Forgotten Photo Studio

Chapter 68 The crisis is approaching
The deathly silence of the afternoon was shattered by a series of dense and rhythmic footsteps.

Xu Yan's fingertips, which were wiping the Soul-Sealing Camera, suddenly paused.

coming.

He silently pressed himself against the window, and through the gap in the curtains, he could see several figures in "City Emergency Response Center" uniforms moving about.

The instruments in their hands emitted a deep, humming sound that seemed to penetrate right into your bones.

As the buzzing sound swept across the photo studio, the screen of the instrument in the leader's hand suddenly burst out with a blinding red light, and the sharp alarm sounded like a needle, suddenly piercing the air and also hitting Xu Yan's eardrums!

His blood seemed to freeze instantly.

The leader stopped, his gaze beneath his helmet like a cold probe, pinning the door of the photo studio shut.

He even took a step forward, the sound of his boots striking the pavement sounding like a death knell to Xu Yan.

Xu Yan suddenly clenched the jade cicada in his chest, his nails almost digging into his palm.

He frantically activated his concealment technique, silently roaring in his mind: Disappear! Make me disappear!
He felt a strange sense of detachment, as if his soul was being forcibly pulled from his body, and his sense of existence was rapidly disappearing like the receding tide.

Outside the door, the piercing scream seemed to be choked by something, turning into intermittent, unwilling noises, and finally, it fell silent completely.

"Damn it. What a piece of junk!"

The leader slammed his fist on the instrument in frustration and cursed under his breath.

The team continued to move forward.

Only after the footsteps faded into the distance did Xu Yan dare to slowly exhale a hot breath.

His back was already soaked with cold sweat, and the wall he was pressed against sent a chill through him.

The tentacles at the center were more acute and closer than he had imagined.

With a crisis looming, he could no longer wait passively.

Will he be able to master the secret manual he obtained from Zhou Wenbin?

At night, everything is silent.

Xu Yan locked himself in the darkroom of the photo studio.

This place is not only the most gloomy in the entire building, but more importantly, his fingertips brushed over the fine, almost invisible engravings on the walls, accumulated over the years.

That was a restriction set up by Master Chen Dingkun and even earlier predecessors using countless covert methods.

This photo studio is itself a giant "soul-sealing box".

Acting here is like opening a gas canister in a hyperbaric chamber; even if things get out of control, there's a final barrier.

He opened the "Secret Records of the Eighteen Gates" and his gaze fell on the records of the [Shadow Gate].

"Starting with the Shadow Gate, relying on shadows, we can access the rifts of the Nine Netherworlds and awaken... the souls of the lowest levels."

At midnight, the darkroom was plunged into absolute darkness, with only the safety lamp casting a faint, blood-red glow.

On the wall, his own shadow was stretched and twisted into an inhumanly long and distorted shape.

"Crack!"

The sound of the shutter was like a thunderclap.

The photograph was ejected, and Xu Yan took a closer look, feeling a chill run down his spine.

A thin crack appeared in the center of the shadow's outline.

Beyond the crack, there was no longer a wall, but a rolling, suffocating, thick darkness.

Before he could see clearly, a pale, swollen hand with black mud stuffed under its fingernails suddenly reached out from the gap and grabbed the edge of the photographic paper.

It looks like it's trying to crawl out of it!

Then, the second one, the third one...

Countless hands, each with a different shape but all exuding the same hunger and resentment, thronged behind the gap, vying for this only exit.

What came from the crevice was not sound, but a kind of mental noise that was directly poured into the brain, a mixture of the wails of countless souls.

Almost simultaneously, the shadow beneath his feet came to life, no longer asphalt, but transformed into a collection of countless black arms that tightly bound his ankles, trying to drag him into the ground.

No, it's about being dragged into that photographic paper and becoming one of those arms!
At this critical moment, the ancient engravings on the walls of the darkroom seemed to be activated by an invisible force, and they became slightly warm.

A very faint hum, like the clanging of metal, filled the air.

Those ghostly hands trying to completely crawl out of the photographic paper seemed to have hit an invisible barrier, their movements suddenly becoming sluggish and furious. The photo studio's barrier had taken effect, temporarily imprisoning this disaster within that small space.

Xu Yan was shocked, and only then did he understand the true meaning of "Shadow Gate".

What it opened was a hellish dormitory!

He must close that door immediately!

"Freeze frame!!"

He roared and raised his camera to point at the terrifying crevice.

"Crack!"

The first click of the shutter captured the bland, tasteless taste of breakfast. On the photographic paper, several ghostly hands were frozen in time and then vanished.

"Crack!"

The fourth sound, the roommate's face blurred. More ghostly hands retracted as if burned.

The sixth shutter click erased the details of the childhood jujube tree. The gap shrank considerably, and the wailing subsided.

The seventh time, however, required the most precious memory. His father's warm smile appeared before his eyes…

"Crack!"

It was as if I heard a soft "bang," and the gap disappeared completely.

In the photograph, only a blurry, struggling afterimage remains. All the ghostly hands and whispers vanished in an instant.

Xu Yan collapsed to the ground, completely exhausted and soaked in sweat. He had succeeded, but at a terrible cost.

He looked around, and the tiny engravings on the wall were slowly cooling, as if everything just now was an illusion.

But the lingering fear in his heart reminded him that it was not an illusion, but a real crack in the door and a ghostly figure.

Just one "shadow gate" nearly dragged him into the abyss.

If the "virtual gate" of the eighteenth level were truly opened, what kind of scene would unfold?
He dared not think too deeply about it, only feeling that this secret record was not a book that mortals could touch, but a kind of taboo that resonated with the underworld.

If we go any further down, can this photo studio really be kept in business?

He trembled as he turned to the records of the subsequent gates in "The Eighteen Gates Secret Records," trying to distract himself from the heart-wrenching sense of loss, but suddenly froze.

In the margin of the page containing the title "Seventh Gate: Knife Gate," he found a tiny line of annotations, seemingly carved with a fingernail or a sharp object. The marks were deep and messy, and the edges were even stained with what appeared to be dried and blackened blood.

He would never mistake that handwriting:

"This road is blocked, and the cost is too high. —HY"

Below that annotation was an even more blurred, almost illegible symbol, which was the mark he had made on his father's dark blue sheet when he was a child!

Not only did my father know about this book, he even... carved the warning himself in a state of extreme pain or madness?

This bloodstain and the marks of struggle tell the story of the tragedy more powerfully than any words.

A chill even deeper than when he faced the Shadow Gate instantly swept over Xu Yan's entire body.

He wields power, yet he walks a perilous path that even his father paid a heavy price for and considered a dead end.

The air in the darkroom was stagnant and thick. Xu Yan slumped to the ground, her fingertips still trembling unconsciously.

The practice lasted for several hours, and the muscle soreness gradually subsided, but the deeper emptiness felt like a chill that seeped into the bone marrow, refusing to fade away for a long time.

He propped himself up on the corner of the table, his steps unsteady, and staggered into the workroom.

The red light from the afterimage photo on the wall still flickered, each glance a reminder that the price had been paid.

He turned around, pushed open the door leading to the inner room, and gently walked to Chen Zhiwei's side.

The girl remained asleep, her breathing shallow and even.

She once said she was willing to give her life for him, and now she lies quietly before me, her devotion and fearlessness turning into a heavy oppression.

Xu Yan felt a slight tightness in his throat, and his fingers paused in mid-air before finally not falling.

She was willing to entrust her life to him, so how could he possibly betray her?

But the "door" in that secret book seemed to stand silently in the depths of darkness, waiting for him to reach out.

(End of this chapter)