Forgotten Photo Studio

Chapter 33 The Whisper of Branding
The hungry demon writhed and rolled violently before being forcibly pushed back into the mud.

It's the "center's" cleanup team!
They used a powerful, boundary-breaking magical artifact.

"...An abnormal surge in target activity was observed, confirming that it is assimilating the 'Exorcising White Light'...Threat level determined to be above the critical threshold. Collateral damage: Two contractors. Execute top command: Indiscriminate purification until the target is silenced."

A cold, inhuman voice came from above the breach, without any fluctuation, as if discussing the removal of filth.

The beam of light from the incandescent searchlight shone down, illuminating both terror and despair.

"It's the 'Yang Sha Cannon'! They'll even use their own people's yang energy as firewood!" A-Zhe screamed amidst the noise and vibration, his face filled with absurd ecstasy. "They're insane! Good! Let them fight like dogs!"

More white light, imbued with the power to dispel evil, poured down like a torrential rain, bombarding and restricting the "hunger demon."

The intense yang energy caused the sewage to boil and vaporize.

The "Hungry Demon" was thoroughly enraged. Its enormous form rolled upwards, and its core vortex spun wildly, beginning to devour the white light that was bombarding it.

The power of pure Yang was swept into the pale mud, like a clay ox entering the sea, only making it more violent and intensifying its hunger.

Exclamations and the buzzing of the overloaded magical artifacts came from above.

opportunity!

Xu Yan and A Zhe exchanged a glance, unleashed their full potential, and tumbled and crawled into the deeper darkness.

Behind him were explosions, the roar of magic, and the twisted howl of that ancient being as it devoured everything, a howl that caused yin and yang to turn upside down and wail.

They dared not look back, running desperately, sewage splashing on their faces, their lungs burning.

I don't know how far they ran, but the sound gradually faded into the distance.

In the end, only the heartbeat, panting, and the sound of water remained.

Exhausted, the two collapsed on a dry maintenance platform, like fish out of water.

In the deathly silence, only the heartbeats of survivors could be heard.

After catching his breath, Ah Zhe looked at Xu Yan's right arm, which was shimmering with an ominous blue-black light but had temporarily stabilized. His voice trembled, almost changing tone:

"...Are you crazy?! How dare you stick 'Soul-Suppressing Iron'... directly into your own arm?! That stuff is for suppressing ghosts, not for feeding people!"

Xu Yan did not answer.

He looked down at his right arm.

The excruciating pain felt like thousands of glass needles churning inside his blood vessels, but amidst this agony, he could clearly sense a strange "balance."

The Soul-Suppressing Iron is draining his blood.

With each heartbeat, warm blood was swallowed by that cold iron, while at the same time, the soul-suppressing power it released fiercely fought against the "ghost hand" on his right arm, like two ferocious beasts tearing at his flesh and bones.

This power was beyond his capacity to withstand, yet he had no choice but to endure it.

Seeing his face growing paler and paler, his lips almost turning blue from lack of blood, Ah Zhe was so anxious that he broke out in a cold sweat: "No! If this continues, you'll be completely drained! Pull that thing out! Pull it out now!"

Before he could finish speaking, he suddenly reached out to grab it.

The moment my fingertips touched that exposed piece of metal.

"Om."

The Soul-Suppressing Iron began to vibrate on its own, emitting a low, piercing hum!

The next second, like a ravenous snake, it burrowed deeper into the flesh! The cold, metallic light vanished into the blood and flesh, disappearing completely in an instant!
"Holy crap!" Ah Zhe exclaimed in shock, jerking his hand back so hard his eyes nearly popped out. "It...it crawled inside?!"

Xu Yan grunted and knelt on one knee, veins bulging on his forehead.

He raised his right arm, where the Soul-Suppressing Iron had once been inserted, but now it was empty.

But on his palm was a very shallow yet exceptionally clear mark—as if branded by the coldest karmic fire.

The pale blue outline is exactly the same as the shape of the fragment.

It's not lost.

It fulfilled some kind of contract.

It remained inside his body.

Xu Yan stared at the mark, a chill even deeper than when he faced the "Hungry Ghost" creeping up his spine. Deep within the pipeline, deathly silence returned, but it was no longer the absolute vacuum of death.

Rather, it is a suffocating silence born of exhaustion, survival, and being gripped by a deeper fear.

The only sound was the dripping of sewage from my body.

pat, pat.

The impact of the hammering on the cold concrete platform was exceptionally clear.

Ah Zhe's breathing was heavy, like a broken bellows. He was slumped on the ground, his broken glasses askew, but his gaze was fixed on Xu Yan's outstretched right palm.

The pale blue mark, with its clear lines, resembled a scar left after ice and fire intertwined.

"It...it didn't disappear..."

Ah Zhe's voice trembled violently, and he couldn't finish a sentence several times. Finally, he grabbed his hair and his voice became shrill and distorted.

"The Soul-Suppressing Iron...it actually...fused with you?! This isn't a mark, it's a 'debt'! A debt that the 'Center' would chase all the way to the underworld to collect! Holy crap...it's all over...it's all over!"

His fear was fragmented, yet so real it was suffocating.

Xu Yan did not respond immediately, but stared at his palm with a deep look in his eyes.

He extended his fingertip and gently touched the brand.

There was no expected coldness or heat, only a chilling emptiness. It was as if the flesh no longer belonged to oneself, but was merely a canvas imprinted there.

Even more bizarrely, when his fingertips brushed the edge, an extremely faint "humming" reverberated deep within his mind.

It wasn't a sound, but a vibration, cold and pure, carrying a kind of almost mechanical order.

The cursed hand on his right arm, which had been dormant due to "fullness," twitched slightly like a startled wild beast, but then... retreated.

Xu Yan's heart skipped a beat.

This mark... is truly suppressing it! Moreover, it's deeper and more direct than simply "entrusting" it to the Soul-Suppressing Iron.

Ah Zhe looked up, his eyes filled with surprise and doubt: "You... what kind of constitution do you have? All the sedatives I've seen either suppress or backfire, I've never heard of one that can... fuse with a person! You're risking your life as a vessel!"

His voice was weak, as if he was forcibly suppressing his fear with reason: "This characteristic... if the 'Center' knew about it, they would definitely want to take you back even more than the 'Ghost Hand' itself!"

Xu Yan did not respond.

He slowly closed his right hand, the tremor in his heart lingering for a long time.

My master put me in charge of the photo studio. Could it be that... he had really foreseen this situation all along?
The buzzing in my palm subsided, but the lingering coldness remained.

He raised his eyes and looked back at the pitch-black road he had come from.

In the distance, the commotion of the battlefield had long since subsided. Regardless of the fate of the "hunger monsters" or the cleanup team, they had no right to investigate.

The most important thing right now is to leave alive.

"How do we get out?" Xu Yan asked in a low voice, his voice hoarse and rough, like the grinding of gravel.

A Zhe paused, as if struggling to pull a sliver of reason from the mire of fear. His hands trembled as he reached for the completely black screen of the smart glasses and tapped it—but there was no response.

He pulled off his glasses and gave a wry smile: "Alright, technology is completely useless this time... Looks like we'll have to rely on your folk customs."

“This…this old pipe network…has so many branching paths it could drive a ghost mad…” He licked his chapped lips, trying to recall, “I remember…going in the direction of ‘the murkier water’…there was probably…an abandoned floodgate that led to the old city moat…”

His tone was full of uncertainty.

Without instruments to guide you in this underground labyrinth, it's like a blind man riding a blind horse.

"Lead the way." Xu Yan said succinctly, struggling to stand up.

Ah Zhe pointed to a narrower, more heavily corroded pipe on the left: "...This way...let's try our luck..."

The two of them trudged through the filth once again, one step at a time.

The darkness was so thick it was impenetrable, with only Ah Zhe's glow stick providing a faint light source, barely illuminating the nauseating water surface and the slippery pipe walls beneath our feet.

(End of this chapter)