Forgotten Photo Studio

Chapter 67 Jade Cicada
That wasn't ice; it was a wisp of soul that had been forcibly "sucked away"!
The jade cicada appears to be eating.

In the blink of an eye, the sounds of his breathing, pulse, and blood flow... all vanished.

If someone were to pass by at this moment, they would only see a shadow devoid of any "human presence".

A small note on the side:
"The Cicada of Concealed Breath: Wearing it can conceal one's vital energy."

Note: It feeds on souls. ...To open the door, one must pay..."

Xu Yan felt a sudden chill run down his spine.

This means that with each door he opens, he has to sacrifice a part of himself.

In the end, will "yourself" be left?
Or perhaps, it doesn't require sacrificing one's soul? Everything remains to be seen.

He gripped the jade cicada tightly with his fingers, cold sweat beading on his forehead.

Suddenly, a symbol stung his eyes.

It was an inconspicuous mark somewhere on the page, yet it overlapped with something vaguely remembered.

He remembered.

When he was a child, his father, Xu Haoyu, gave him a small, dark blue sheet, which looked like a crystal or a chip, with the same symbols engraved on it.

The father repeatedly instructed, "You must carry it with you at all times."

At the time, young Xu Yan didn't understand; he only remembered his father's unprecedentedly solemn expression, and how his voice trembled slightly when he handed over the thin, dark blue slice.

"Yan'er... if one day you hear the door open, no matter who calls you, don't open it."

For a moment, he thought his father was telling some kind of "childhood scares," until many years later he realized that it was not a joke, but a taboo originating from the underworld.

But later, that thing mysteriously disappeared...

Now, he sees the same symbols again in this book.

—This is no coincidence.

My father... was far more than just an ordinary researcher and a top-tier contractor.

Xu Yan's chest heaved violently, a mixture of confusion and doubt swirling in his mind.

He stared at the handwritten copy and the jade cicada in his hands, as if he could see a dark path full of thorns leading straight to a bottomless abyss.

Zhou Wenbin is dead, but the legacy he left behind is an entire book of the Underworld's original scriptures, a perilous path that defies the natural order and even Zhou Wenbin himself could not traverse.

Xu Yan slowly closed the book, but his fingertips could still feel the coldness of the jade cicada's soul-devouring power.

This is the path our fathers left unfinished, but perhaps it is also the path that will lead them to destruction.

He stood up, the night wind making his shadow long and slanted, twisting and deforming among the ruins, sometimes like a staircase leading to the abyss, sometimes like a wild beast poised to pounce.

Unbeknownst to him, behind him, the quietly closed book's cover, under the moonlight, had its stepped pattern subtly... extended upwards by one level.

The wind in the unfinished building carried the stench of concrete and rust.

Xu Yan carefully hid the "Eighteen Gates Secret Records" and the jade cicada close to his body. The heavy weight of the jade cicada was not only physical, but also felt like it was pressing directly on his soul.

Instead of returning directly to the photo studio, he wandered like a ghost on the edge of the city, using the darkness and dilapidated buildings to conceal his whereabouts.

In my mind, the whispers of the book and Zhou Wenbin's dying roar echoed alternately.

With each heartbeat, he could feel a faint yet persistent cold, stinging pain emanating from the Soul-Suppressing Iron Brand on his right palm, as if constantly reminding him of the seal's existence and the restlessness of the "Abyss" within him.

As dawn broke, he returned to the Forgotten Photo Studio like a shadow.

The building was deathly silent, with dust floating in the faint light filtering through the cracks in the door.

Chen Zhiwei was still lying on the old sofa, breathing shallowly and steadily, as if she had just fallen into a deep sleep and was completely unaware of everything that had happened the night before.

Ah Zhe isn't here; he must have gone home to rest and hasn't returned yet.

Xu Yan slumped to the floor next to her, leaning against the sofa, overwhelmed by a wave of intense exhaustion.

He closed his eyes, trying to calm his still churning breath, but his temples throbbed with pain, and he seemed to still hear lingering hallucinations of ghostly wails.

Just then, the jade cicada he kept close to his body suddenly felt a very subtle, yet undeniable, throbbing sensation. The feeling was like a piece of ice gently tapping on his chest.

It wasn't an attack; it was more like a... guide of thirst.

Xu Yan suddenly opened his eyes and looked in the direction he was following the faint sense of direction from the throbbing. His gaze fell on the old elm wood cabinet in the corner where the negatives and files were stored.

The cabinet itself was normal, but the sensation transmitted by the jade cicada clearly pointed to it.

He forced himself to stand up and walked to the cabinet.

The closer they got, the more obvious Yu Chan's throbbing became, even revealing a hint of greedy eagerness.

He hesitated for a moment, then opened one of the drawers.

Inside were some old photographic equipment and yellowed old photos, nothing special.

But when he pulled open the bottommost and heaviest drawer, Yu Chan's heartbeat suddenly became sharp!

In the drawer, besides some discarded photographic paper, a dusty, hard-covered old photo album lay quietly in the corner.

The photo album itself was ordinary, but Yu Chan's senses were firmly fixed on it.

He stared at the symbols on the pages, and the childhood memory in his heart felt like it was being scraped open with a knife, the look on his father's face when he handed him the thin, dark blue sheet, the fear that couldn't be concealed in his eyes.

Xu Yan reached out and realized that his palm had been numb from the cold of the jade cicada.

The jade cicada suddenly trembled, as if it had smelled something.

That stirring within him drew him in.

Xu Yan picked up the photo album and brushed off the dust.

The cover has no text.

He took a deep breath and opened it.

The photos posted inside were not of people or landscapes, but rather some seemingly meaningless experimental shots of light and shadow: an overexposed corridor, a out-of-focus staircase corner, and the only clear doorknob in the pitch black... The photographer appeared to be his mentor, Chen Dingkun.

Is Yu Chan's longing precisely stemming from these discarded films?

Xu Yan held the jade cicada and tried to probe it with a wisp of spiritual energy.

In that instant, he "saw" that deep within these seemingly failed photographs, there remained extremely faint "marks" belonging to different souls!
These marks were so faint as to almost disappear, but to the jade cicada, they were like the scent of a delicacy.

"Feeding on souls is the 'key'..." The annotation in the secret record echoed in his mind.

Xu Yan stared at the discarded photos, hesitated for a moment, and finally picked one out from the bottom corner.

He recognized the photo; it was a blurry image his master had taken in a dark corner of the old factory years ago, showing only a faint afterimage of a human figure.

The soul imprint was almost dissipating; if we didn't try, it probably wouldn't last much longer.

The next instant, the cold jade stone suddenly vibrated, emitting a very faint hum.

The blurry figure's afterimage began to tremble violently, as if bitten by an invisible jaws. Before it could even scream, it turned into a wisp of green smoke and was swallowed by the jade cicada.

"Om-"

A chilling sensation seeped into Xu Yan's palm through the jade cicada, and he felt a sudden darkness before his eyes, as if he had fallen into some void.

After a moment, the jade cicada quieted down and a faint blue luster appeared on its surface.

His fingers trembled slightly.

Jade Cicada can indeed feed on remnant souls, and it can even turn "forgetting" into its own gifts.

"This is temptation," he said coldly to himself.

So he forcibly closed the photo album, shutting out the almost greedy buzzing of the jade cicada.

This jade cicada was both a tool for saving his life and a devil that constantly tempted him to cross the line.

(End of this chapter)