Forgotten Photo Studio

Chapter 30 Conspiracy
Dark. Viscous. Filthy.

Xu Yan's consciousness struggled in the mud.

The brand on his right shoulder was no longer just a wound; it was a passage connecting to a vast, cold, and hungry being awakening underground, emanating an irresistible suction force that wanted to completely devour and assimilate him.

...Return...

The call of the abyss is directly imprinted on the deepest level of consciousness.

Just as he was about to be completely torn apart.

hot!
Two tiny stars suddenly lit up the boundless darkness!
The left breast is the burning oath of the covenant, the right pocket is the guide of the hair.

"...Ring the bell...Ring it until I remember..."

"...If the soul lamp has a core, it can guide the way..."

Broken thoughts pierce the darkness like a sharp sword.

"Uh……!"

Xu Yan took a deep breath of cold, murky air and coughed violently like a drowning person, regaining control of his body. His vision blurred and then focused.

He remained paralyzed in the ruins of the corridor, the air thick with a mixture of dust, ozone, and the fading stench of decay.

The sounds of fighting could be heard sporadically in the distance; the core of the domain had been destroyed, but the filth remained.

He struggled to get up, but his heart sank.

His entire right arm, from shoulder to fingertips, was a deathly grayish-white, like plaster.

On the surface of the skin, countless fine, dark blue lines, like a stream of living data, rose up and flickered eerily with the pulsation of the brand on the shoulder.

His five fingers were stiff and cold, and they were not his.

This is the assimilation mark left by that giant hand, a slow and irreversible process of erosion.

The emptiness in my mind is even more suffocating.

Chen Zhiwei...

The name flashed by, but instead of a face, it brought a sharp ringing of bells, the bitterness of medicinal tea, and a sharp pain as if the heart were being tightly gripped.

The concept of mother... has sunk into eternal night, leaving not even a tombstone.

The price of forgetting is turning him into a walking wasteland.

Must leave!

He propped himself up with his still-functioning left hand and leaned against the broken wall, panting.

The camera hung silently, cold and hungry.

Just then, a faint, intermittent sobbing sound, like static mixed with a bad signal, caught his attention.

From the direction of the off television set at the end of the corridor.

Xu Yan felt a chill run down his spine. He gripped the camera tightly, dragged his crippled right arm, and staggered away.

The hall was in a mess.

The television shattered, and the vase turned to ash.

The sobbing sound came from the shadows in the corner behind the television.

A figure was huddled there.

A young woman in a caregiver's uniform, her body semi-transparent, flickered and trembled violently, like a broken video about to collapse.

She covered her face with her hands, her shoulders trembled, and she cried out in despair.

Xu Yan stopped abruptly, alert.

He could sense that it was the lingering echo of a strong obsession, about to dissipate.

She suddenly raised her head, her face no longer contorted with black tears, but filled with endless fear and dissipating sorrow.

"Who? Save me... I don't want to die... I don't want to forget..." she cried out in panic, her voice emphasizing the words.

"What exactly happened here?" Xu Yan asked in a hoarse voice.

“I’ve forgotten… I’ve forgotten everything…” Her eyes were vacant, the image suddenly tore apart into static-like fragments, then struggled to reassemble. “They… ‘television’… said it could bring peace… but it’s stealing… it’s stealing!”

"Steal my laughter! Steal my name! Steal the sound of my daughter calling me 'Mom'—!" She suddenly shrieked, her body exploding into countless twisted, shadowy fragments, which then barely coalesced in the next second, fading considerably, leaving only sobs. "...Only...fear remains..."

Xu Yan felt a chill creep up his spine.

"Steal it, and then what?"

"Underground... cold... old things..." Her voice was barely audible, her image almost transparent, "Awake... likes to eat... likes to eat empty shells..."

Fragments of the truth, like icicles, pierced Xu Yan's mind. The television and the vase extracted, amplified, and stored negative emotions, serving as bait to awaken and feed the ancient beings underground!

"Who is it?" he pressed, suppressing his anger.

The image of the female caregiver is fleeting like smoke, about to disappear completely.

She tried to recall, her face showing extreme fear.

"A very clean...a very cold woman...she was wearing..."

The voice was like a murmur, almost inaudible.

"...gold-rimmed...glasses..."

As she uttered her last few words, her image vanished like smoke blown away by the wind, disappearing completely in a flash.

In the empty corner, only a lingering whisper remained:
"...I don't want to forget..."

Xu Yan stood frozen in place, his blood frozen.

Gold-rimmed glasses.

Supervisor Lin.

The "center" is the mastermind!

Anger and disgust gripped my throat.

He leaned against the wall, breathing heavily, his graying right arm growing heavier.

We must get this message back!

He struggled to leave, his gaze sweeping over the broken television set. Embedded among the twisted parts was something.

A small, absolutely dark blue flake, resembling a crystal or a chip.

It exudes a non-light-like aura that seems to absorb all sound waves, causing the surrounding air to fall into a deathly vacuum, completely out of place with all the madness and filth of this place.

As if guided by some unseen force, Xu Yan reached out his left hand, probed into the wreckage, and pried it out, ignoring the sharp, scraped edges.

It lay in my palm, cool, smooth, and heavier than the laws of physics.

That deep, dark blue seemed to devour one's vision. Even more strangely, the moment it touched the skin, the clamor of grief, whispers, and even the burning pain in the lines on Xu Yan's right arm seemed to be separated by an extremely thin yet absolutely tough membrane, becoming distant and blurred.

An almost terrifying silence enveloped him.

At the same time, the dark gold wide-angle lens in the camera lens on his chest rotated extremely slightly and on its own, almost imperceptibly, as if attracted by the thin film, or perhaps... in a wary standoff.

What is this?
"Found you!" a panting voice boomed.

Ah Zhe rushed into the hall, his glasses shattered, his face contorted with anxiety.

"Hurry! The cleanup team is coming soon! They won't leave anyone alive!" His gaze swept over Xu Yan's right arm, his pupils contracted sharply, and he didn't have time to ask any more questions.

Immediately, he saw the object in Xu Yan's left hand, and his face turned horrified.

"'Soul-Suppressing Iron'?! Where did you get this damn thing?!"

"What is this?" Xu Yan pressed.

"The coffin nail of the 'center'! It's also the key! With it, we'll be a perpetual motion machine! Let's go!" A-Zhe practically lunged at him and grabbed him.

In the distance, the deep hum of heavy equipment rapidly approached, and the scent of death filled the air.

Xu Yan no longer hesitated and gripped the "fragment of silence" that swallowed the sound tightly.

The icy, deathly stillness slightly suppressed the chaos within his body.

With A Zhe's help, he rushed toward the exit.

The moment he took a step, the silent fragment pressed against his left palm and the strange data patterns on his right arm both stirred.

The fragment itself seemed to throb very faintly, like a heart that had been dormant for billions of years beating for the first time.

The lines on the right arm, upon receiving this throbbing sensation, did not simply freeze. Rather, as if encountering a natural enemy or a supreme command, all the flickering and wriggling froze completely, presenting an absolute, submissive stillness.

At the same time, a thought that belonged neither to him nor to the ghostly hand on his shoulder, cold, ancient, and empty, like nothingness from the beginning of the universe, seeped directly into his mind:

"……end……"

Xu Yan stumbled and almost fell.

That was more than just a sound.

That was a law.

(End of this chapter)