Welcome home

The steam vehicle sped along. Though Xu Le couldn't see the instrument panel, judging by the wind blowing against him, they were moving pretty fast.

Leaning against the window, Xu Le spotted several abandoned towns.

Buildings of all kinds lined both sides of the road, with dilapidated stone blast furnaces and wooden windmills scattered around the towns.

Judging by those two features, these towns had once possessed some basic forging and metallurgical technology.

There was even a railway running over a stone bridge by the river, presumably an old transport route.

But this railway didn't match the steam train tracks in the original owner's memories. It probably wasn't a product of this era.

Looking at the buildings in their varied styles, Xu Le couldn't even tell what era they belonged to.

"An era abandoned long ago..."

"Hey, Xu Le, want some water?"

Bai Jing handed him a bottle of water, interrupting his thoughts. Xu Le hesitated for a moment, then took it.

Before Xu Le could drink more than a few mouthfuls, Bai Jing's gaze suddenly turned cryptic.

"Did burning that man's body make you feel relieved?"

"Uh, cough, cough!"

Xu Le choked on a large mouthful of water and coughed repeatedly before recovering.

Of course, he was also stalling. He needed a little time to think about how to answer Bai Jing's question.

"I actually..."

"You don't need to explain yourself to me, Xu Le. Life is very long. We'll encounter all kinds of things and make many choices. Some will be right, and some will be wrong. Whatever choices we make, we have to keep moving forward. We have to pursue the light, don't we?"

Xu Le's gaze flickered slightly. He wasn't quite sure why Bai Jing had suddenly turned into a life coach and launched into this long spiel.

Was she threatening him? The gap in their strength was so vast that there hardly seemed any need.

If it probably wasn't a threat, then what did she mean?

Given what had happened earlier, was she trying to recruit him?

Did she have to be so cryptic about it?

"I'm not quite sure what you mean, Captain Bai."

"Heh!"

Bai Jing smiled. Her fingers, like old scallion stalks, brushed across Xu Le's collar before coming to rest on his chest.

This wasn't a flirtatious gesture. She was applying real pressure.

Bai Jing pressed her fingers against Xu Le's wound.

Pain shot through Xu Le, and he stumbled backward, nearly falling onto the floor.

"This wound came from a firearm. Oddities don't use guns. Do you understand, Mr. Xu Le? And the wound in the dead man's back, right behind his heart, was clearly a dagger puncture. Those injuries wouldn't change even if he became a living corpse. This dagger must be the murder weapon, right?"

Bai Jing took out Xu Le's dagger, waved it in front of him, then put it away again.

"This will have to be confiscated when we get back. As for the rest, do you need me to go on?"

"No." Xu Le shook his head helplessly.

Explain that he hadn't killed Old Zhou? How could he explain that? Was he supposed to say there had been another Xu Le?

Besides, neither side was on equal footing in terms of information, strength, background, or status.

A question-and-answer session like this was meaningless.

"Don't be nervous, Xu Le. For an ordinary person to survive alone in the night, and even kill an Oddity single-handedly, is remarkable. No, actually, from the moment you could see Guyinduo pollution clearly, you were no longer an ordinary person."

"What exactly are you trying to tell me, Captain Bai?"

"As someone who's been through it all, shouldn't I give a young person a little advice about the road ahead?"

So she just wanted to feed me some inspirational fluff? When it came to spinning little essays, who had Xu Le ever been afraid of?

He pondered for a moment, gradually turning his gaze toward the window as his eyes grew distant.

"Captain Bai, do you know what a scholar once said? We should never invest unrealistic expectations in the things we value, or assign them unwarranted significance. Because the only certainty in life is its uncertainty."

Sure enough, those words did make an impression on Bai Jing, and she nodded slowly.

"That scholar you mentioned must be an extraordinary person."

"I think so too."

Bai Jing studied Xu Le for a while, while he looked out the window.

Two lines of inspirational fluff to sound profound were enough. He didn't dare meet the eyes of a powerful Night Watcher.

"All right, we're almost back at the Lighthouse. Get ready for the inspection."

Only when Bai Jing looked away did Xu Le turn to look ahead.

An enormous High Tower came into view.

The High Tower pierced the clouds, while the buildings around it formed concentric rings, extending outward layer by layer.

The inner city was flourishing, dominated by classical Central Asian-style houses in gold and blue.

Gold-trimmed rooftops were everywhere. Some buildings even rose more than twenty stories high, something extremely rare in the Fourth Era.

That prosperity continued all the way to the central moat.

The entire area within the moat was collectively known as the Upper City.

Beyond the moat, however, the buildings' styles and forms deteriorated considerably as the rings of the city expanded outward.

The areas near the moat were still decent. Farther out, it was hard to know what to say.

Not only did the buildings grow shorter, but alongside the East Asian, Gothic, and classical styles,

there were also more and more peculiar buildings whose styles defied description.

Xu Le really couldn't see any beauty in buildings deliberately designed to resemble toilets or piles of poop.

Graffiti of every kind covered most of the buildings. Some consisted of advertisements and slogans.

The rest was pure mockery, curses, demands for debt repayment, and, most frightening of all, gang messages written in blood.

At the city's outermost ring, most buildings were small huts made of earth or wood.

This was the Lighthouse's Lower City, where Xu Le lived.

But even this wasn't the city's outermost boundary. Farther out stood a towering city wall.

The wall stood a considerable distance from the residential areas. Its purpose was simple: to keep out most of the wandering low-level Oddities.

The wall had four main gates, facing east, south, west, and north, where residents entering and leaving the city were checked each day.

They also served to relieve the pressure of the black tide on Black Tide Night.

The wall was far from the populated areas, so even when it was very dark there, more Oddities wouldn't naturally spawn.

As one of humanity's four safe strongholds, the Lighthouse

had the most absurd allocation of resources, the most rigid avenues for advancement, and the most blatant division of districts.

The gulf between the Upper City and the Lower City was like an impassable chasm.

Even so, it was one of the few sources of light in this dark age.

Looking at the city, just as unreal as it had seemed in his memories, Xu Le murmured,

"What an incredible city."

"Yes. It's our home."

"What do I need to prepare once we get back?"

Bai Jing turned her head and gave him a smile that promised nothing good.

"Grit your teeth, then survive."

"Huh?"

The steam vehicle stopped outside the city wall.

Another branch of the Lighthouse's Night Watchers was stationed here: the Lighthouse Guards.

Though they belonged to the same system, just different departments, there wasn't much rivalry between them.

As a result, there were generally no melodramatic clashes between the two.

Upon spotting Bai Jing's team, a guard immediately approached and saluted.

Bai Jing stepped forward as well and gave the guard a Lighthouse Flat-Hand Salute.

"Bai Jing, Squad 6. All members reporting back."

"Welcome home, Captain Bai Jing."