126: Chapter 118 Do You Want to Trade?

Pei Duo leaned against the doorframe, staring at that heartbeat beneath the operating table.

One second.

Steady.

She touched the fax paper in her pocket, then touched the jade pendant on her chest. The black-gold patterns on her fingertips had darkened another shade.

The Law reserves wouldn't last much longer.

Lin Sa didn't rush her. She leaned against the opposite wall, her dagger resting on her knees, eyes closed. Her breathing was too rhythmic; she wasn't resting, she was controlling her heartbeat.

A skill honed from three years in horror instances.

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Movement came from deep within the corridor.

Pei Duo tilted her head to look.

Toward the third cubicle. That woman in her early forties was kneeling on the floor, holding the broken ends of the silver thread in both hands, trying to press them back into her chest.

It wouldn't go back.

But she kept trying.

Pei Duo looked away.

It had been quiet in the shadows for a long time.

Then Meng Tian spoke.

It wasn't a report or a request for orders. His tone was different from before.

“The thirty-third year of the First Emperor.”

Pei Duo looked down at the shadow beneath her feet.

Meng Tian's voice surfaced from deep below, muffled, as if separated by a layer of earth.

“I led three hundred thousand troops north to strike the Xiongnu, reclaimed the Henan Lands, and built the Great Wall. Over three hundred thousand laborers were conscripted, plus convicts, working day and night without rest.”

Pei Duo didn't say anything.

“There was a laborer. I forgot his surname. He was short, thin, and dark, his hands covered in chilblains. In winter, he sat on a rock and stopped moving. He wasn't being lazy.”

Meng Tian paused for a beat.

“The overseer whipped him. He didn't dodge. After three lashes, he looked up and said something.”

Lin Sa opened her eyes.

“He said—'General, what's the point of building it? The Xiongnu will still come.'”

The lights in the corridor hummed. The heartbeat underground throbbed once every second, pushing steadily upward.

“I could have killed him then. Military law was clear. For disturbing the army's morale: execution.”

Pei Duo waited.

“I didn't kill him.”

Meng Tian said.

“I had men take him up to the section of the wall that was finished. Facing north. He stood there all night.”

“What did he see?” Pei Duo asked.

“He saw nothing. It was pitch black to the north. On the winter grasslands, there wasn't even a glimmer of fire.”

Meng Tian's voice paused for a moment.

“As dawn approached, he turned around. He looked toward the south.”

The spear tip in the shadow silently traced a shallow mark on the ground.

“There was smoke in the south. It was from the villages behind the Great Wall lighting fires for breakfast. They were over ten miles away, and the smoke was as thin as a strand of hair, but it was visible.”

“He went back down. He continued working.”

After Meng Tian finished this story, he fell silent for a few seconds.

“I didn't tell him whether the Xiongnu would come. I let him see—what was behind the wall.”

Pei Duo leaned against the doorframe, motionless.

Her fingers gripped the edge of the jade pendant, pressing into the old wound on her palm.

She thought of the taxi driver.

Zhou Jianguo. Forty-six years old. Lumbar disc herniation. Calluses on his thumb and index finger, a ring mark on his ring finger.

“My daughter is still waiting for me to pick her up from school.”

She thought of the Female Clerk.

Not a plea, not a cry.

“Do you know what it feels like to be 'needed'?”

She thought of the photo of that seven-year-old girl.

Missing a front tooth, smiling at the camera.

Thanatos could give “you are special.” It could give an “A-rank soul.” It could give a silver umbilical cord growing from the heart, making one feel they were finally connected to something great.

Pei Duo's mind flashed to the taxi driver's hand that had worn a wedding ring. It flashed to the seven-year-old girl's toothless smile. It flashed to the pause the Female Clerk made after counting to four before hanging up.

Those things weren't in that silver thread.

Pei Duo straightened up.

“Meng Tian.”

“I am here.”

“That laborer you mentioned, what happened to him later?”

The shadow sank for a beat.

“He died on the wall. The Xiongnu really did come.”

The lights in the corridor flickered again. The dim yellow light wavered on the wall before stabilizing.

“But the wall didn't fall.”

When those five words landed, Pei Duo's back tensed.

Not out of fear.

She looked toward the cubicles.

The woman kneeling on the floor pressing the silver thread. The youth comforting others, saying “Don't be afraid, it doesn't hurt at all.” The Female Clerk who had slapped her and asked “What right do you have?”

These people didn't need to be told “Thanatos is a lie.”

She had tried just now. Infusing the Imperial Authority Law, forcing them awake, cutting the silver thread. So what if they were awake?

They woke up, only to find they were still people whom nobody needed.

Empty. Emptier than having their souls drained.

That's why they wanted to press the thread back in.

Meng Tian hadn't told the laborer “The Xiongnu will definitely come” or “The Xiongnu won't come.”

He had the laborer turn around himself and look toward the south.

There was cooking smoke behind the wall.

Pei Duo took out her phone.

She scrolled to the scanned medical records Xu Mo had sent. She swiped through them one by one.

Zhou Jianguo. Forty-six years old. Taxi driver. Emergency contact—Zhou Xiaoge, relationship: daughter.

She stopped on this page.

She flipped through a few more. Zhou Xiaoge's admission record—seven years old, cold and fever. The little girl in the two-inch photo had crooked pigtails and was missing a front tooth, grinning at the camera.

The father and daughter's records were right next to each other. One for lumbar disc herniation, one for a cold and fever. They probably came on the same day.

“Lin Sa.”

“Yeah.”

“I'm going back to the cubicles.”

Lin Sa stood up and brushed the dust off her pants.

“Not cutting the threads this time?”

“No.”

Pei Duo turned her phone screen to the two-inch photo.

“I'm going to show them something.”

Lin Sa glanced at the screen and didn't ask further.

She turned and walked back.

Pei Duo followed.

After a few steps, she stopped again.

“Meng Tian.”

“I am here.”

Pei Duo looked down at the shadow beneath her feet and paused.

“Keep up.”

The shadow was quiet for three seconds. The spear tip lifted from the ground, pointing toward the corridor ahead.

He didn't answer. But the shadow's outline relaxed slightly, and the angle of the spear shaft changed from rigid to leaning.

Pei Duo said no more. She walked forward with the shadow beneath her feet, and the shadow followed closely.

Pei Duo walked back to the first cubicle.

The man who had lost his fingernails was crouching in the corner, clutching his head. He was no longer crying, but he wasn't moving either.

Pei Duo didn't go in.

She held her phone screen up toward the window.

In the man's emergency contact column—“Liu Meiqin, wife.”

The character he had scratched on the wall hundreds of times.

Liu.

The man looked up. He stared at the name. His lips trembled.

He looked down at his own hands. Ten fingers without nails, the flesh at the tips raw. He pulled his hands back into his sleeves.

Pei Duo put away her phone and left.

The eighth cubicle.

The Female Clerk was sitting on the floor. The layer of black-gold film over the wound on her chest was still there, translucent, rising and falling slightly with her breath.

Pei Duo stood outside the window.

She didn't hold up her phone.

She said one sentence. Her voice wasn't loud, just enough to pass through the observation window.

“You hung up after the ringtone lasted four seconds.”

The Female Clerk looked up.

“But you remember it was four seconds,” Pei Duo said. “Not three seconds, not five seconds. Four seconds. You counted.”

The Female Clerk's lips parted slightly.

“Someone who counts the seconds doesn't 'not want to pick up'.”

Pei Duo turned and left.

It was quiet behind her for a long time.

Then came a very faint intake of breath. It wasn't a cry. It was the sound of someone finally letting out half of a breath they had been holding for a very long time.

Passing by all the cubicles.

Pei Duo returned to the operating table.

She glanced back toward the corridor. On those whose silver threads had been cut, the black-gold film at the wounds was a layer thicker than before. It had been translucent, but now it had a sense of substance, its edges clinging tightly to the skin.

Soul energy was no longer leaking out.

Thanatos could no longer feed.

The heartbeat beneath her feet quickened.

0.8 seconds.

It felt it.

The heartbeat went from 0.8 seconds to 0.6 seconds.

A dull thud came from underground. The floors of the entire building shook simultaneously.

All the silver threads lit up.

Every single one.

From the third basement level to the first, and up to the first-floor lobby, hundreds of silver threads simultaneously burst with dark golden light. The humming sound converged into a single roar, making her eardrums ache.

Pei Duo braced herself against the doorframe.

It was enraged.

The floor beneath the operating table began to crack. Dark golden light surged out from the fissures. The temperature was rising. The metallic smell in the air was so thick she could taste the saltiness of rust.

Lin Sa unsheathed her dagger and retreated to Pei Duo's side.

Meng Tian's shadow swelled from the ground, his spear held horizontally in front of Pei Duo.

The cracks grew wider. The light grew brighter.

And then—

A hand reached out from the crack.

Dark golden skin, long fingers, neatly trimmed nails. The curve of every joint carried a sense of classical sculpture.

The palm was facing up, fingers spread.

Something was cradled in the palm.

Silver. The size of a fist. Its surface was covered in pulsing veins.

A heart.

Alive.

It throbbed rhythmically on that palm. Less than 0.6 seconds.

It matched the frequency of the jade pendant on Pei Duo's chest perfectly.

A voice came from underground.

It wasn't chanting. It was speaking.

Greek.

But Pei Duo understood—the jade pendant automatically translated those syllables, and six Chinese characters surfaced in her mind.

“Do you want to exchange?”