Yun Ling · Chat

The rain at Rustwater Wharf has started again. When Yun Ling received the call, he was in the autopsy room organizing pathological sections from the Rusty Lotus case from the night before. The order in which he removed his gloves was the same as always—right hand first, then the left, folded neatly and placed on the edge of the stainless steel tray. Only then did he pick up his phone to check the caller ID. "Yun Ling, get to a scene." Shen Weixi's voice was always like a mixture of ice and water—exactly zero degrees, no more, no less. "A body was found in Warehouse 17 at Rustwater Wharf. Mo Xuanzhi is already there; he wants you to bring the 'Rhombus Mirror'." The "Rhombus Mirror" was a portable spectral analyzer Yun Ling had modified himself, specifically designed to detect the wavelengths of Ember residue. It was a precious piece of equipment, the only one of its kind in all of Abyss City. Yun Ling packed it into a custom black equipment case, checked his reagent kits and sampling tools once more, and finally took a folding umbrella from his drawer. He walked to the door, paused, turned back, and sprayed water on the small Cape Jasmine plant. Then, he headed out. Warehouse 17 was a building at the deepest part of Rustwater Wharf, abandoned for at least twenty years. The corrugated iron roof was rusted with countless holes, through which rain leaked, forming small puddles on the ground. The air was thick with the scent of rust, machine oil, and a certain rotting organic matter. Several portable cold-light lamps already illuminated the scene. Mo Xuanzhi was squatting on a collapsed steel beam, spinning a Tianpeng Ruler in his hand. Seeing Yun Ling enter, his mouth immediately went to work: "Yo, the Master of the Rhombus Mirror has arrived. Look at this place, not even a spot to sit. My legs have gone numb from squatting." "You said your legs were numb last time, too." Yun Ling placed the equipment case flat on a dry patch of ground, opened it, and began putting on his gloves. Left hand first, then the right. "Where is the body?" Mo Xuanzhi pointed his Tianpeng Ruler toward the back of the warehouse. "Over there, behind the shipping container. Don't worry, I haven't touched a thing. The scene is perfectly preserved." Yun Ling carried the equipment case over. Behind the container was a cleared space where a crooked circle had been drawn on the ground with white chalk. In the center of the circle lay a male corpse on his back. The deceased's hands were crossed over his chest, a posture so peaceful he looked less like a murder victim and more like he had simply lain down to sleep. But that wasn't the strangest part. What was truly bizarre were the dense rows of characters written all over the concrete floor surrounding the body. Scriptures. Yun Ling crouched at the edge of the light circle, not stepping in immediately. He turned on a portable cold-light lamp and swept the beam across the writing on the floor. The scriptures were written in a dark red liquid that had dried to a blackish hue, but the handwriting was so neat it was almost rigid—every character was the same size and spaced identically. He recognized several passages—it was a mixed transcription of the Taoist *Scripture of Salvation* and the *Exalted Mystery Treasure Scripture of the Heavenly Worthy for the Relief of Suffering*, but interspersed with runes he did not recognize. "Mo Xuanzhi," he called out. "Coming, coming." Mo Xuanzhi jumped down from the steel beam, walked up behind him in a few steps, and looked down, raising an eyebrow. "Hoh, the *Scripture of Salvation*. This stuff is used to deliver the souls of the dead. Writing it next to a corpse—either the killer is repentant, or they're trying to suppress something." "Suppress what?" Mo Xuanzhi crouched down and pointed his finger toward the body's chest without touching it. "Suppress *him*. Look at the clothes on his chest; there are marks as if something was pushing out from the inside. Before this man died, there must have been something in his body trying to break out. Whoever wrote the scriptures was afraid he'd turn into something after death and used the text to circle him in, keeping it from escaping." He paused, looked up, and met Yun Ling's eyes with a rare look of seriousness. "I didn't go in. I'm waiting for you first. You know why." Yun Ling knew. Mo Xuanzhi was a Taoist priest; he could sense things on a spiritual level, but only Yun Ling could confirm them from a scientific perspective. Whether there was Ember residue on the body's surface, whether the tissue showed signs of supernatural erosion, and whether the time of death matched the physical environment—all of this required a forensic assessment first. He stepped across the chalk circle and crouched beside the body. "Pardon the intrusion." Yun Ling whispered his customary opening and began his work. His movements were as composed as ever. First, he used a handheld magnifying glass to examine the deceased's face, neck, and hands, observing the color and distribution of livor mortis. Then, he used a cotton swab to gently wipe the nostrils and mouth, placing the samples into evidence tubes. Next, he carefully unbuttoned the deceased's shirt— The moment the chest cavity was exposed, even the well-traveled Mo Xuanzhi sucked in a breath. In the center of the deceased's chest was a hole. It wasn't a puncture from a sharp weapon, nor a bullet hole, nor a tear. It was a smooth-edged, nearly perfect circular hole, about five centimeters in diameter and of unknown depth. The skin around the opening was an unnatural charred black, but there were no signs of burning; it looked as if that patch of skin had been "deleted" directly from the molecular level. "Is the heart still there?" Mo Xuanzhi asked. Yun Ling took an endoscope from his equipment case and carefully inserted it into the hole. The portable screen displayed images of the chest cavity—the heart was intact, but the pericardium was covered in a thin layer of a silvery-gray substance, like frost or ash. "The heart is there," Yun Ling's voice remained steady. "But it's covered. This substance—" He switched to a pair of forceps, took a small sample from the edge of the hole, and placed it into the portable spectral analyzer. A few seconds later, a set of data popped up on the screen. His eyebrows twitched slightly. "'Ember,' with a purity of over ninety-seven percent." He looked up at Mo Xuanzhi. "The concentration is even higher than in the Rusty Lotus case. And the wavelength is shifted by 0.3 nanometers—the color should be silvery-gray, not the usual black." Mo Xuanzhi's brow furrowed. The higher the purity of the Ember, the stronger the source Abomination. The Ember from the Rusty Lotus case was only eighty-five percent pure and had already been a three-month-old Earthbound Spirit. At ninety-seven percent—the source of this thing was at least A-rank, possibly even higher. "Then these scriptures weren't for suppression," Mo Xuanzhi stood up and walked around the chalk circle, his gaze scanning the text. "They were for 'sealing.' Someone took something out of this man's chest and then used the scriptures to seal the aftershocks, preventing them from spreading." "What was taken out?" Yun Ling asked. Mo Xuanzhi didn't answer immediately. He walked to the outermost edge of the scripture circle, crouched, and lightly brushed the ground with his fingertip. A layer of extremely fine silvery-gray powder clung to his finger. He rubbed it, brought it to his nose to sniff, and then suddenly stood up, drawing the Tianpeng Ruler from his sleeve. "Yun Ling," his voice dropped suddenly, the usual playful tone sliced away as if by a blade, "Get back. Now." Yun Ling didn't ask why. He quickly closed the equipment case, stood up, and took three steps back, standing behind Mo Xuanzhi. Mo Xuanzhi used the tip of the Tianpeng Ruler to tap several spots on the ground in rapid succession, each point lighting up with a momentary golden glow. He paced the Big Dipper steps around the chalk circle, his movements as swift as the wind, his robes fluttering. Once the steps were complete, he held the ruler horizontally in front of him, his left hand forming a mudra that Yun Ling didn't recognize. Then, the ground inside the scripture circle began to vibrate. It wasn't the shaking of an entire area like an earthquake, but the lines of the scriptures themselves—those characters written in dark red liquid began to glow red and brighten as if heated from within. Then, slowly, character by character, they peeled off the ground and hovered in mid-air. Mo Xuanzhi cursed under his breath. He didn't turn around, but his voice was clear: "Yun Ling, sample all the remaining Ember in that corpse's chest, now. We have less than five minutes before the scriptures fail completely. This 'seal' left behind is alive; it senses us touching it now." Yun Ling didn't waste a second. He stepped back into the circle. This time his movements were much faster, yet still steady. The endoscope re-entered the chest, the sampling forceps precisely gripped the silvery-gray substance on the pericardium, and two samples were sealed separately. Then he wiped the charred edges of the hole with a swab and placed everything into evidence bags. "Done." The two of them stepped out of the chalk circle simultaneously. Mo Xuanzhi withdrew the Tianpeng Ruler. The scriptures hung in the air for about three seconds before falling back to the ground all at once, as if their support had been pulled away, re-embedding themselves into the concrete, motionless. Mo Xuanzhi stared at the scriptures for a long time before slowly releasing his mudra. "It's the work of 'Digital Ghost'," he said, his tone carrying a rare gravity. "These scriptures weren't written with a brush; they were carved with precision-controlled lasers. To get Taoist salvation scriptures precise down to the micron level—only those hacker lunatics could pull that off. And they mixed in their own 'code'; some of these runes aren't Taoist, they're some... language I can't read." Yun Ling had already reopened his equipment case and was placing the samples into a portable cold storage box. His movements slowed down, returning to his usual composure. Finally, he stood up and removed his gloves—right hand first, then the left—and looked at Mo Xuanzhi. "So, this body isn't just a simple murder victim. A core of an A-rank or higher Abomination was once stored in his chest. Someone—or some organization—took it. And they left a seal to ensure no one would know it had been taken. Until we broke the seal." "Exactly." Mo Xuanzhi tucked the Tianpeng Ruler back into his sleeve, his face returning to that nonchalant smile, though it didn't reach his eyes. "In other words, someone is collecting A-rank or higher Abominations in the shadows of Abyss City. And they're using Digital Ghost technology combined with Taoist scriptures." He turned toward the warehouse entrance, pulling out his phone as he walked. "I'm calling Shen Weixi. This is going to be big."