution. All vital signs have disappeared three hours ago. Please do not worry.]

It paused, then added a sentence in a chilling tone that seemed to freeze the soul:
The frequency of human compassion is not included in the calculation parameters for this performance.

"Fuck your parameters!" the stern-faced woman growled, but the burly man behind her, operating the drill arm, merely twisted his neck numbly, the metal joints making a crisp "crack" sound, and mumbled, "Just pay up. I only care about this."

No need to worry. Compassion is ineffective.

The chill Xu Yan felt penetrated to his very bones.

This is destruction.

"Forced synchronization" is more like a dangerous experiment.

The spectrum diagram begins to assign each person's "voice". Xu Yan was assigned to a core node, "high intensity and long duration".

He noticed that the energy frequency band assigned to him highly overlapped with the frequency of the ghost hand brand on his shoulder.

A strong, physiological sense of disgust welled up inside me.

This is not a mission at all.

This is feeding.

It was the “Center” that was using the ghost tide of the entire nursing home as a sacrifice, forcing him to personally feed the monster on his shoulder that was constantly eroding him!

He suddenly looked around, and the atmosphere instantly became extremely tense.

[Countdown: 10, 9, 8...]

The synthesized sound began a chilling countdown.

[Seven, Six, Five...]

The metal drill arm of the drill arm spun rapidly, emitting a piercing screech; the shadow beneath the feet of the Shadow Man rolled and churned as if boiling; the figure of the Invisible Man fluctuated violently, revealing the cold glint of his weapon.

[IV. Three...]

Xu Yan's fingertips pressed on the cold shutter button.

Amidst the chilling sounds of preparation for battle, the protective talisman inside his robe seemed to scorch slightly.

An image uncontrollably flashed into my mind: Chen Zhiwei stood at the entrance of the photo studio, clutching the Soul-Suppressing Bell tightly in her hand, her eyes resolute.

【two……】

【one. 】

【The performance begins.】

The pure white space suddenly vanished.

A strong feeling of weightlessness came over me.

The next second, the pungent smell of blood, disinfectant, and some indescribable, sweet, putrid stench of aging and death slammed into Xu Yan's face like a tangible hammer.

He found himself standing in a dark, damp corridor.

The once warm and inviting landscape painting on the wall was now covered by large splattered, slightly wriggling dark red stains.

The fluorescent tubes overhead flickered on and off. In the intervals between each flicker, in the shadows where the light couldn't reach, countless hunched, twisted figures dressed in old people's pajamas slowly and silently gathered.

They have no eyes; where facial features should be, there are only empty holes from which black tears constantly flow.

They all turned slowly and in unison towards the suddenly appearing intruders.

What's even more chilling is that their withered lips are opening and closing silently and in sync, repeatedly making the same mouth shape:
"No...don't...leave...me..."

However, what came from deep within their throats was not human speech, but a sticky, rustling sound, as if countless worms were crawling.

The complete misalignment between lip movements and sound creates a kind of terror stemming from cognitive dissonance that is even more devastating than a simple scream.

In the eerie, creeping silence, Xu Yan suddenly saw, at the end of the corridor, the relatively clearer shadow of an old woman. Her mouth shape was different from the other monsters; she was silently, desperately calling out another word:

"daughter……"

But in just half a second, a torrent of black tears gushed from her empty eye sockets, instantly flooding her face. Her body stiffened, and her lips mechanically opened and closed in sync, merging into the silent chorus of "Don't leave me."

The entire nursing home was like a giant, still-beating, rotting heart.

And they were thrown into the deepest part of the heart.

Xu Yan raised his camera without hesitation.

Through the viewfinder, he saw a suffocating, dark red tide of pure sorrow and resentment surging in from all directions.

Beneath that tide, in a deeper place, the brand on his shoulder throbbed with unprecedented heat, as if sensing an even more ancient, colder, and hungrier presence.

Awakened by this tide of compassion and their invasion, they slowly opened their eyes from the depths of the abyss.

(End of this chapter)