Passerby: Secret Image of Ancient Scrolls

The moment the drone took off, Lu Ye's palms were sweaty.

The operator crouched beside the car, his fingers gently swiping across the remote control. The image on the screen flickered between static and infrared thermal imaging a few times before finally stabilizing. Lu Ye leaned closer; the world of the thermal imaging was a different color altogether.

It was cold, a deep blue, an inky blue, a black that almost blended into the darkness.

The warmth comes in shades of yellow, orange, and red, like the blood in a vein.

The building is cold, the walls are cold, the stairs are cold, even the door frames are cold.

But there are things inside the building.

The operator's hand trembled slightly, and Lu Ye pressed down on his shoulder.

"Stay calm," he said. The image on the screen zoomed in, layer by layer, like an onion.

Lu Ye's breath hitched for a moment.

Between the windows on the sixth floor, there was something—neither cold nor warm, but another color. A color that shouldn't be in thermal imaging. Like tides, like mist, like countless tiny specks of light gathered together, surging, churning, and shoving each other. They clung to the walls, the ceiling, the stair railings, filling the entire floor to the brim. The operator's finger paused on the remote control.

"Captain Lu... what is this?"

Lu Ye didn't answer. He stared at the screen, at the surging light, and suddenly remembered Shen Xun's voice on the phone. "Don't come in," Shen Xun said. It wasn't a warning, it was a request. Lu Ye understood now. That thing was beyond human control.

"Go up further." Lu Ye's voice remained unchanged. He was in charge of this area, and he had to stay calm.

The controller swallowed hard, then gently pushed the joystick. The screen panned upwards. Seventh floor, eighth floor, ninth floor.

Every floor was full. The points of light were like a disturbed ant colony, jostling and pushing in the corridors, without direction or purpose, just pushing, just surging, just squeezing themselves into every possible crevice.

Then, they started to move.

It wasn't going up, it was going down. Like the receding tide, like an hourglass turning over, like something tapping on the rooftop, all the points of light changed direction in the same instant. They surged downwards, three layers, two layers, one layer, faster and faster, more and more urgent, as if driven by something, or as if fleeing from something.

The operator's hands began to tremble. "Captain Lu, they...they're running downhill."

Lu Ye stared at the screen. He saw those points of light crowding the stairwell, completely blocking the way. Yet they kept pushing downwards, as if something even more terrifying was chasing them. His gaze followed the stairs down to the location of the golden light barrier. Shen Xun was below. Lin Jian was below. That thing was surging towards Shen Xun.

"Captain Lu, should we...?"

"No." Lu Ye's voice was flat, as flat as a frozen river. "We can't go in. Going in would just be suicide."

The operator remained silent. He stared at the screen, watching the points of light surge downwards layer by layer, getting closer and closer to the golden light. Lu Ye clenched his fist, his knuckles cracking.

He can't do anything. He can only watch.

The light spots on the screen continued to surge downwards. They were getting closer and closer to Shen Xun.

The White Impermanence still looked like a young girl. Soft and fluffy, with bright almond eyes, just like when she usually whine for hawthorn preserves.

But her eyes were glowing. Not golden, not white, but a chaotic color, the color of the abyss, as if the shapeless entity within her body was opening its eyes.

"Let me go." Bai Wuchang's voice was very soft, but Shen Xun could hear the tremor in it. She had been holding back for a long time.

Shen Xun looked at her. He wanted to say something, but said nothing. The evil spirits outside the golden light barrier had formed a thick layer, and cracks spread from the top to the bottom of the barrier like a spider web, like his heart at this moment. He looked down at the cracks on the staff, then at the eyes of the White Impermanence.

"Reveal your true form." The command has been given, and the wild horse has broken free.

The White Impermanence smiled. It was the kind of soft, childlike smile he had seen countless times. Then her figure dissipated. The girl's form was like ink dropping into water, the edges beginning to melt, the boundaries disappearing.

Those almond-shaped eyes were still there, shining for a moment before being swallowed by chaos. That shapeless, pure blackness exploded from where she vanished, like an abyss opening its mouth.

The moment the dark figure burst out of the golden light barrier, the air in the corridor changed. The malevolent forces that had been frantically devouring everything suddenly stopped, as if a pause button had been pressed. It was the kind of fear etched into the bones of prey being targeted by its natural enemy.

The shadowy figure did not stop.

Wherever it swept, evil vanished. Like words on a blackboard being erased, like ripples on water being smoothed out, as if they had never existed.

Shen Xun could feel the tremors on the other end of the blood pact. It wasn't pain, but satisfaction. It was as if the abyss, starving for countless millennia, had finally reached its climax. The black shadow, shimmering with white light, rampaged through the corridor, like a fish swimming into the sea, like a bird flying into the sky, like a wild beast finally freed from its cage after a lifetime of confinement.

The evil spirits scattered and fled, some running up the stairs, some crawling into the ceiling, and some sticking themselves back to the wall, wishing they could melt into the cement.

But it was no use. The shadow was everywhere. It seeped in through cracks in doors, burrowed through fissures, and poured in through the gaps that evil spirits themselves squeezed out. With each one it swallowed, the shadow grew stronger; with each stronger shadow, it swallowed even faster.

Shen Xun's blood stained his gray robes. Golden light shimmered around him, but he didn't reinforce it. He was using that blood to maintain the blood pact. He was feeding the fish, urging it to swim faster, to swallow more, to cleanse the surging, malevolent energy from the stairwell.

But he knew the price.

The eerie red runes began to move. They seeped out from the swallowed, sinister remains, like leeches drawn to blood, layering themselves onto the shadowy figures.

The shadowy figure shifted. It grew heavy.

Its edges began to lose their sharpness, becoming mushy and sticky, and a red, sticky substance began to drip from its body.

It was struggling. Shen Xun could feel it struggling. That chaos was fighting with those red fragments, fighting with something inside his body that didn't belong to him.

"Shen Xun..." Bai Wuchang's voice came from the depths of the shadows. Not from the outside, but from within. It was the chaos speaking, the girl calling him. The voice was broken, like a phone call with a bad signal, "I...I'm...losing...control...of myself..."

Shen Xun gripped the peachwood staff tightly. He wanted to call her back. But his hand was on the snake's head, and he couldn't press it down.

He knew she wasn't full yet. The evil forces were still surging downwards, from the rooftop, from the stairwell, from the cracks in every floor. If he called her back now, those things would surge back up, the golden light shield wouldn't hold, Lin Jian would die, his teammates would die, and he would die too.

"Wait a little longer," Shen Xun said. His voice was flat, as flat as a frozen river.

The White Impermanence did not answer. The shadowy figure continued to devour, but its movements slowed. It wasn't full; it was stuffed. The red fragments covered its entire body, like syrup coating ants.

With each movement, it tore apart a sticky membrane; with each swallow, it digested twice the noise. Its edges began to droop, like cotton wool soaked by rain. Shen Xun could feel that she was in great pain. She had never felt so bad before.

The footsteps upstairs stopped. Shen Xun could sense that something was standing at the corner of the stairwell, in the darkness, in the shadows where the golden light couldn't reach.

It didn't move. It just stood there. As if waiting. Waiting for Bai Wuchang to completely lose control, waiting for the golden light shield to disappear, waiting for Shen Xun's blood to drain away.

The shadow stopped. It stopped surging forward, stopped chasing upward, and stopped devouring the evil spirits that were still fleeing downward. It retreated.

"Shen Xun." Bai Wuchang's voice suddenly became steady. It wasn't that the pain had subsided; she was simply enduring it to keep herself from trembling. The dark shadow was shrinking, coalescing, and transforming back into the shape of that young girl.

But her face had changed. It was unfamiliar.

Her face was covered with dark spots, like phantom images. Her pigtails no longer swayed lightly, but instead resembled two clumps of black cotton wool scattered by the wind, drifting slowly behind her.

It wasn't her dancing, it was the wind blowing her. It was those things that weren't hers, stuffed into her body, that were cheering inside her.

But her eyes hadn't changed. They were still those almond-shaped eyes, still that same light. They were faint now, like a candle flame about to go out.

But she was looking at Shen Xun. Very intently, as if trying to memorize his appearance.

"I can't control myself." Her voice was very soft, as soft as snow falling on the ground.

Shen Xun's hand tightened.

"Let's break the contract," said Bai Wuchang. She smiled, softly, just like when she usually acted coquettishly towards him. "If I break it, it won't have anything to go crazy about. It won't hurt you."

Shen Xun did not answer.

He stared into her eyes, into the light, into the flowing ink on her face; her face had become a landscape painting.

A flowing landscape painting.

He remembered the first time she peeked her head out from her sleeve. She had those almond-shaped eyes then, and that same light shone through them, like a little animal just opening its eyes.

"Shen Xun." Bai Wuchang's voice trembled, but her eyes remained fixed on him. "I'm dying."

Shen Xun raised his hand and placed it on the top of her head. The blood pact burned within him, like a string stretched to its limit, about to snap. His fingertips touched her hair, soft and cool, like winter snow.

"no way."

He answered.

Two words. As light as a sigh. Yet resolute.

Bai Wuchang heard it. Her tears fell, landing on the back of Shen Xun's hand; they were hot and burning.

She was chaos, she had no tears. But now she has.

Her girlish form lit up again, with her soft face, almond-shaped eyes, and a light that was about to go out.

Before she could say anything more, footsteps sounded upstairs again.

One step. A crack appeared in the golden light shield. Two steps. Another one. It was descending. Shen Xun gripped Bai Wuchang's hand; golden blood flowed, the golden light dimmed, and the thing upstairs was approaching. He didn't know how much longer he could hold on.

But he didn't let go. He wouldn't let go.

The snow finally lessened. Old Gu could finally see further. He squinted, staring at the road ahead. Mangui Town lay ahead, Yikesama to the left. He remembered. He glanced at his phone's navigation; it matched his memory.

Ao Luya recognized it as well; she had traveled through Mangui when she left the tribe. She noticed something was wrong when she passed the forest farm. The forest farm uncle warmly invited her to have a meal before continuing her journey, but because the situation by the river was urgent and the atmosphere was relatively calm yet showed signs of rioting, she left first.

Unexpectedly, the evil aura that drifted from the riverbank into Xishan'ao gathered deeper and deeper in the forest farm.

There was no trace of the two cars along the way, but the group couldn't relax.

"We've arrived in Mangui." Old Gu's voice was hoarse, like sandpaper scraping against a stone, but it returned to its usual tone.

The town was small, with dozens of houses lined up along the road, their roofs weighed down by thick snow. There were no lights, no smoke, and no people. It was like a skeleton whose internal organs had been removed. Old Gu didn't stop; he drove through the middle of the town, his tires crunching over the snow as if floating on clouds.

The road began to ascend. The trees on both sides grew denser, larch and birch huddled together, icicles hanging from their branches, tinkling and clanging in the wind. Old Gu stared at the roadside milestones. He remembered that the sign for Iksama was at kilometer twenty-eight.

"Iksama is just ahead," Old Gu said.

Ao Luya gripped the handrail tightly. The white deer turned around in the truck bed, its ears twitched, then lay back down, staring at the dark forest ahead. A road sign appeared, crookedly perched on the roadside, the words on it already illegible.

Old Gu turned the car in, and the road narrowed. The gravel road was covered with snow, and the wheels slipped as they drove over it. Branches stretched out to the middle of the road on both sides, scraping against the car doors and making a creaking sound.

As the pickup truck climbed to the top of the hill, the view suddenly opened up. It was like a fish swimming into the sea, like a bird flying into the sky.

Across the valley were dark mountains, and at their foot lay a clearing with several houses. A light shone faintly from one of the houses, flickering in the wind and snow like a dying person gasping for breath.

Ao Luya's body stiffened for a moment, as if she were being watched.

From the depths of the woods, from the shadows of the snow, from some unseen place, something was watching her.

It wasn't a wolf, it wasn't a bear, it was a tiger. A tiger from the deepest part of the Greater Khingan Mountains.

She spends many years traversing the forest and has been watched by tigers.

That gaze was calm and unhurried.

"What's wrong?" Ye Zhuo noticed something was amiss.

Aoluya didn't answer. She stared at the grove of trees for a long time. Her gaze didn't waver, nor did she move closer. She simply stood there, watching her.

"We're going down now, everyone get ready," Old Gu said.

Old Gu drove the car downhill, and the gaze disappeared. It hadn't left; it had hidden itself. Ao Luya knew it was still there. It just didn't want to be seen.

Ye Zhuo suddenly grabbed Lao Gu's shoulder: "Stop the car." A car appeared in the night vision goggles above Ye Zhuo's head.

The hood popped up, the front of the car caved in badly, and it crashed into a tree trunk. The headlights were still on, flickering. It was the assassin's car. Even the spot where it hit the tree was exactly the same as the previous one.

The three waited in the darkness for a while. There was no engine sound, no door opening. Ye Zhuo pushed open the car door, slung his tactical backpack and composite bow over his shoulder, held a riot shield in his left hand and an entrenching tool in his right, and ran towards the off-road vehicle like a cat.

The SUV crashed into a tree. The door was open, and there was blood on the seat, which was already frozen.

The person was not there. The footprints started from the car door and walked into the forest.

Old Gu huddled in the car, starting to change into his winter gear. The sound of the zipper was especially loud in the snow. Ye Zhuo glanced at the woods. She felt it too. It was that chilling feeling down her spine. Like something was watching you from the shadows; you turn around, nothing there; you turn back, and it's there again.

"You felt it too?" Ao Luya's voice was very soft.

Ye Zhuo has returned; her footprints perfectly match those she left behind. "What is that?"

"I felt the tiger's gaze, but it was different, I can't quite put my finger on it," Ao Luya said. Old Gu reached for his flashlight, but Ye Zhuo quickly stopped him.

Ye Zhuo instructed Ao Luya and Old Gu to follow him at a distance while he went to investigate first.

As Ye Zhuo stealthily approached, without making any unusual moves, he still sensed a faint killing intent. He felt as if someone was watching him from behind, waiting for him to reveal a weakness so they could launch a fatal attack at any moment.

Ye Zhuo's figure flashed and crouched down to the door of the lit wooden house, where he found a person curled up in the snow at the door, covering their head and shivering.

The clothes were black; it was an assassin. Ye Zhuo was immediately alarmed. He pressed his dagger against the assassin's throat, but found no reaction. The assassin's eyes were glazed, his pupils contracted sharply, as if he had seen something extremely terrifying. He was just trembling uncontrollably. The faint moonlight bathed his face, obscuring his features.

The moonlight shone down on Ye Zhuo, and she felt a sense of déjà vu about where she had seen this assassin before. Ye Zhuo gritted her teeth. Impossible, she couldn't possibly have any connection with an assassin. She stopped thinking about it.

"And the last one?" Ye Zhuo's dagger had already made a thin cut on the assassin's neck, and a drop of blood dripped down the blade. She had to make sure she got the answer without any mistakes.

The assassin remained unresponsive, his gaze blank.

Old Gu turned on his flashlight and swept it deep into the forest. No one was there. Only footprints stretched behind the wooden house, disappearing into the darkness. The other assassin was gone.

Ye Zhuo pulled out a rope from his backpack, tied the man's hands and feet behind his back, and bound them together in a knot that no assassin could untie.

Ao Luya stood at the door of the wooden house, her hand resting on the copper bell at her waist. A white deer followed at her feet, its ears perked up, staring at the dark forest behind the house.

The gaze returned. Closer and heavier than before, like something had placed its claws on her shoulders and breathed on the back of her neck.

She knew it was there. From the moment she entered the forest, it was there. It was watching, waiting, and judging.

The copper bell on Aoluya's waist jumped up by itself, making a rapid sound, as if shouting: It's coming, run!

Ao Luya pressed her hand down, but still couldn't hold it down. The white deer's ears were pressed against the back of its head, but its eyes were surprisingly calm.

Ye Zhuo sensed it too. The killing intent surged from behind the wooden house, like ice water poured down her spine. She ignored the assassin and reached for the composite bow. Too late. It had already caught up.

A dark figure rushed out of the woods. It didn't run, it pounced.

With all four paws on the ground, like the fiercest Siberian tiger in the Greater Khingan Mountains, it leaped out of the darkness, arriving before the snow even touched the ground.

Everyone saw the fire; it was the fire as it saw it.

It burned for a very, very long time, and never went out.