The Gray Path
The operation was scheduled for the second night after the key was obtained.
As dusk crept eastward along the mountain ridge, the five men finished their last meal in the stone house. Dry biscuits and mountain vegetable soup were eaten in silence. Long Tieshan placed his bowl on the table and glanced at Long Tian, his gaze conveying, "It's time to go." Long Tian put down his bowl, stood up, and checked his belongings—token, jade pendant, silk, key card, gray metal ring, thin blade, tinderbox, rope—everything was there.
Yu Jin put the stone pendant back around his neck; the gray, round stone hung quietly against his collarbone. Mu Shuang fastened his cloak and tucked the short blade back into his boot. Long Tieshan stood at the door waiting for them, a short stick beside him to use as a walking stick. The four of them left without saying anything more; the path down the mountain was a thin, grayish-white line illuminated by the moonlight in the night.
Mu Shuang set up the communication point behind the old brick kiln site in the northwest of the city. From that location, one could go directly to the outer wall of the main building of the camp by passing through a narrow passage in the city wall. When Long Tian and Yu Jin followed Mu Shuang and climbed over the gap in the iron fence, Long Tieshan stayed in a hidden position outside the passage to provide backup. The father and son exchanged a glance in the darkness. Long Tian nodded to him and then followed Mu Shuang and Yu Jin into the ventilation shaft of the equipment floor.
The dim light from the maintenance tunnel flickered intermittently overhead, and Mu Shuang's footsteps made almost no sound on the concrete floor. She stopped at the entrance of the ventilation duct, inserted three short iron wires she had prepared beforehand into three holes on the side of the main power switch, and gently twisted them—a very low hum of current interruption came from somewhere in the distance, and several wall lights in the tunnel went out at the same time, leaving only the emergency dim red indicator light faintly lit in the corner.
"The power's off," Mu Shuang whispered. "The induction wires are in dormant mode now. You have about fifteen minutes to get through the first section of the duct." She lifted the vent cover and squeezed in sideways.
Long Tian followed inside, with Yu Jin bringing up the rear. The pipe's dimensions matched Mu Shuang's description; when passing sideways, his shoulder blades were just touching the inner walls of the pipe. Long Tian's Shadow Vision spread out in the darkness, and Mu Shuang's silhouette was clearly visible ahead. The gray ring rune on his left ring finger glowed faintly, smoothing out the occasional residual fluctuations from the sensor lines. Yu Jin followed behind, his Power of Origin extremely still; when passing the sensor lines, the fine lines didn't even ripple, like water flowing over a smooth riverbed.
Half an hour later, the pipe forked at the corner. Mu Shuang stopped at the fork, took out a very short piece of chalk from her boot, drew a tiny arrow on the side of the fork, and pointed to the right-hand pipe. "This leads to the processing area; it's just thirty or forty steps away." She put away the chalk and was the first to crawl into the right-hand pipe.
Long Tian followed behind, counting the steps. On the thirty-second step, a vertical maintenance ladder appeared on the pipe wall ahead. The ladder extended downwards for about ten feet, and the bottom was connected to a horizontal maintenance cover. Mu Shuang squatted on the edge of the cover and listened for a moment. Then she gently unscrewed the fixing bolts of the cover and lifted the cover up to a very narrow gap.
Outside was the stone chamber in the processing area. The light was on, but it was empty. The seven cages remained empty; the notebook on the table was closed, and the pen beside it rested on the inkstone, the ink already dry. As Long Tian slid down from the ventilation shaft onto the floor of the stone chamber, the gray-white aura of the Origin Return Pearl quickly enveloped his entire body, suppressing his Soul Power fluctuations to a minimum. He scanned the seven cages—in the innermost one, the lock on the cage door was open, the door ajar, and no one was inside.
He walked over and opened the door. There were a few thick hemp ropes and a cut piece of cloth scattered on the floor of the cage room. There were a few messy scratches on the ground in the corner with his fingernails, as if someone was trying to leave a mark in a hurry. Long Tian squatted down and examined the scratches, and could barely make out a vague outline of the word "". The end of the stroke was pulled inward, pointing in the direction of the back wall of the cage room.
There was a crack in the back wall that had been cut not long ago—some kind of sharp tool had loosened the brick along the joint, pushing the entire brick out from the inside, revealing a narrow, dark opening. Behind the opening was an extremely narrow passage, only wide enough for one person to crawl through, and the passage extended diagonally upwards to the north.
Yu Jin slid down from the ventilation shaft to the ground and quickly walked over, squatting down next to Long Tian. The two exchanged a glance. Mu Shuang leaned halfway out from above and looked down, lowering her voice to say, "Someone got here before us. They came through the secret passage in the back wall; they're not one of ours."
Long Tian shone a tinderbox into the dark passage. The light only reached a few feet ahead through the narrow passage. The cut surface of the Earth Wall was rough, but it didn't look like it had been carved out hastily. The soil at the edges was already dry and white. This was a passage that had been prepared in advance.
"Following Long Tian, he put away the tinderbox and squeezed into the narrow opening. Yu Jin followed him in, and the two crawled forward one after the other between the Earth Wall of the passage. The passage had a gentle slope but was winding, and with each turn, they could feel their direction shifting northward. After walking for about the time it takes to brew a cup of tea, a very faint sliver of white light shone through a crack in the Earth Wall ahead.
Long Tian slowed down and climbed to the opening to peer outside. Outside was a much larger underground space than the processing area, with a concrete floor and walls embedded with rows of thick metal pipes. Several iron cages were placed in the gaps between the pipes, their bars denser and thicker than those in the processing area. A figure was curled up in one of the cages, hunched over, its face obscured. A few steps away, another figure was half-crouching on the ground—thin, dressed in gray cloth, its profile clearly illuminated by the reflection of the only lamp on the wall.
The gray-clad man Shen Mo, was squatting on the ground, unfastening the lock at the bottom of the iron cage. He twisted the wire between his fingers a couple of times, and the spring clicked open. The figure inside the cage stirred and raised its head—an old and weary face with an old scar on its chin, the very face he had met with Mu Shuang on the rooftop of the old archives building a few months ago. It was Shen Mo's elder brother Shen Qiu.
Shen Mo helped Shen Qiu stand up from the cage. Just as he was about to turn around, his gaze met Long Tian's from the gap in the secret passage opposite. His movements paused for less than a moment before returning to normal, and he simply nodded slightly in Long Tian's direction. Long Tian squeezed out of the gap in the secret passage and landed on the ground of the underground space, with Yu Jin following closely behind. The four of them exchanged a silent glance, a few steps apart between the two rows of metal pipes.
Shen Mo spoke first, his voice as calm as if he were discussing the weather. "My brother was detained by them last month. He refused to betray me, so Meng Changyuan used him as a potential prisoner. I dug that secret passage after figuring out the camp's backup routes, originally planning to take him away tonight." He glanced at Long Tian and then at Yu Jin, "What about your side?"
Long Tian pointed towards the entrance to the secret passage. "Our passage is on the opposite side, in the ventilation duct behind the processing area. The power is off; it will be restored in about 45 minutes."
Shen Mo lifted Shen Qiu up and made him stand against the wall. He took out a short rope from his waist and tied their wrists together to form a safety buckle. Although Shen Qiu was pale, he was conscious. He used one hand to press on Shen Mo's arm for support and stood up. His gaze went over his brother's shoulder and landed on Long Tian. His lips moved but he didn't make a sound.
The five people retraced their steps through the secret passage. Shen Mo helped Shen Qiu walk in front, while Long Tian and Yu Jin followed behind, retreating to the narrow opening in the back wall of the waiting area. The five silently reunited in the stone chamber. Mu Shuang leaned down from the ventilation opening to assist them. When she saw the two extra figures, her gaze paused, but her hands did not stop; she widened the cover a little more.
The order in which they entered the ventilation duct was adjusted— the Shen Mo brothers went first, followed by Yu Jin, and Long Tian last. The gray ring rune on his left finger continued to glow faintly, suppressing the sensor wires into a dormant state. The five people moved slightly slower in the duct than when they came in, but the rhythm was steady, and their breathing was suppressed and even. The dark red indicator light in the maintenance tunnel at the end of the duct was still on, and Mu Shuang's short wire was still inserted in the main power switch hole. She quickly pulled it out and put it away, and the emergency lights on the equipment floor turned on again.
As he returned to the alleyway along the city wall after passing through the repair passage, the night wind rushed in, carrying the chill of deep winter and the scent of dry grass from the fields. Long Tian stepped over a loose pebble as he climbed over the iron fence at the alleyway's entrance; the sound of the Shitou rolling away was particularly crisp in the open field. He paused—not far away, a figure rose from the shadows of the city wall's crenellations. Tall and broad-shouldered, the figure wore a dark cloak. Emerging from the shadows of the crenellations, the figure stood with hands at his sides, a pair of dark metal bracers on his wrists.
Meng Changyuan.
Long Tian had never seen him before, but in the darkness of the night, in this location, and with the aura emanating from this figure, he could confirm his identity without any introduction. The man stood on the edge of the shadow below the crenellations of the city wall; the light was insufficient to see his face clearly, but his posture was steady and relaxed, like a raptor that had confirmed its prey was within range, slowly adjusting its stance instead of rushing out.
Shen Mo stepped forward from behind Long Tian and pushed Shen Qiu behind him. Yu Jin's hand was already pressed against his chest, Power of Origin was silently gathering in his palm. Mu Shuang's short blade slid half an inch out of her boot and then stopped.
Meng Changyuan spoke. His voice was lower than Long Tian had expected, deep and heavy, like a stone roller grinding across coarse sand. "The Seventh Squad ran away from Tie Shan back then, and now four young ones have returned, along with one old one. This score has been settled long enough."
He raised his right wrist, and deep blue Soul Power patterns appeared on the surface of the dark metal bracers. Two deep purple Soul Ring rose from beneath his feet, shimmering with a thick luster in the darkness. The color of the ninth Soul Ring was indistinguishable, whether red or black, but a thin crack silently appeared in the ground beneath his feet as he raised his wrist.
Long Tian pulled the key card from his clothes and held it between his fingers. The Returning Origin Return Pearl spun faster in his dantian, and a grayish-white halo emanated from his body, condensing into a thin film of light in the night breeze. He felt the Power of Origin of the Yu Jin approach from the side and press against his waist. The two auras merged silently at the moment they touched, and the converging auras expanded along the edge of the light film, dyeing the area where the five people were located with a very faint grayish-white halo.
There was a subtle change in Meng Changyuan's eyes, which were shrouded in the shadow of the city wall, like a pebble thrown into a deep pool. His gaze fell on the fused light membrane between Long Tian and Yu Jin, lingering for longer than ever before.
No one moved first in the darkness. The lanterns hanging on the crenellations of the city wall swayed slightly in the northwest wind, their flickering shadows lengthening and shortening everyone's shadows.