Forgotten Photo Studio

Chapter 31 The Law of Silence
"……end……"

That wasn't a voice; it was an absolute decree, a cold, icy edict.

It directly penetrated the depths of Xu Yan's consciousness, altering the present world.

Time is cut off, and dust stagnates.

The buzzing of the cleaning crew, A-Zhe's panting, and my own thunderous heartbeat.

All sound was choked in the throat by an invisible giant hand, plunging into an absolute silence that chilled the soul.

Only the deep blue "Soul-Suppressing Iron" in his palm emitted a void barrier that devoured everything.

In this deathly silence, Xu Yan couldn't even hear the sound of his own blood flowing, as if he had turned into a corpse in an instant.

This absolute stillness lasted for perhaps half a second.

But it's enough.

"Damn! What's going on..."

Ah Zhe's exclamation seemed to come from the very depths of the water, and then abruptly stopped.

His remaining smart lens instantly emitted a chaotic black and white static electricity, before going completely black.

His face showed even greater shock than before, and he didn't waste any words.

Driven by his survival instinct, he desperately grabbed Xu Yan, smashed open the rickety safety door, and rushed into the backyard.

Cold air rushed into the lungs.

Behind me, that chilling buzzing sound drew closer once more.

"This way!"

Ah Zhe growled and lunged at the rusty septic tank cover in the corner, the stench filling the air.

"Are you crazy?!"

"Trust me if you want to live!" He pried open the well cover with all his might, revealing the darkness filled with marsh gas.

"The old pipeline is below! They're scanning for blind spots! It's the only way out!"

A pale beam of light shot out from inside the door, sweeping across the courtyard.

The cleanup team has arrived.

call out……!
A high-frequency pulse beam grazed Xu Yan's scalp, melting red dots onto the wall behind him.

Absolutely lethal force.

Ah Zhe let out a strange cry and jumped into the darkness first.

Xu Yan glanced back and saw several figures in fully enclosed white protective suits and mirrored helmets blocking the doorway, their weapons gleaming coldly.

There is no escape route.

He jumped into the well.

boom!
puff.

His body slammed against the slippery pipe wall, slid down rapidly, and finally plunged into the cold, foul-smelling deep sewage.

Darkness and filth engulfed him.

The sound of a manhole cover closing and the muffled thud of an energy weapon came from above, then quickly faded into the distance.

He struggled to his feet in waist-deep sewage, the biting cold and stench almost overwhelming his senses.

"Over here! Quickly!"

Ah Zhe's voice rang out not far away; a faint glow stick was the only signpost in hell.

Xu Yan trekked there.

This is a slightly larger confluence, filled with marsh gas, and deathly silence returns.

Ah Zhe leaned against the wall, panting heavily, still shaken.

He glanced at Xu Yan's right arm, which looked even more inhuman in the dim light, and his lips twitched.

"Damn it... I'm really done for this time... 'Soul-Suppressing Iron'... You actually dared to touch that thing..." His voice trembled with genuine fear.

"What exactly is this?"

Xu Yan raised his left hand, but the air around the thin sheet remained as still as a vacuum.

"Trouble! What else could it be!"

Ah Zhe almost jumped up, his voice shrill with fear.

“Dug out of an ‘old world’ grave…who knows if it buried a god or killed an immortal!…This thing should never have seen the light of day again! That broken TV used it as a talisman…it’s…it’s insane…”

He spoke incoherently, his words laced with deep fear and curses.

Xu Yan looked at the thin iron in his palm.

A suppressor? Is that why it could remain absolutely "silent" amidst that madness?
"It...has a will."

Xu Yan recalled the "stop" rule of the ice.

Ah Zhe exclaimed as if he'd been burned: "Bullshit! It's just... a knife that can kill 'sound'!"

Before he could finish speaking, Xu Yan's grayish-white right arm suddenly twitched involuntarily and spasmodically!
The dark blue data patterns beneath his skin writhed wildly, resisting the suppression of "silence," while a cold and violent will surged up his arm, attempting to reconnect with the call from the earth.

Despair and a sense of being consumed by something like an ice tide instantly overwhelmed Xu Yan.

He knew that if things continued like this, he would soon become a hungry ghost, completely forgetting Chen Zhiwei, the photo studio, and who he was.

...You must remember...Master...Zhiwei...Ring the bell...

The remaining will flickered wildly in the cold, corrosive heat, like a candle in the wind.

...But what will we use to remember it?!

...I've almost forgotten...it's all...empty...

The extreme despair and anger, like explosives compressed to their limit, detonated violently in his chest.

Then... none of us should live anymore.

He suddenly raised his head, the last trace of humanity in his eyes vanished, replaced by an almost inhuman, cold madness.

He raised his gray right arm, which was twitching and trying to betray him, and pointed it into the depths of the dark pipe.

From there, a sticky, dense gurgling sound could be heard.

Clumps of pale, swollen, human-shaped objects, as if pieced together from being soaked in water, slowly rose from the sewage and silently surrounded them.

They have no facial features, only their bodies occasionally crack open with a "pop," spraying out foul-smelling sewage, making a wet sound like a sigh or a bursting bubble.

“…It’s a ‘water-bloated corpse’…” Ah Zhe’s face turned ashen, and he slammed his back against the wall. “…It’s over…”

Twisted monsters in front, and deadly cleanup teams behind.

Desperate situation.

Xu Yan looked at the all-consuming "Soul-Suppressing Iron" in his hand, then at the silent camera on his chest.

A crazy and resolute thought devoured all hesitation.

He suddenly thrust the "Soul-Suppressing Iron" in his left hand, which exuded a deathly aura, as if he were holding a poisoned dagger, fiercely and resolutely stabbing it into the center of the most violently writhing dark blue lines on his right arm.

"What are you going to do?!" A-Zhe's scream changed tone.

"Feed it." Xu Yan's voice was eerily calm.

"Pfft!"

A sound that was not a tearing of flesh and blood, but rather a sound originating from the level of incantations and magic, suddenly burst forth, causing teeth to shatter.

The moment the Soul-Suppressing Iron touched the Ghost Hand pattern, time seemed to freeze once again.

The deep blue light and the ominous cyan-black light intertwined, tore, and annihilated each other wildly.

Beneath the skin of Xu Yan's right arm, it felt as if countless extremely fine, cold glass needles were growing and piercing wildly.

"Uhhhhh!!!"

Xu Yan finally couldn't help but let out a painful roar, his entire arm trembling violently, as if it would completely disintegrate in the next second.

The terrifying blue-black light instantly expanded silently from him, like an eruption from the underworld, forming an absolute "silent domain".

Wherever the Dharma Domain swept, the "bloated corpses" that were slowly approaching and spewing sewage, their movements, the wet sounds of bubbles bursting inside their bodies, and even the resentful fluctuations emanating from their bodies... everything was instantly frozen, stagnant, and plunged into deathly silence.

They were like terrifying wax figures that had been suddenly put on pause, frozen on the murky water, maintaining the horrifying posture they had just been in.

At the intersection of the entire pipeline network, a depth deeper than death itself was plunged...

Absolute annihilation.

Only Xu Yan's painful gasps became the only jarring noise in this deathly silent world.

He knelt in the sewage, his left hand pressed tightly against his right arm, where the fragments of silence seemed to be slowly "sinking" into his flesh, engaging in a perilous fusion and confrontation with the curse of the ghostly hand.

Ah Zhe stared wide-eyed at this incomprehensible scene, so shocked he forgot to breathe.

at this time.

Gulu.

A very faint yet exceptionally clear bubbling sound came from the depths of the dark pipes behind the "water-bloated corpses" group that were frozen by the Silent Law Domain.

In this absolute silence, this faint sound was no less than a thunderclap.

It was as if something... was completely unaffected by this "imposition of silence".

And it is being struck by this violent energy...

They were attracted to it.

(End of this chapter)