Forgotten Photo Studio

Chapter 135 Wandering Spirit

Lin Lan stopped in front of a silver metal door without any handles, turned to face the two of them, and her gaze sharpened again, as precise as a scalpel.

"The assessment is about to begin." Her voice echoed in the empty corridor. "As I told you last time, the rapid assessment channel is essentially an extreme stress test. We will not simulate the ordinary anomalies that you could probably handle in reality."

She paused deliberately to make her next words carry more weight.

“You will be facing a precisely reconstructed ‘abnormal entity projection’ that has reached the E+ level criticality. Its power and its rules far exceed your current level. Remember, the core is not asking you to ‘defeat’ it—that is almost impossible for you at your current level.”

Her gaze was focused on Xu Yan.

"The core question is, in a desperate situation far beyond your capabilities, what will you choose? Will you collapse and give up, will you engage in meaningless and futile resistance, or..." Her tone became more forceful here, carrying a guiding pressure, "to demonstrate 'potential' beyond your current level—to understand its operating logic, to find the flaws in its rules, and even to try to influence its form of existence. This is the key to our assessment."

Chen Zhiwei's breathing tightened slightly. Although she was mentally prepared, hearing that she would have to face the existence of the E+ level threshold still put her under tremendous pressure.

“As for the ‘Memory Corridor’,” Lin Lan seemed to see through her nervousness and added, “it’s the technological foundation for constructing and maintaining this high-threat projection environment. You can think of it as an extremely realistic virtual battlefield, supported by real data on past anomalies. Inside, all sensory feedback is real, including pain and… death. The only mercy is that ‘death’ here does not lead to brain death, but the risk of impaired consciousness is real.”

She glanced at the two of them one last time: "Now, you have one last chance to back out."

Xu Yan's expression remained unchanged throughout. He simply asked calmly, "If it's just to inform you of the risks, then there's no need to open the door."

Lin Lan's lips twitched almost imperceptibly, as if in approval, or perhaps something else entirely.

She said no more, and the silver metal door slid open silently, revealing a pure darkness behind it that swallowed all light.

Xu Yan and Chen Zhiwei exchanged a glance, needing no words, their eyes filled with unwavering determination.

Without hesitation, the two stepped side by side into that unknown darkness.

Assessment begins: Memory Corridor - Scene loading...

The darkness receded, replaced by a dim, damp underground passage.

The air was thick with the smell of rust, disinfectant, and a faint, sweet, rotten odor, similar to that of formaldehyde.

The walls were rough cement, covered with unidentified stains and scratches, and the old light bulbs overhead flickered on and off, emitting a buzzing sound.

"This place... seems to be the underground pipe network of some abandoned hospital, or... a laboratory?" Chen Zhiwei lowered his voice, gripping the Soul-Suppressing Bell tightly in his hand, and vigilantly sensing his surroundings.

She could sense a chaotic, sorrowful, and resentful psychic energy permeating the air, far more concentrated than the previous "lonely building ghost."

Xu Yan didn't speak; his first instinct was to feel the jade cicada in his arms.

A steady, cool sensation emanated from the jade cicada.

He looked around, picked up the camera, slightly adjusted the focus, and quietly opened the camera viewfinder.

In his viewfinder, pale gray, constantly flowing "information residue" began to appear on the walls of the passageway—the imprint of intense emotions and events that had once taken place there.

Fear, despair, agonizing screams… countless jumbled fragments flickered like a broken videotape. “It’s not just one kind of ‘anomaly’,” Xu Yan whispered. “This is a mixed-type ‘breeding ground for anomalies.’ The core anomaly… may be deeply hidden.”

The two proceeded cautiously along the passage.

Not far ahead, a faint sound, as if many people were whispering at the same time, came from ahead. The specific content was unclear, but it was unsettling.

As she turned a corner, the sight before her made Chen Zhiwei's breath catch in her throat.

The passageway suddenly opens up, forming a huge circular underground space.

It was less a hall and more a creepy den of spirits.

As far as the eye could see, from the filthy ground to the towering dome, there were countless gray-white, translucent human-shaped shadows.

They have no facial features, and their bodies are constantly emitting double images, like a holographic projection with extremely poor signal, or like countless specimens soaked in formalin, forcibly awakened by some force.

These "wandering spirits" are not still, but endlessly repeating their last actions in life, forming a silent scroll of hell:

Near the wall, something was repeatedly patting the cement with an invisible palm, producing a dull "thump-thump" sound, even though the wall remained completely still.

Curled up in the corner, hugging herself tightly, her body trembling violently, as if enduring extreme cold or fear.

More often, they wander aimlessly in open spaces, their figures overlapping and passing through each other, emitting a chilling, mental noise that sounds like the whispers of millions of people, directly penetrating the mind.

“It’s ‘Wandering Spirits’,” Xu Yan’s voice remained calm, but his eyes were extremely solemn. “The aggregation of a massive number of low-level information entities is an echo of intense collective pain. Individually, they pose little threat, but at this scale… they will slowly devour the intruder’s sanity and mental strength like a swamp.”

As if to confirm his words, the moment the two appeared, the thousands of wandering spirits in the entire nest stopped moving in unison.

All the blurred "faces" turned towards the entrance at the same moment.

hum!
An invisible yet overwhelming mental pressure, like a tsunami, suddenly pressed down.

The air seemed to be filled with a viscous malice, and Chen Zhiwei even had the illusion of suffocation, her ears instantly filled with countless desperate murmurs.

Without hesitation, she shook the Soul-Suppressing Bell in her hand!

"jingle--!"

The crisp sound of the bell was like a stone thrown into a murky swamp, creating a soft, visible ripple of pale gold that barely created a safe zone about two meters in diameter around the two people, keeping the terrifying whispers out.

However, there were simply too many wandering spirits.

The edge of the pale golden halo was constantly being impacted and compressed by the waves of gray spirits, emitting a hissing moan, and its range was shrinking at a visible speed.

Fine beads of sweat instantly appeared on Chen Zhiwei's forehead; maintaining this barrier was extremely taxing on her.

(End of this chapter)