127: Chapter 119 The Light of the Insects

After Pei Duo left, the cubicle remained quiet for a long time.

The chanting from underground did not stop. It was in 4/4 time, low and drawn-out, with every syllable drilling into the gaps of one's bones.

The Female Clerk sat on the floor with her legs crossed, the hem of her hospital gown spread out on the concrete.

Her posture was exactly the same as before. Her back was straight, and her hands rested on her knees.

The wound on her chest no longer hurt.

That layer of black-gold membrane clung to her skin, translucent and thin as a piece of freshly solidified wax. It rose and fell slightly with her breathing, its edges shimmering with a dull light.

The wound did not hurt.

But that spot felt empty.

When the silver thread was there before, that place felt full. It was like an umbilical cord connecting her to something vast, warm, and incapable of rejecting her. Every heartbeat could travel along the thread and return—carrying with it the confirmation that "you are needed."

Now, it was gone.

Nothing could fill the hole in her chest.

The chanting suddenly changed its tune.

The rhythm scattered, the melody fractured, turning into a soft, nasal whisper.

It didn't sound like a funeral dirge. It sounded like a lullaby.

The sound seeped up from the concrete floor beneath her feet, wound around her knees, and crawled up along her ribs.

The Female Clerk's fingers twitched.

The voice was speaking.

It wasn't Greek. It was Chinese. Standard, gentle, non-aggressive Chinese.

"Come back."

Just two words.

"That girl has left. She doesn't know you. She won't come back."

The Female Clerk closed her eyes.

"No one is waiting for you."

As these words fell, her hand lifted from her knee.

Her fingers splayed open, reaching toward the wound on her chest.

The black-gold membrane sensed the approaching fingers and flickered.

It wasn't resisting. It was telling her: If you want to tear it open, it won't stop you.

It made no choices. The Law does not make choices for people.

The Female Clerk's fingertips hovered three centimeters above her chest.

The voice came again.

It was closer than before. It didn't sound like it was coming from underground anymore—it was as if someone were crouching behind her, lips pressed against her ear.

"After you return, everything will be the same as before. A-Class. There are fewer than twenty in the whole city. You are very special."

It paused.

"Very important."

Her fingertips inched forward one centimeter. Two centimeters. They were about to touch the surface of the black-gold membrane.

Then she stopped.

It wasn't the Law blocking her. Mo didn't react. Meng Tian's murderous aura wasn't there. The aftermath of Pei Duo's Imperial Authority wasn't there.

There was no external force interfering with her in this cubicle.

She stopped herself.

Because she remembered a number. Four.

"You hang up after the ringtone sounds for four seconds."

"But you remember it's four seconds. Not three seconds, not five seconds. It's four seconds. You counted."

"Someone who counts the seconds is not someone who doesn't want to answer."

The Female Clerk's hand hung in mid-air.

She had indeed counted. More than once.

Every time her daughter's caller ID lit up, her thumb would rest above the answer button. Her heartbeat would count for her—one, two, three, four. And then she would hang up.

Why four seconds?

Because at the fifth second, she was afraid she would answer.

If she answered, she would have to speak. If she spoke, she would have to answer "Mom, are you okay?" If she answered, she would have to make things up. If she couldn't keep making things up, she would cry.

If she cried, it would prove she wasn't doing well.

If she wasn't doing well, it would prove her ex-husband was right—she was useless.

So she got stuck at four. Forever stuck at four.

The voice sensed her hesitation.

"So what if it's four seconds? You hung up. You hung up every time."

Yes. She hung up every time.

"She doesn't need you."

The Female Clerk's lips moved. No sound came out.

But her hand, one finger at a time, withdrew.

It wasn't a sudden jerk back. It was slow. Bending one joint at a time, she clenched her hand into a fist and placed it back on her knee.

The voice fell silent for two seconds. When it spoke again, the gentleness was gone.

"You will regret this."

The Female Clerk opened her eyes. She stared at the opposite wall. Gray-white concrete, with a crack cutting diagonally from the top left corner to the bottom right. There was nothing there.

She stared for a long time. Then she stood up.

Her knees cracked audibly. She had been sitting cross-legged for too long, and both legs were completely numb. She steadied herself against the wall, swaying slightly, her hospital gown hanging crookedly on her body.

The cubicle door was unlocked. Pei Duo hadn't closed it when she came in.

She walked out.

The lights in the corridor were that same dusty, dim yellow. The remnants of the silver threads on the ground were twisted, like a spiderweb that had been stepped on.

To the left, the third cubicle.

The woman in her early forties was still inside.

Kneeling on the floor, she held the broken end of the silver thread in her hands, pressing it against her chest.

There was no expression on her face, and her eyes were dry.

She pressed, then released. Pressed, then released.

It was mechanical. But one could see she was using a lot of strength. The veins on the back of her hands were bulging one by one.

The Female Clerk stood at the doorway.

The woman didn't look up.

The Female Clerk walked in.

Her footsteps sounded muffled in the small cubicle. Two steps. Three steps. She arrived in front of her.

She crouched down.

Two women wearing the same style of hospital gown crouched face-to-face in the two-square-meter concrete cubicle.

The Female Clerk reached out her hand.

She didn't touch the silver thread. She didn't touch the wound.

She took hold of the woman's hand.

The broken end of the silver thread was still clutched in the woman's fingers. The moment she was held, her fingers stiffened.

She looked up.

The two faces were very close.

The woman in her early forties had confusion, wariness, and a hint of tension in her eyes, as if asking, "What are you doing?"

The Female Clerk said nothing.

She just held her hand.

Their fingers interlaced. Palm to palm.

Her hand was cold, and the other woman's hand was cold too. Two icy hands gripped each other.

Silence.

The chanting from underground continued. The gentle layer had receded, returning to the original tone of the ancient Greek funeral dirge, cold and distant.

It had given up on whispering.

Five seconds. Ten seconds.

The woman in her early forties lowered her head, looking at their two clasped hands.

Her lips trembled.

The broken end of the silver thread slipped through her fingers. It fell to the floor.

There was no sound.

A soft "click."

The black-gold membranes on both their chests lit up simultaneously.

It wasn't the output of the Law. It wasn't the activation of Imperial Authority.

What was stored in that layer of membrane were the fragments of the Law that had automatically infiltrated when Pei Duo severed the threads. The fragments themselves had no will; they didn't heal, they didn't interfere, they were just there.

But now, they were resonating.

Like two plucked strings, they happened to be at the same pitch.

The brightness wasn't strong. The dark golden light flowed along the surface of their skin, spreading two or three centimeters out from the edges of the wounds, then stopped.

It was very weak.

But the dark gold left behind by the silver thread—the color of Thanatos—retreated by half an inch within the range of the resonance.

Half an inch. Not much. But retreated meant retreated.

The woman in her early forties stared at the patch of light on her own chest. Then she looked at the one opposite her.

The same frequency. The same brightness.

One beat, another beat, following the two women's heartbeats.

She spoke. Her voice was incredibly hoarse, her lips cracked, and the words she spoke broke into fragments.

"What's your name?"

"Chen Li," the Female Clerk said.

After a moment's thought, she added, "I used to be a clerk at the neighborhood committee."

The woman in her early forties was stunned for a moment. She tugged at the corner of her mouth. It couldn't be called a smile.

"Zhou Hongmei. I sold fruit."

The two names landed in the cubicle. Not too big, not too small, just enough to fill the two-square-meter space.

---

Footsteps came from deep in the corridor.

Light ones. It wasn't Pei Duo. Nor was it Lin Sa.

It was the man who had lost his fingernails.

He walked out of the first cubicle. His right hand was tucked into his sleeve, his left hand braced against the wall, his steps unsteady.

When he passed the doorway of the third cubicle, he paused.

He glanced inside.

Two strange women were crouching on the floor, holding hands. The dark golden light on their chests flickered, like two nightlights running out of battery.

He stood there for three seconds. He turned and continued walking deeper into the corridor.

He walked to the doorway of the fifth cubicle.

The seventeen- or eighteen-year-old boy was crouching on the threshold, staring blankly at the opposite wall.

The man sat down beside him. He didn't speak.

With the hand tucked in his sleeve, he gently touched the boy's shoulder.

The boy turned his head to look at him.

The man pulled his sleeve down, covering those fingernail-less fingers.

"Are you cold?"

The boy shook his head.

The two of them sat side by side, backs against the cubicle doorframe.

---

At the end of the corridor. The bottom level of the spiral ramp.

The heartbeat beneath the operating table accelerated.

The silver threads throughout the entire building vibrated frantically at the same time, the buzzing sound so sharp it pierced through the walls—

But the black-gold membranes on the chests of all those whose threads had been severed lit up.

One light here, one light there.

In the cubicles deep in the corridor, there were little stars of light, dark golden glows rising and falling.

It wasn't Pei Duo's Law driving it. It was the people.

Eleven people whose threads had been severed.

Some were holding hands. Some were leaning on shoulders. Some were just sitting in the same corridor, able to see each other.

These faint points of light, which even Thanatos couldn't be bothered to look at directly, were slowly, stubbornly pushing that half-inch of retreat forward, one centimeter at a time.

---

The floor beneath the operating table burst open with a new crack.

Dark golden light erupted from the crack, the temperature spiked by ten degrees, and the air warped and distorted.

The voice of Thanatos welled up from underground.

It wasn't a whisper anymore, it wasn't a lullaby. It was a roar.

In ancient Greek, every syllable carried a substantial crushing force, shaking the observation windows on both sides of the corridor until they cracked.

Pei Duo stood before the operating table, her hand pressing on the jade pendant.

She understood that roar. "Bugs."

The jade pendant was so hot it blistered her palm. Nine black dragons were thrashing violently on the surface of the jade.

Inside the crack in the floor, that dark golden hand was still holding the silver heart.

The heartbeat frequency was now so fast it had merged into a single line.

Then it withdrew.

The hand retreated back into the crack. The heart vanished. The crack closed.

The entire process took less than two seconds.

Pei Duo's ears buzzed, and her fingertips briefly lost sensation, as if something had sucked a breath of air out of her blood vessels.

A final sound came from underground. It wasn't a roar. It was a laugh. A very light laugh.

"There is only one chance for an exchange."

And then—all the silver threads, from the first basement level to the second to the third, all the silver threads still connected to living people, simultaneously turned dark gold.