Forgotten Photo Studio

Chapter 91 Focus on Investigation
The flashlight beam forced him to squint, making it impossible for him to see the faces of the people approaching. He could only make out the blurry outlines of several figures wearing dark uniforms.

“They are hunting ghosts. But who knows,” he said, his voice low yet strangely penetrating the clamor of the rain, carrying a cold sarcasm, “that the real ghosts may never be the departed spirits, but rather… the living order itself.”

He raised the camera to his chest, not to aim, but more like to make a declaration.

"Click."

The voice is very soft.

There are no dazzling light effects, only a moment of detachment and silence.

The flashlight beam swayed, and the pursuers froze in their tracks. The anxious and wary expressions on their faces faded like dried clay, then quickly became blurred, leaving only an empty blankness.

They looked at each other, then at their equipment and their surroundings, as if waking from a dream, completely bewildered as to why they found themselves in this cold, rainy night.

By the time they began to contact each other and report, filled with doubts, Xu Yan had already disappeared into the shadows of the intricate alleyways, like a drop of water merging into the ocean.

He suddenly remembered that the day his father had the accident was also in this damp night.

He was too young then to distinguish between ghostly aura and mist.

At this moment, he was hiding in another corner of the city, feeling the changes within his body.

The jade cicada pressed tightly against her chest, sending waves of continuous coolness through her.

The camera, on the other hand, hung heavily, like a piece of ice dug from the polar abyss, radiating a dormant, chilling pressure.

He could "hear" the soul power within his body slowly and spontaneously circulating like an undercurrent. This "post-meal slumber" brought him no satisfaction, but instead made him feel a chilling sense of parasitism deep within his bones.

The abyss has not fallen silent; it is merely digesting and waiting.

He walked through the night in Jiangcheng, as if stepping into a negative soaked with the soul.

Around 3 a.m., the neon sign of a 24-hour fast food restaurant on the street began to have its colors abnormally flowing and mixing, like an oil painting that had been ruined by water.

Inside the store, customers could be heard exclaiming softly, while staff members tried to calm them down.

Through the glass window, you can see several people pointing at the air with surprised and uncertain expressions, as if they have seen something unseen.

Not far away, a few young people who looked like amateur "paranormal enthusiasts" were excitedly and fearfully circling a roadside tree with their mobile phones and some simple detectors, the instruments emitting intermittent alarms.

"Strange... The app shows a strong energy reaction here, but I can't see anything?"

"Was it... eaten by something?"

Their fragments of words drifted on the wind.

The supernatural has become an absurd drama in which everyone participates, yet no clear objective can be found.

An unfounded panic permeated the air.

Xu Yan, like a gray shadow, walks on the edge of this gradually fermenting chaos.

He walked slowly, but with an unusually steady pace, a stark contrast to the commotion around him.

He could sense that those invisible "eyes" high above were scanning the entire city.

Occasionally, a red dot from a surveillance camera would briefly linger on him, but soon, the electronic signal in that area would ripple with strong interference, blurring and distorting his image in the data stream, until it was eventually erased as if gently wiped away by an eraser, leaving no trace.

In a heavily guarded monitoring center, the staff in front of the screen frowned.

“Signal lost in target area, suspected to be high-intensity spiritual pressure interference.” Behind him, a man with a cold demeanor, dressed in casual clothes, stood quietly, his eyes sharp as a hawk, scanning the static-like screen.

“It’s not interference.” The man’s voice was calm and even, yet carried an undeniable authority. “It is ‘it’ that is refusing to be observed. Increase the scanning frequency and focus on investigating all areas with abnormal residual energy but no recent reports of paranormal events. Those ‘ghosts’ have either escaped… or been ‘swallowed’. Find the point of ‘swallowing’.”

A Zhe's second call came during the darkest and quietest moment before dawn.

His voice sounded even more exhausted, even carrying a hint of numbness born of despair.

“They’re narrowing down the search area…” A-Zhe’s voice was hoarse. “They’ve started a targeted investigation of the highest-level ‘anomalies’ within the organization. Your information… might also be within the scope of that investigation. Although there’s no direct evidence, you need to be extra careful. ‘Lei Zhenzi’… has arrived in Jiangcheng. Not to maintain order, but to… retrieve those lost ghosts.”

"Reclaiming ghosts?"

Xu Yan looked at the sliver of pale, sickly white light on the eastern horizon that refused to expand.

"What are you going to do?"

"Go home," Xu Yan said in a low voice, "and go to sleep."

There was silence on the other end of the phone, and this silence was unsettlingly long.

When Ah Zhe's voice rang out again, it carried a heart-wrenching, forcefully suppressed sob and a clear-headed tone:
"Brother Yan... is this huge commotion aimed at you?"

The sound of the wind swept past the receiver, past Xu Yan's suddenly stopped breathing, and past his icy, bone-chilling fingertips.

He didn't answer.

The faint light of dawn fell sparingly, unable to illuminate the deep darkness in his eyes.

The sky finally began to brighten, albeit with some difficulty.

But the light was dim and weak, unable to penetrate the invisible haze that shrouded the city.

The puddles on the street don't reflect a complete image; instead, they reveal a fragmented, distorted street scene.

Official broadcasts played a series of calm but hollow reassurances on repeat, attempting to mask the growing panic.

However, in the deeper undercurrents, professional "cleanup" teams began to appear in specific locations, no longer just amateur enthusiasts.

They acted swiftly and with a clear objective, using equipment that was familiar or unfamiliar to Xu Yan, silently dealing with the "stains" that ordinary people could not detect.

A more orderly, and more ruthless cleansing is underway silently.

At that moment, Xu Yan clearly realized that he had not only ignited chaos, but also stirred up a bottomless hornet's nest.

He was not just prey, but a moving eye of the storm, attracting deadly attention from all directions.

He instinctively gripped the camera in front of his chest; the cold touch went deep into his bones, bringing a stinging pain, but also a strange, unsettling sense of familiarity.

The outline of the photo studio was already emerging at the alley entrance, while a team of "cleaners" in uniform blocked the only entrance, their instruments emitting targeted, sharp beeps.

Xu Yan stopped and ran her fingertips across the camera's cool metal casing.

He pressed his eyes close to the viewfinder, a slight smile playing on his lips, the world shrinking into a shadowy pupil.

Before the shutter was even pressed, the city seemed to pause for a moment: "Come on, let's see... whose 'memory' is more vulnerable."

(End of this chapter)