Forgotten Photo Studio

Chapter 27 Anchor Marks
His fingers moved lightly across the camera casing, as if soothing a restless soul and guiding the chaotic torrent.

The wildly jumping noise on the screen began to slow down and recombine, and the broken code, as if woven by an invisible hand, gradually outlined a profound and ancient structural pattern.

It was not a blueprint for modern technology, but rather an array of runes engraved on the level of consciousness, used to anchor, protect, and remember.

Xu Yan's fingertips trembled slightly, but a sorrowful smile crept onto his lips.

“Look…” he took a deep breath, “They’re not recording technology…they’re looking for…anchors.”

Chen Zhiwei suddenly moved closer, his gaze fixed on the gradually clearing pattern, the shock in his eyes gradually being ignited by an unbelievable and immense hope.

"This is..." Her voice trembled with excitement, "...the method for constructing a 'memory base'...?"

"Using human conviction to fight against the deprivation of nature." Xu Yan seemed to be chewing on this heavy truth, "They... found a way."

The moment he finished speaking, the dark blue ghost hand mark on his right shoulder suddenly burned with pain, as if enraged by this "hope," and tightened abruptly!

Xu Yan groaned, staggered half a step and grabbed the incense table for support, fine beads of cold sweat seeping from his forehead.

Is this "road" also another kind of trap?
Chen Zhiwei subconsciously reached out to help him, but saw him slowly straighten up, his eyes filled with a mixture of weariness and sharpness, as if he had finally caught a glimmer of light in the endless darkness, even if that light might burn him.

“Zhiwei,” he said in a low voice, but with an undeniable determination, “we may… have really found a glimmer of hope.”

He raised his hand and lightly touched the silent old camera with his fingertips.

"But it might also... awaken something even more terrifying."

Outside the ancestral hall, the night wind howled, as if something was awakening.

……

Before the chill of the early morning had fully seeped out from the cracks in the old wooden floor of the "Forgotten Photo Studio," a very strange sound suddenly seized the air inside.

It was a distorted, out-of-tune piano melody, seemingly carrying the faint sobs of countless people—it was "Für Elise".

The sound emanated from the encrypted terminal issued by the "center" on the workbench, and the screen lit up on its own, with a background of constantly writhing gray noise trying to form a human face.

A line of text emerges above the noise; it's a font that mimics elegant cursive but twitches and jitters due to signal interference:

Good morning, Mr. Xu Yan of Silver III. A beautiful ensemble symphony is about to begin, and you are cordially invited to attend. Coordinates attached. 10:00 AM sharp. Those who are absent will forever miss this overture. —Your faithful conductor

Xu Yan opened his eyes as soon as the melody started playing.

He was abruptly pulled back to reality from a rapidly fading fragment of a dream about his mother humming a song.

The brand on my right shoulder burned and throbbed, as if it weren't a melody, but a tuning fork trying to resonate with it and calibrate its frequency.

He rushed to the terminal, and the noise on the screen suddenly coalesced into a huge, bloodshot electronic eye, blinked, and then disappeared.

"What's wrong?!" Chen Zhiwei's voice came from upstairs, sounding flustered after being startled awake.

She rushed downstairs, saw the afterimage on the screen, and her face turned pale instantly.

"A summons from the center." Xu Yan's voice was low, forcibly suppressing the palpitations rising in his heart due to the loss of his dream. "A 'symphony'."

Time is tight.

The next preparation was a silent pre-battle anchoring.

His first action was swift and decisive.

He took out a dark-colored syringe and, without even looking at it, inserted it into the vein in his left arm.

A chilling sensation, carrying the smell of rust, instantly surged into my veins, forcefully pinning the nearly scattered fragments of my dream back into the corner of my consciousness.

The price was a sharp, needle-like pain in my temples.

Then, all the sound disappeared.

His full attention fell back on the dark silver camera.

His movements slowed. His fingertips traced the camera's cold body as if touching a sacred object, or a coffin about to be buried with him.

He removed the standard lens and replaced it with the dark gold wide-angle lens.

"Click."

With a soft click, it fit perfectly.

At that moment, he held his breath, as if he heard a satisfied sigh coming from inside the camera.

He and it once again entered into a bloody pact.

Then, he turned to Chen Zhiwei and extended his hand.

She didn't speak, but placed the neatly folded triangular amulet into his palm.

His fingertips were icy cold, and when they touched her warm skin, they trembled almost imperceptibly.

“If I come back…” he began, his voice hoarse.

“I can ring the bell.” She interrupted him, her tone resolute, but her gaze was fixed on his eyes, as if trying to see through his pupils to see how much of his fading memory remained.

"Shake until you remember, or... shake until I can't shake anymore." She quickly stuffed a talisman sewn into her hair into his pocket, her movements as light as a stowaway afraid to disturb fate.

Xu Yan didn't say anything more, but just gripped the amulet in his hand tightly and stuffed it into his inner pocket.

He gulped down the strong, dark herbal tea, picked up his mother's photo frame, his gaze lingering on the ethereal warmth temporarily locked in by the medicine, and then gently turned it upside down.

The pen tip traced a final mark across the diary:
"Today. I keep my promise. I will return."

Ring... Ring... Ring...

The doorbell rang, its sound perfectly mirroring the rhythm of "Für Elise," each ring striking a pause in the heartbeat.

Xu Yan slung her camera bag over her shoulder, took a deep breath, and stepped out the door.

Outside the gate, there were no ordinary vehicles.

It was an "adaptive vehicle" whose shape was constantly being finely adjusted and which perfectly blended into the ambient light and shadow.

It has no wheels and floats silently. What's most unsettling is that its smooth, mirror-like exterior reflects the entire street scene, but it fails to show Xu Yan standing in front of the car, as if he never existed.

The car door slid open silently, revealing a pure white space devoid of any detail inside.

Chen Zhiwei rushed to the door.

Before stepping into that pure white expanse, Xu Yan looked back one last time.

He didn't speak, but mouthed two words to her:

"remember."

The moment the car door closed, there was no mechanical friction sound, but rather a very clear "click".

—The sound was like the shutter of an old-fashioned camera. It was as if the car wasn't a vehicle, but a giant camera that had "captured" and preserved his entire being inside.

The vehicle silently glided into the traffic and disappeared.

Chen Zhiwei stood frozen in the cold morning light.

She opened her palm, where the coolness of Xu Yan's fingertips lingered.

She unconsciously rubbed her fingers together.

An extremely subtle, distorted voice seemed to emerge from the gaps between her finger bones, seeping directly into her brain:
"...You...will...be...the...next...anchor..."

That voice, cold and sticky, was exactly the same as the pale texture of the ghostly hand in the photo of Xu Yan's shoulder in her memory.

(End of this chapter)