The Eldritch Files

"They're saved?"

When Han Su snapped awake, he was still overwhelmed by a sense of disbelief.

He looked up at the clock on the opposite wall, then down at the steam gently rising from the coffee table. The realness of reality enveloped him.

Only then did a sudden excitement make him tremble all over, a fire seeming to burn in his chest.

The exhilaration of stumbling out of the Ancient Castle through the door with two people in tow still clung tightly to his memory.

An indescribable elation surged with increasing intensity, pounding against his heart.

He sat motionless on the sofa for a long time, as if to confirm this wasn't a hallucination. Finally, he shot to his feet. Unable to control the trembling in his hands, he snatched his second-hand laptop from the desk. He was so agitated that his fingers fumbled, hitting the wrong keys several times.

When he finally managed to hit Enter, an old news article about the kidnapping case from ten years ago jumped onto the screen. Only then did he suddenly feel a sense of utter exhaustion.

He slowly sank back into the sofa, covered his face with his hands, and began to laugh. His entire body shook with his laughter.

"They're saved!"

The news report, which once described the kidnapping of twenty-five children ten years ago, had now changed. It now glaringly stated, "To date, twenty-three children have yet to be found. The Public Security Bureau is intensifying its questioning of the sole survivor."

The number of missing children was now twenty-three. Two more had escaped the Ancient Castle.

He could have saved four, but the old steward had stopped him. This time, however, he had managed to rescue two right under the man's nose. This time, he'd saved them according to his own plan. This time, he'd successfully outsmarted the old steward...

This was good. This was exceptionally good.

The long-suppressed frustration from countless Flashes transformed into a frenzied joy, seeming to wash away his profound exhaustion.

He laughed for a good long while before slowly calming down. The first thing he did was pull over his suitcase.

He opened it and saw that the countdown on the Mechanical Fragment had changed from "zero" to "eight."

The countdown had begun once more.

But unlike the panic and unease he'd felt every other time, Han Su's feelings this time were surprisingly different.

The sense of urgency in his heart wasn't as severe.

Even when he saw the hideous burn scar exposed on his right wrist, he only felt...

'...Huh? A scar?'

Han Su froze. He quickly rolled up his sleeve and looked down to see large patches of burn marks on the back of his right hand, his wrist, and even his entire arm.

He rolled his sleeve up to his elbow, but still couldn't see the full extent of the scarring.

He stood up, went to the bathroom mirror, and took off his shirt. Looking at his reflection, he saw the burn scars spread from his right arm all the way to his shoulder and chest.

It was hideous and ugly. The wrinkled skin had a brownish, twisted look that was visually jarring.

If you didn't look closely, you might mistake it for a full-sleeve dragon tattoo.

'Did the old steward burn me with fire before I escaped the Ancient Castle?'

Han Su frowned, thinking hard. Fragments of memory about this scar began to enter his mind.

The scar hadn't changed his life much. The burn wasn't actually severe; though the area was frighteningly large, it wasn't deep, so it hadn't caused any major problems for his body or the mobility of his right arm.

At most, it was just a bit troublesome when wearing short sleeves.

Compared to rescuing two children, he really didn't care about a little burn. In fact, it vaguely sparked another thought:

'Does this burn scar count as a form of contact? Could it grant me a new Mysterious Power?'

'...'

This time, he wasn't so sure.

Before, both his right eye and left hand had been directly injured by a monster, which constituted deep contact. This time, however, he had been burned by fire from the Ancient Castle, lured by the old steward. And to top it all off, he was the one who had set the damn fire in the first place...

...But then again, the fire originated from the candles on the ninth floor, which the Ghost Princess had lit herself. Could it also possess some related mysterious properties?

Thinking about it this way, the possibility of activating a new Mysterious Power seemed to hang in the balance.

'The Gods send down their decree...'

He stared at himself in the mirror and silently recited the Fishing Song. He vaguely felt the activation of the Sea of Spiritual in his mind and a slight heat from the burn scar.

But that was all. Nothing else changed.

'Maybe I need to find another chance to leave the city, then use all my strength and try to activate it?'

The idea began to form in his mind.

Now, with Miss Ai's warning, and considering the metamorphosing monster should have completed its transformation by now, the great city of Qinggang actually gave him a sense of insecurity. He couldn't just recite the Fishing Song casually.

Outside the city, it would be different. He could shout it out to his heart's content and feel the complete activation of his Spiritual Activity.

Whether this burn scar concealed a new Mysterious Power was something he would probably only find out then.

He slowly put his shirt back on. Han Su sat back on the sofa, picked up his laptop again, and quickly typed in a search query.

This was the first time he had felt such intense joy after leaving the Ancient Castle. This joy was different from when he rescued Wei Lan, because that time had been a combination of chance and accident.

This time, he had saved them through his own planning and action. Compared to that, what was a small burn?

It was just a shame he had no one to share this joy with.

Right now, his main concern was the status of the two children he had rescued.

He had learned his lesson from the incident with Wei Lan. He had gone through various reports and committed to memory all the information on the remaining children, matching them with their childhood photos. Even for those with vague details, he had tried his best to remember their names.

So now, he clearly remembered the identities of the two rescued children.

One was a rich young master from Seawall City, the Heir to the ancient Rong Family's corporate enterprise, named Rong Qiyue.

The other one was Pot Lid Head.

His real name was Chen Ji. His family was quite well-known in Qinggang, a family of some standing, though not as prominent as the Xu Family or Magic Box Group.

But if Han Su remembered correctly, the current mayor of Qinggang City was also surnamed Chen.

In short, both of them came from wealthy families. Now that they had escaped the kidnapping, they had a new lease on life. Precious children like them were often the subject of media pursuit and reporting, so he should be able to find information in the news.

Soon, the relevant information popped up on the webpage. There was very little information on Rong Qiyue of Seawall City, but plenty of reports on his family's business. It appeared to be thriving, and was currently investing in the excavation of an ancient ruin located between Qinggang and Seawall City.

'Ruin excavation?'

Han Su's gaze fell on this piece of news, and he paused.

His old self, outside the Mysterious Circle, would naturally not have understood the massive impact of such a seemingly ordinary news story.

The various ancient ruins that existed in this world before the Reconstruction Era all represented historical secrets, one after another. Even the most miraculous Mechanical Fragment he now held in his hands was unearthed from a similar ruin.

Against this mysterious backdrop, any ancient ruin represented immense value and secrets.

This industry could already be classified as taboo. It wasn't just about having money or power; one had to have crossed a certain social stratum to even be qualified to get involved. And the Rong Family was actually in this line of business?

He was silent for a long moment, then started searching for news about Pot Lid Head. After scanning it for a couple of seconds, he suddenly froze on the spot.

Thinking he had misread it, he rubbed his eyes and looked again.

"What the hell?"

"..."

He had considered a thousand possibilities, but he never could have imagined this outcome.

News reports about Pot Lid Head were incredibly easy to find; they were practically everywhere.

The content of every report was more or less the same:

The wealthy young master surnamed Chen had been sentenced to death by the Midtown High Court for a public murder and subsequently executed. His death represented a further strengthening of the rule of law in Qinggang City, proving that the Public Security Bureau's stance of never compromising with capital was not just empty talk.

"?"

Han Su was completely stunned for a good while.

'What the fuck? The person I worked so hard to save was already executed for a crime?'

'Did I search for the wrong thing?'

He hurriedly read the report below. Four years ago, Pot Lid Head, or rather, the Pang Family's second young master, had gotten into a dispute at the Blue Shield Bar while fighting with someone over a passed-out girl. When the other party started beating him, he went berserk, snatched a dagger, and stabbed seven people to death.

He even stabbed one more person to death in front of the cameras after news reporters arrived.

Because the incident was so heinous, he was quickly arrested by the Public Security Bureau, put on a fast-tracked trial, and after being imprisoned for a year, was executed by firing squad.

The incident caused a huge uproar. It was all over the news, and its impact even rivaled that of the kidnapping case from ten years ago.

It was because while it wasn't uncommon for murders to make the news, it was rare for a murder to be broadcast live.

To this day, the guy's name was still synonymous with the devil. In fact, even the memory fragments from Han Su's latest Flash contained traces of this case; he just hadn't been able to connect the details to Pot Lid Head.

'He's really dead, just like that?'

Sitting on the sofa, Han Su thought silently: Pot Lid Head's family background was impressive, and in that murder case, it looked like he had acted reactively. How could his family not have tried to save his life?

With a family like that, how many of them are truly law-abiding? Even if he really was the murderer, they would have probably spent a fortune to save him, right? But from the reports, it really looked as if his family had gotten scared and gone into hiding under the pressure of public opinion.

The entire process was one-sided: a swift arrest, trial, and the execution procedure was completed in less than a year.

There was absolutely no sign of his family using their influence.

In fact, it seemed the entire process was deliberately accelerated.

Could it be...

An idea suddenly flashed through Han Su's mind: The Disaster Management Bureau was always recruiting people from death row.

'Could that guy be in the D7 Group?'

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