At nine o'clock in the evening, Binhe Road, Dongcheng District.
Different from the neon noise in the city center, Binhe Road is mostly old-fashioned residential buildings, small shops and open spaces to be developed. At night, pedestrians are scarce, street lamps are far apart, and the light is dim, casting a large and swaying shadow. The wind blowing from the river is wet and cold with water vapor, which adds a bit of gloom.
An unremarkable gray car was parked in the shadow of the roadside. Inside the car, Chen Mo is checking the equipment for the last time.
The ring of silence was lifted by Su Yat-sen with special authority before departure. The wrist is replaced by a device that looks like an ordinary sports watch, but it is actually a "collaborator terminal" that integrates the functions of positioning, emergency help, simple vital signs monitoring and encrypted communication. There is an inconspicuous button on the side of the terminal, which can release a strong electromagnetic pulse for three seconds. According to Su Yat-sen, it has a certain interference effect on some strange things that rely on precision logic or electronic signal disturbance.
In his backpack, in addition to the pieces of ancient mirrors stored in a special lead box (Su Yat-sen asked to bring them, saying that they may have miraculous effects in some cases), there are also several auxiliary tools that are standard by the association: a strong flashlight (specially made, with adjustable light spectrum and ultraviolet mode), a small bottle of "logic interference dust" (it is said that it can temporarily disturb the low-level strange logic field, and the effect is unknown), and a pair of night vision with thermal imaging mode.
Su yat sen villa's equipment is much simpler. She is still wearing a dark uniform that is easy to move, with a metal mask on her face and a multi-functional tactical purse hanging around her waist. She was playing with a small silver instrument, like a compass and an energy detector. The pointer on the screen trembled slightly and pointed in a certain direction downstream of the river bank.
"The residual energy is pointing that way, near the fourth crime scene." Sue yat sen villa put down the instrument, and her voice came through the mask, which seemed a little ethereal in the quiet carriage. "The deceased was a fun run. At about ten o'clock last night, he disappeared on the fitness trail by the river. This morning, he found the body on the bench next to the trail, and he also lost his shadow. The scene has been blocked by the police in the name of' special criminal cases', and the association greeted us and we can go in. "
She looked at Chen Mo: "Remember the main points of action: First, stay close to me and don't leave my sight for more than five meters. Second, unless I allow you, don't take the initiative to touch any suspicious objects or enter the obviously abnormal shadow area. Third, and most importantly, if you perceive any logical echo through the ear nail, immediately tell me the type and intensity through the terminal vibration code, and don't try to analyze it in depth, let alone say it. Some strange logic, being' broken' or' cognitive' itself will trigger an attack. "
Chen Mo nodded, said understand. He touched the ear stud of his left ear. At the moment, it was very quiet, but there was a very weak whisper like background noise, like a mixture of countless distant voices, and it was impossible to distinguish the specific content. Su Yat-sen said that this is a normal phenomenon on the edge of the "logical collapse zone", indicating that this area has been slightly infiltrated by the strange "concept field".
The two got off the bus, locked the door and walked to the riverside trail blocked by the yellow cordon.
At night, the river is particularly quiet, except for the slight sound of the river flowing slowly (which Chen Mo can't feel) and the rustling of reeds blowing by the wind on the shore. There is only one street lamp every tens of meters, and the light is limited. Most areas of the trail are hidden in the hazy darkness and staggered light and shadow. The water vapor in the air is heavier, with the smell of river and earth.
There is only a young policeman in plain clothes, but his temperament is capable, waiting in the blockade. He saw Sue yat sen villa, nodded, asked nothing, and directly opened the cordon.
The crime scene is next to an ordinary wooden bench in the middle of the trail. The bench was empty, but a human figure was drawn with chalk on the ground. The outline was clean, and there were no traces of blood or struggle outside the outline. Everything seems so ... calm, except for the strange feeling brought by the missing shadow.
Sue yat sen villa opened her detector, the pointer on the screen beat more violently, and gave a slight buzz at the same time. She squatted down, carefully examined the bench and the surrounding ground, and even picked up a little dirt with her fingers and smelled it at the tip of her nose.
Chen Mo stood a little further away, followed the instructions, and did not rashly approach the center site. He closed his eyes, concentrated, and tried to "listen" to the echoes that the earrings might capture.
At first, it was still the vague background noise. But when he turned his attention specifically to benches and human silhouette areas, the noise began to change. Some clearer but still broken "syllables" or "concepts" emerge:
[… out of … attachment … the gap between light and darkness …]
[… devour … supplement … complete … cycle …]
[… fear … delicious … bait …]
[… the field … expansion … needs … more …]
This information is clearer than before when we perceived the music box, but it still lacks a coherent logical chain, more like some keywords and emotional fragments. Moreover, in these messages, Chen Mo vaguely "feels" a greedy and cold "appetite" and a certain persistence in the boundary between "light" and "shadow".
According to the agreement, he quickly entered a set of preset vibration codes on the terminal, indicating that he felt "fuzzy logic echo, with greed, involving the concept of light and shadow".
Sue yat sen villa wrist terminal vibration, she took one look, and slightly, and then stood up and made a sign to Chen Mo, beckoned him to come over.
"Did you get anything?" She asked in a low voice and looked around warily. The surrounding shadows are particularly thick under the street lights, as if they were alive and crawling slowly.
Chen Mo briefly described the fragment information he "heard" in sign language.
"The gap between light and shadow ... devours and supplements ... the field expands ..." Su Yat sen villa repeated, and the eyes under the mask became dignified. "It sounds that this weird core logic may be related to the independent existence of' shadow' and' devouring' ontology or other shadows to maintain itself and expand the field. A typical growth logic collapses. "
She pointed to the outline of the human figure on the ground: "The dead man has no trauma and his expression is serene, which shows that this strange attack mode is probably not physical injury, but directly acts on the concept of' shadow' itself, peeling off the shadow, leading to the' conceptual death' of the ontology in a sense. There were no signs of struggle at the scene, either the attack was extremely fast or the attack was accompanied by some kind of' appeasement' or' confusion' effect. "
Her voice just fell, and suddenly there was a sharp stabbing pain in Chen Mo's left ear! Much stronger than the fuzzy echo before!
At the same time, Sue yat sen villa in the hands of the detector also issued a rapid alarm sound, the pointer crazy rotation, and finally suddenly pointed to their rear-that piece of dark area near the river bank, completely shrouded by the shadow of several willow trees!
"There is something!" Sue yat sen villa low drink, instantly into a state of alert, one hand has been on the waist tactical package.
Chen Mo also turned sharply and put on night-vision tactical glasses. In the green field of vision, the shadow under the willow tree is too thick to melt, even in night vision mode, it looks darker than the surrounding area. What's more, he "saw" that the edge of that rich shadow is spreading very slowly, like ink smudge, towards the bright ground area.
It is not the natural movement of light and shadow with the change of light, but the shadow itself, which is actively and tentatively eroding the concrete trail illuminated by street lamps!
The stinging of the earrings intensified, and a clearer and more disturbing whisper forced its way into Chen Mo's consciousness:
[… found … new … light bait … two …]
[… near … edge … into … gap …]
[… peel off … swallow … become a part of ...]
[… logical expansion: where the shadow is shrouded, it is my field. The shadow of the creatures in the field will be my food, and their bodies will be the nutrients of our field. Fear the darkness, light lures, your shadows ... are calling me. ]
Coming! That's it! That "shadow bite" is weird! It seems to be aware of their existence, and ... regard them as prey!
"Stand back! Don't be touched by that shadow! " Sue yat sen villa harsh voice way, at the same time, quickly took out a palm-sized thing from his pocket, like a fireworks tube, suddenly pull off the safety bolt, toward the edge of the spread of the shadow thrown in the past!
That thing fell at the junction of shadow and light, and with a "before", it burst into extremely dazzling white light like a small sun! The light is not scattered, but forms a clear and arc-shaped "light wall", which temporarily blocks the spread of shadows!
Is it a variant of the strong light shock bomb? Or some kind of special "logic jamming device"?
The shadow was blocked by the light wall and seemed to "pause". But the next second, something even weirder happened-the thick shadow surface began to "boil" like boiling asphalt. Vague, humanoid bumps struggle to "stand up" from the shadows. They have no facial features and no details. They are just outlines made of deeper darkness, and you can vaguely see that they are human shapes. There are more than a dozen of them!
Are those swallowed shadows? They became this weird part?
These humanoid shadows make a silent roar (Chen Mo's earrings capture sharp logical noise full of resentment and hunger), and suddenly "peel off" from the shadow ontology, like an arrow that left the string, coming towards Chen Mo and Su Yat Sen! The way they move is very strange. Instead of running, they slide along the boundary line between light and dark caused by weak light difference on the ground, walls and even the air. The speed is amazing!
"get away! Don't let them touch your body, especially your shadow! " Sue yat sen villa shouted, while already in action. Instead of retreating, she took a step forward, and the metal mask on her face suddenly lit up!
[Camouflage mask] Start!
Chen Mo saw that Sue yat sen villa's body outline seemed to blur for a moment. The next moment, her shadow-the normal shadow pulled out under the street lamp behind her-suddenly stretched and deformed, and even "stood" from the ground, turning into a dark outline similar to Sue yat sen villa's body shape, but also without facial features, standing between her and the first humanoid shadow!
Two shadows collide and get entangled in an instant! There was no sound, but Chen Mo "heard" the violent logic conflict noise through the ear nail, as if two wrong codes were covering and killing each other.
Sue yat sen villa is using her own shadow to fight against strange shadows! But her face turned pale at the speed visible to the naked eye. Obviously, this kind of "imitation" consumed her greatly.
More shadows bypass the fray and pounce on Chen Mo!
Chen Mo's heart was pounding and adrenaline was soaring. He didn't have time to think much, followed the instinct of training and the desire for survival, threw himself sideways and rolled, narrowly avoiding the attack of two shadows. He could feel the cold air from the shadow brushing his skin, and there was a tearing pain from the ear stud in his left ear.
Can't stay! As soon as he rolled up, he saw that the third shadow had slipped down the shadow of the trunk of a tree next to him and volleyed at his head!
I can't avoid it!
At a critical juncture, Chen Mo had a flash of light-the "gap between light and darkness" was mentioned in the ear nail information! These shadows seem to rely on the boundary between light and shadow to move and attack? What if ... there is no clear boundary between light and shadow?
Almost instinctively, he pressed the strong electromagnetic pulse button on the side of the terminal! At the same time, try your best to take out the special flashlight in the backpack and turn it on, but it shines not on the shadow, but on your feet, and quickly adjust the light mode to the most loose and uniform "full spectrum dispersion" mode!
"Hum-!"
Invisible electromagnetic pulse spreads around Chen Mo. The shadow that pounced on him was obviously sluggish, and the edge of the outline was blurred and scattered for an instant. And almost at the same time, the uniform dispersion of strong light will illuminate the range of several meters around his body, almost eliminating all obvious shadows and the boundary between light and shade!
Under the double interference of pulse and strong light, the shadow seems to have lost its "focus" and "path", uttered a silent moan (logical noise), twisted and disintegrated in mid-air, turned into an ordinary darkness again, and merged into the ground, but failed to return to the main shadow.
Effective!
"Well done!" Sue yat sen villa's voice came with a hint of approval. She has solved the original shadow, but her "disguised shadow" has also faded a lot and is almost transparent. Her face turned whiter and she was short of breath. "Hold on! Its main shadow is afraid of direct light! Use your flashlight, with the pulse, to interfere with those separated shadows! I will deal with the subject! "
Said, and she no longer maintain the shadow in two places at once, let it dissipate naturally. Then, she took out a spherical object from her pocket and threw it at the main shadow that was still "boiling" and constantly sending shadows!
The ball crossed an arc in the air and suddenly exploded at the moment when it was about to fall into the center of the shadow!
It's not an explosion, but it releases countless golden rays as thin as hair, but extremely dazzling! These rays, like living tentacles, instantly pierce into the rich shadows, and the shadows, like burnt paper, make a "zi zi" sound (on the logical level), which quickly becomes thin and faded!
It is a powerful "light property" logic jamming weapon!
The subject's shadow makes a silent roar of pain that seems to act directly on the soul level (the noise from the ear nail almost makes Chen Mo faint). It rolls and contracts violently, and the separation shadows that are attacking Chen Mo are also affected, and their movements become slow and chaotic.
Opportunity!
Chen Mo resisted the headache and the burning pain of the ear nail, turned the "full spectrum dispersion" mode of the flashlight to the maximum, and pressed the pulse button continuously at the same time (the terminal showed that the energy was rapidly consumed), creating a "safe zone" around him that kept flashing and had almost no stable shadow. As he stepped back warily, he used a torch light to sweep the shadows trying to regroup or get close.
Su Yat-sen villa started "Camouflage Mask" again when the main shadow was weakened by golden light! This time, she didn't imitate the shadow, but her body glided along the edge of light and shadow with incredible speed and flexibility, like a real shadow, and instantly approached the core area of the subject shadow!
She has a dagger in her hand-not metal, but something crystal clear, as if it were condensed by light!
"I found you!" With a whisper, she stabbed the light dagger into the most intense and violent point in the shadow!
"Before-! ! ! ! !"
A sharp to the extreme, as if the glass were broken and as if countless people were screaming at the same time (the ultimate explosion at the logical level) exploded in Chen Mo's mind through earrings! He snorted, nosebleeds, and almost fell to his knees.
And that subject shadow, at the moment of being stabbed by the light dagger, suddenly collapsed inward, and then burst open! Into countless thin, inactive black gas, quickly dissipated in the air. Those separated shadows also melted away and disappeared without a trace.
The wind by the river is still blowing, and the street lamps are still dim. But the lingering cold and strange pressure has disappeared.
The battle is over.
Su yat sen villa knelt down, supported her body with a light dagger, and gasped. The metal mask on her face was dim, and even a few tiny cracks appeared on the edge. She looks exhausted to the extreme.
Chen Mo also almost collapsed, his ears and nose were bleeding, and his brain was buzzing. But he was still standing, and the flashlight in his hand gradually weakened.
He looked at Sue yat sen villa, and looked around to restore calm (at least on the surface).
This is ... Fighting the weird?
Cruel, dangerous and ever-changing, every step is on the verge of death.
Sue yat sen villa stood up slowly, put away the light Bi (it has turned into a light spot to dissipate), walked beside Chen Mo and handed him a special hemostatic cotton. "The first actual combat, performance exceeded expectations. Your on-the-spot response and the use of your own abilities are very good. "
Her voice is a little hoarse, but the recognition is obvious.
Chen Mo took the tampon, wiped the nosebleed and asked in sign language, "Is it solved?"
Su Yat-sen villa shook her head and looked at the direction in which the shadow dissipated. The eyes under the mask were still dignified: "It just defeated a manifest tentacle or daughter. Its core logic may have shifted or hidden in a deeper place. This incident is not that simple. However, at least we got the key data and temporarily curbed its expansion. "
She patted Chen Mo on the shoulder: "Come on, go back and write the report. Your first contribution point is at hand. "
The silence nodded, and finally took a look at the riverside trail to restore silence.
He knows that this is just the beginning. The hunt in the dark is far from over.