Forgotten Photo Studio

Chapter 6 The Ghost-Feeding Plan
Xu Yan slowly took the USB flash drive out of his pocket.

The silver metal casing gleamed with a cold luster in the dim light of the photo studio, and the "E-07" engraving was clearly visible.

It lay quietly in his palm, looking ordinary, yet it made the surrounding air seem a little heavier.

The camera lens on the counter subtly adjusted its focus to follow the angle of his hand movement.

Chen Zhiwei did not answer immediately.

She turned around and took out a pair of thin, specially made rubber gloves from the sealed metal box and put them on. Then she took out an antique bronze mirror, the center of which was inlaid with a dark crystal.

"Put it on the counter," she whispered, pointing the bronze mirror at the USB drive.

Through the crystal, Chen Zhiwei's brows furrowed even more deeply.

Xu Yan saw a layer of murky, oily ripples spreading across the mirror's surface.

“There are several different ghostly marks entangled here, like… obsessions recorded by electronic devices…” Chen Zhiwei’s voice suddenly turned frightened as she carefully examined the dark crystal.

“E-07…this numbering format…wait! Grandpa seems to have mentioned it before…” She looked up abruptly, “…The ‘Urban Services Rapid Response Center’ uses a standardized ‘E-sequence’ numbering system to label their observation objects!”

"The order from last night..." Chen Zhiwei stared at him, her eyes as calm as a still pond, "Did it come from the city's rapid response center?"

Xu Yan's breath hitched, his mind went blank, his memories were strangely fragmented, and he wasn't even sure if he had taken the job that night.

His Adam's apple bobbed, but he still nodded.

"This USB drive is not a personal relic at all; it is a standardized observation device from the 'Urban Services Rapid Response Center'."

It's like a signal lighthouse; the energy patterns it records are attractive to all 'E-sequence' ghosts it has marked!

“Bringing it back is like lighting a beacon in our already fragile ‘photo studio’ that summons all E-sequence ghosts! The ‘Shadowbound Ghost’s’ riot just now wasn’t an accident at all; it was actively attracted by this thing!”

She cautiously touched the USB drive with her fingertip, then immediately pulled back as if she had been electrocuted.

"Icy cold...the kind that goes straight to the soul." She looked at Xu Yan. "Didn't you notice it when you touched it?"

Xu Yan hesitated for a moment: "Yes. But the phone kept ringing at the time, which distracted me."

"Let's see what's inside." Chen Zhiwei walked to a corner of the filing cabinet, opened a hidden drawer, and found not files, but some scattered old tools.

She took out an old device with a copper-plated casing covered in talismans and plugged it in.

“This is a ‘spirit-suppressing device’ left by my grandfather,” she explained. “It can block the invasion of evil spirits and prevent resentment from spreading through electronic devices.”

She carefully connected the USB drive through a special adapter.

The old laptop's fan emitted a dull hum, and the screen lit up, displaying not the usual operating system, but a deep, starry-sky-like interface.

The USB drive was recognized.

A folder pops up on the screen, containing only one file.

It is a text file named "Observation Log 07".

Chen Zhiwei and Xu Yan exchanged a glance and then clicked on it.

The screen flickered a few times, and instead of opening a file directly, a directory list appeared first.

The list clearly displays multiple files:

E-03、E-07、E-12、E-19、E-22……还有数个类似文件。

"My God!" Chen Zhiwei gasped. "This isn't a single observation record at all; it's a portable miniature database! It stores observation data from multiple 'E-sequence' ghosts!"

She quickly opened the record belonging to Hao Defeng (E-07), and the content was far more horrifying than the two of them had imagined.

This is not only a tragedy for an elderly person, but also just the tip of the iceberg of a systematic and mass-produced "ghost-feeding" scheme.

Xu Yan's gaze swept across the screen, then suddenly fixed on the "Observer" section:
[Observer]: Data deletion. But at the end of that deletion symbol, a faint handwritten signature remains:
"Lin".

His heart skipped a beat; this handwriting... he felt like he'd seen it somewhere before.

The content in the [Note] section is therefore even more threatening: "The anomalous energy characteristics are highly similar to those of past cases handled by the 'Urban Services Rapid Response Center' (see E-03 and E-12 incidents). It is suspected to be non-natural catalysis and mass replication. We must be highly vigilant as the 'artificial ghost-feeding' project has entered a large-scale stage."

That's all for now.

A deeper silence fell over the photo studio.

Xu Yan felt a chill run down his spine.

Hao Defeng.

The old man's name. The name of that lonely ghost in the building.

This is no ordinary relic.

This is...an observation record?
Could it even be an experimental subject?

“The City Services Rapid Response Center…” Xu Yan murmured, recalling the strange commission involving cryptocurrency payment. “My master said to stay away from them…”

Chen Zhiwei's face turned deathly pale: "They...they're not 'dealing with' ghosts? They're...creating? Or catalyzing them? And then...sending people to 'clean up' them?"

She grabbed Xu Yan's arm suddenly, her fingertips icy cold. "This doesn't make sense! If they are the source themselves, why would they spend money to hire outsiders to handle it? Wouldn't that just expose their own weakness?"

Xu Yan remained silent for a moment, a cold realization flashing in his eyes.

“Perhaps…we are part of their experiment,” he said in a low, hoarse voice. “Like live bait thrown into a cage, used to test the ferocity of these ‘creations,’ to observe the camera’s reaction, and even…to record what price we ‘gravekeepers’ will be forced to pay when faced with the monsters they have created.”

He subconsciously touched the camera. "Every time we press the shutter, it may be a valuable piece of data for them."

To commission. To clean up. To observe.

All of this, when put together, forms a chilling cycle.

Xu Yan, unaware of the situation, became part of this cycle and even unintentionally brought back evidence.

Just then, the screen of the spirit-suppressing machine connected to the USB drive suddenly began to flicker wildly.

The screen was filled with a lot of garbled text and distorted, face-like noise, and the inside of the computer case made a piercing creaking sound, as if the hard drive was being violently torn apart by some force.

"Oh no! It's self-destructing! Or it has a remote triggering mechanism!" Chen Zhiwei exclaimed, trying to forcibly pull out the USB drive.

But it's too late.

The screen suddenly went black.

Immediately afterwards, a line of blood-red text, seemingly written with the deepest resentment, slowly appeared in the center of the screen:
[Observation terminated. Data retrieval: failed. Initiating final protocol: eliminate all potential information carriers.]

Snapped!
The USB drive emitted a wisp of smoke and was completely burned.

But just before it was scrapped, it seemed to emit a very high-frequency shriek, which was almost imperceptible to the human ear, but caused several file folders marked with the serial number E in the entire filing cabinet to vibrate violently at the same time, as if they were wailing or responding.

Almost simultaneously, the old camera on the counter emitted an unprecedented and extremely violent vibration, as if something inside was frantically ramming against the lens.

Its shutter button, slowly and firmly, pressed down on its own.

Click!

An unprecedentedly intense flash of light, instead of erupting outwards, suddenly engulfed Xu Yan and Chen Zhiwei like a black vortex.

Xu Yan's last consciousness was hearing Chen Zhiwei's short exclamation, and feeling as if something of paramount importance in his mind shattered with the sound of the shutter, vanishing into nothingness.

(End of this chapter)