Forgotten Photo Studio

Chapter 84 Thunder Mark
Footsteps followed behind him, their relentless rhythm echoing in the rain.

Xu Yan did not turn around; there were still forty-six hours until the second phase of the assessment.

"go back."

His voice was cold and hard, washed by the rain.

Chen Zhiwei walked around to him in a few steps, water dripping from her hair, but two unquenchable flames burning in her pupils.

“Either take me with you,” she said in a low voice, but it was like a wedge driven into his decision, “or tell me now that this isn’t goodbye.”

Xu Yan looked at her in silence.

He saw raindrops rolling down her trembling eyelashes like tears, but she stubbornly refused to cry.

He could almost hear the sound of his inner defenses crumbling.

In the end, he simply shook his head very slightly.

"This might not be an invitation for two people."

The fire in Chen Zhiwei's eyes dimmed, but then reignited in an even more resolute way.

She reached up and tore the jade cicada from her warm neck, and without a word, almost with a hint of ferocity, shoved it into his cold palm.

"Then take it with you and come back alive."

Her fingertips lingered on his palm for a moment, burning like a brand.

Xu Yan clutched the jade cicada, which still carried her body heat, as if she had grasped the last anchor point in the human world.

He turned around and walked alone into the neighborhood that was being swallowed by rain and mist, without ever looking back.

The night was as dark as ink in the western suburbs of Jiangcheng.

The abandoned maglev track extends deep into the dense fog.

The wind, carrying a drizzle, lashed against the metal wall, producing a hollow "humming" sound.

Xu Yan walked forward, stepping through the water.

At the end of that coordinate line is an underground substation that has been sealed off for many years.

After the city's route was changed, this place became a no-man's land, but tonight, the entire air is filled with a subtle electric current.

The coordinates on the terminal screen flickered under the rain, like a heart tormented by electric current.

Rain dripped through his fingers, splashing onto the remnants of the warning tape on the ground, shimmering faintly.

The entire abandoned station was eerily silent, with only the low buzzing of electromagnetic interference echoing in the air.

Xu Yan followed the coordinates deeper.

Footsteps echoed through the steel tunnel. The lights had long been turned off, with only the occasional flashing backup warning lights stretching his shadow inch by inch.

He stopped and looked up.

The cables on the top floor were trembling slightly, as if a conscious current was breathing.

He didn't turn on the light.

The sound of their breathing made one instinctively afraid to disturb them.

The camera on her chest was as cold as iron in the chill, while the jade cicada beneath her collar emitted a barely audible tremor, like some kind of instinctive warning.

The wind suddenly stopped.

The air seemed to have been muted by an invisible hand.

The next instant, a thin sliver of electricity slid along the crack in the wall, coiled around the steel pillar, and slithered like a snake.

—The “thunder” here is alive.

He could almost hear it breathing.

Xu Yan held his breath and slowly stepped into the main control room.

Just as my toes touched the threshold.

"Sizzle—"

The darkness was torn apart.

A sudden burst of lightning struck from the ceiling, illuminating the endless dust and rain, and the air was filled with a pungent metallic smell.

Amidst the flashes of lightning, a shadow slowly emerged.

It didn't "appear," but rather it was "extracted" from the electric current.

The man stood silently at the heart of the shattered arc of electricity, as if the energy of heaven and earth were breathing around him. The hem of his cloak billowed slightly in the air currents, and ancient runes flowed around the cuffs, their flashing rhythm synchronized with the heartbeat of the thunder.

His gray hair gleamed with a silvery-blue light under the electric flash, and his face was deeply etched with the marks of time, like a remnant of an ancient scroll.

His eyes were unfathomable, with fine arcs of electricity flowing within them—not a reflection, but the discharge of electricity itself.

Xu Yan's nerves were suddenly on edge, and his body instinctively turned to the side, his palm pressed against the camera, and his index finger gently pressed against the shutter.

He didn't say anything.

The person didn't move.

He simply raised one finger slightly, the fingertip drawing an arc in the air.

Lightning flashed, and the density of the air changed abruptly.

The smell of rust, the smell of rain, and even the sound of a heartbeat were swallowed up by a low-frequency roar.

"……really."

The man's voice was deep, coming from the depths of the electric current, like thunder rolling through bones.

"The 'lock' he planted is beginning to loosen."

Xu Yan's eyes suddenly turned cold: "Who are you?"

The man did not answer immediately.

Lightning streamed from his fingertips, illuminating his face etched by time and war.

His gaze was lowered, seemingly calm, but in reality scrutinizing, as if trying to confirm some long-lost echo of blood.

“A name,” he said calmly, “is too dangerous for a living person. Your father knew that.”

His tone was light, but every word struck like lightning, carrying the scorching smell of metal.

"As long as you keep going, the 'lock' will eventually break. At that point, you won't be able to protect yourself."

Xu Yan's breath hitched, his voice as low as cold iron pressing against his throat:
"You know my father?"

The man looked up, and a flash of lightning streaked across his pupils.

"We are both former members of the Divine Firmament Bureau. We once stood shoulder to shoulder, using thunder to suppress the realm and our hearts to control the abyss."

Now, one has vanished into the wind, and the other... is nothing but a shadow.

His words made Xu Yan realize his level in an instant.

They were not bystanders, but those in the know, or even participants.

"Shenxiao Bureau..."

Xu Yan murmured the unfamiliar name. It didn't sound like the name of an organization; it sounded more like a spell from a lost ancient book.

He could almost see the past that this name represented, like the dust particles in the air at this moment, which had once floated and sank under the sunlight, but now could only be accompanied by rust and ghosts in this abandoned place.

Xu Yan's fingers tightened in his palm, his voice chilled, "Wasn't he a gold-level contractor? A superhuman in this world? Why was he just a... beggar when I last saw him?"

The air was so still that only the sound of rain could be heard.

In the distance, towards the city center of Jiangcheng, a golden curtain of lights composed of countless skyscrapers spreads out in the rain and mist, like a floating, unreal starry sky.

That was the core area under the jurisdiction of the "center," brightly lit and orderly.

And here, in the ruins of the western suburbs, lies the shadow abandoned and forgotten by that light.

The person remained silent for a long time before slowly speaking.

"Because they emptied him out."

These few words, though brief, were like a piece of iron falling to the bottom of the water, leaving no trace.

The sound of rain seemed to intensify at that moment, filling the deadly silence between the two.

The creaking sound of loose cables echoed from deep within the substation, like the sigh of a dying person.

“They stripped him of his source energy, severed his neural imprints, stripped him of his license, erased his identity… They left him in the ruins of his research, watching everything being rebuilt.”

He looked up, and the lightning reflected a hint of grief and anger in his eyes.

"Your father refused to allow the center to control the research on 'Abyss'."

They made him watch as his colleagues were modified, his experimental data was stolen… and then they imprisoned your mother in the core of the experiment. Your father did not yield. He only used his own soul fire at the last moment to nail 'Abyss' into your blood, putting that thing to a temporary slumber.”

(End of this chapter)