Chapter 37: Chas – Did You Think the Spread of Rumors Has Stopped?

"Huh? Huh, huh, huh?"

A long, shrill note of confusion sounded from deep within the Inhabitant's throat, as if it simply could not comprehend why Chai Si refused to die within the memories, why he insisted on crawling up from the ground time and time again.

"You can die, the go-, me-mory, thirty-eight places—"

Just a moment ago, it had said "thirty-nine," Chai Si thought to himself. So it was counting down.

A memory that had already been used once could no longer be used to attack him, is that it?

That was just as well. He had already grown utterly sick of that weak, helpless, sniveling five-year-old child.

His disgust for powerlessness far exceeded even that of the Inhabitant.

Chai Si closed his eyes tightly and took a deep breath.

"Huh, huh, huh, huh, huh?" Seeing that he was still standing, the Inhabitant seemed deeply displeased, its voice growing vastly more grating. "Thirty, eight places—"

"Stop shouting," Chai Si said in a low voice. "As long as I can't see your face, I won't pass out, right?"

Every single time his gaze made contact with its face, he would instantly collapse and plunge into the memories; even a fool could draw a straight line through that cause and effect.

"By the standards of the Inhabitants, you are a crude and pathetic thing," Chai Si said, taking a step backward. "You can't pull off many new tricks, but your flaws are truly numerous—"

Before he could finish his sentence, a gust of wind rushed toward his face.

The soft *slap* of skin against the floorboards beneath his feet, the minute currents of air stirred by the swaying of countless tattered strips of fabric, the suddenly dense and cloying stench of blood...

With his eyes closed, his other senses grew razor-sharp.

Chai Si stepped back once more. His shoe sole crunched upon shattered glass, and he knew he had reached the window through which the Inhabitant had crawled in.

Abruptly, he ducked his waist and thrust his hand forward. It felt as though he were plunging his arm into a viscous miasma, and sure enough, his fingers closed around a mass of fabric. The sickening, familiar sensation of an electric shock that came with physical contact with the Inhabitant surged straight from his palm to the crown of his head—his chest was grabbed, and the Inhabitant let out a short, triumphant laugh.

Chai Si knew why it was laughing.

It probably assumed Chai Si would be rendered paralyzed with distress, because most people, during their first few physical contacts with an Inhabitant, were struck so violently by the physiological shock that they couldn't even stand.

But what it didn't know was that, compared to the Inhabitant from that year when he was five, this thing was nothing more than cheap junk.

Chai Si clenched his teeth to suppress the trembling in his muscles, tightened his five fingers around the cloth robe at the Inhabitant's chest, swung his arm upward, and hurled it forcefully out through the shattered window beside them.

The Inhabitant had only enough time to let out a single "Oh?"; the next second, it slammed heavily against the tracks outside the train window with a dull, distant thud.

Now came the crucial question—what on earth was the pathway this Inhabitant used to enter the human world?

It had crawled in through a "pitch-black train window," but that could never be the only condition.

Otherwise, given how many "pitch-black train windows" existed in daily life, it would have entered the human world long ago; why would it have waited until today?

Aside from the condition of the "pitch-black train window," at least one other condition must have been met for it to crawl into the realm of the living—no matter how he thought about it, Chai Si could only come up with one possibility.

In a flash of thought, he opened his eyes and sprinted wildly through the carriage. Halfway there, he reached out and scooped up the T-bar, screeching to a halt beside the half-conscious subway driver.

"‘Rumor,’ send it back,"

Chai Si could already hear the rustling noises coming from outside the window behind him, as if the Inhabitant was about to drag itself back into the train. He raised the T-bar high and said, "Otherwise, I will beat your host into a pulp right now."

He never made empty threats.

The very instant the T-bar bit into the subway driver's shoulder, the tiny voice inside the driver's cheek began to shriek in a rapid, continuous succession: "Cancel the invitation to 'Memory Kill'! Cancel the invitation to 'Memory Kill'!"

...What a wretched name.

Panting, Chai Si lifted the T-bar out of the driver's shoulder bone. He stood in place for a second or two. The carriage was brightly illuminated by white light, wrapped in utter silence.

Slowly, he turned his head to look at the train window through which the Inhabitant had once crawled.

He had actually mentally prepared himself to see a human body half-hanging from the window, to see a face smiling back at him—yet the window was completely empty, with only a few jagged shards of glass standing upright in the frame, utterly oblivious to the fact that they had been rendered useless.

Holding the T-bar, Chai Si walked step by step toward the window. Being extremely cautious, he didn't look outside with his naked eyes; instead, he switched on his phone camera and swept the lens outward through the screen.

Since the adversary was an Inhabitant, it was quite likely fond of toying with human hearts. For all he knew, it might be squatting just outside the carriage, pressing its hands over its mouth with a snickering laugh, waiting to plunge him into disappointment.

However, outside lay only a dim, empty, and quiet subway tunnel.

Stepping over a floor littered with glass fragments and the driver's painful groans, he walked back to "Rumor."

Having been struck on the shoulder by the rod, the driver had been jolted awake from a state near unconsciousness by the agony. Seeing Chai Si approach, he twisted his body with a crying tone, trying to crawl backward—Chai Si pressed the tip of the T-bar against his chest and said, "Don't move."

The driver froze, his face etched with terror and cold sweat. "Th-that thing just now..."

"It was a dream," Chai Si said flatly. "You had a nightmare."

If the expression on the driver's face could be translated into text, it would probably read: "Even if you're lying to me, you could at least put some effort into it."

Yet Chai Si had never liked doing post-processing and cleanup work, let alone possessing the patience to provide reasonable explanations for the scenes that had just transpired. He was just pondering how to retrieve the Rumor artifact when he heard the driver speak again.

"In my mouth... what is that thing in my mouth?" the driver said with a dazed, bewildered look. "You called it a Rumor just now... why is it a Rumor again..."

Chai Si's attention pricked up instantly, like a dog's ears twitching at an unusual sound.

"‘Again’?" He leaned closer, startling a hiccup out of the driver. "Who else said the word 'Rumor'?"

Whether from physical pain or psychological terror, the driver's lower lip was wet and glistening, trembling incessantly. "A few days ago, someone said he lost his glasses and couldn't see clearly, and asked me to read a couple of lines for him..."

Chai Si paused, not interrupting him.

"He asked me, 'Does the content write "I have a rumor to tell you"?' I looked at his phone and said no, it wrote 'I heard a rumor'… That whole thing was rather strange, and I had no idea who sent him such a bizarre message, which is why I remembered it."

"What did that person look like?" Chai Si asked immediately.

"I don't know..." the driver said tremblingly. "He was wearing a face mask; all I could tell was that he was a man in his twenties or thirties."

No wonder the driver had shown no reaction to Evan's physical description earlier—for a moment, Chai Si almost wanted to laugh out loud.

He understood everything now.

The answer to the riddle was shockingly simple. Once you knew the answer and looked back, it even made you wonder how you could have possibly failed to think of it.

Since the target was a "Rumor," the way to pass it on was naturally through "speech," wasn't it?

Without a doubt, the person who had asked the driver to read a message that day was none other than Evan.

Evan's purpose hadn't merely been to make the driver read a message, but to trick him into completing a dialogue with him—

"Now, say it once: 'I have a rumor to tell you.'"

Chai Si watched as the driver's cheek bulged from the tongue pressing against it from within, then smoothed out again. "Once you finish this sentence, I'll leave immediately and won't touch you ever again."

"R-really?" The driver hesitated for a moment, then instantly grasped at this lifeline. "I-I have a rumor to tell you!"

Chai Si took a deep breath.

"...I heard a rumor." He replied in a low voice.

The dialogue was complete.

Silence descended upon the carriage. Chai Si stared at the driver's cheek; there was not the slightest movement on his face.

Chai Si suddenly felt his own tongue involuntarily lick the inside of his mouth before settling back into place.

A slow smile cracked across his features.

"You... you promised you'd leave..." The driver trembled as he propped himself up, inching backward while staring at him. "You can't..."

"Don't worry."

Chai Si stood up, pulled a wallet from the inner pocket of his suit jacket, and drew out a thick wad of cash, tossing it onto the driver's lap. "Consider this compensation for the unwarranted disaster you've suffered today. When you call the police, make sure you tell a coherent story."

Leaving his gaze lingering on the banknotes, Chai Si turned and walked away.

The driver would undoubtedly call the police at the very first opportunity, but Chai Si didn't care about that.

"Rumor," Chai Si muttered in a low voice as he jumped onto the platform. "How much time do you have left?"

He waited patiently for a moment, and sure enough, he heard a tiny voice issue from his own cheek—"‘Rumor,’ countdown: 3,405 days, 16 hours, 15 minutes."

Chai Si made a rough mental calculation. As expected of a Vanciley artifact, it was top-tier in every aspect, still retaining nearly nine years and four months of usable lifespan—considering that many artifacts didn't even have such a long lifespan when they first left their nests.

It must have been in Vanciley's hands for quite a few years, hadn't it? And after Vanciley's death, how had it passed from a dead man's mouth into Evan's possession?

For the moment, Chai Si couldn't find the answer.

The police hunting him down all seemed to think he had long since blended in with the arriving passengers and left the station.

He reached up to tousle his hair, letting his bangs fall over his forehead, then took off his suit jacket and shirt, throwing them away. Left with only a white short-sleeved undershirt, he walked out of the subway station almost openly—though there were a few police officers left behind to monitor the exits, and one of them even shouted at him, "Hey!"

Chai Si stopped in his tracks and asked with an obliging attitude, "Officer, what is it?"

The policeman looked him up and down a few times.

When he had crossed the tracks earlier, besides catching sight of a suit-clad back, the police hadn't gotten a clear look at his face. Coupled with the dim lighting in the tunnel, Chai Si was quite confident they wouldn't recognize him. Though he was not short, his height wasn't particularly rare, either.

"Where did you come from?"

"Ninth Street."

"When did you get off the train?"

"Just now. Went to the restroom, took a little while."

The policeman thought for a moment, waved a hand, and said, "Understood. Thanks for your cooperation. You can go."

Just as he was about to leave, Chai Si couldn't help asking, "...I heard there's been a subway serial killer loose, is that true?"

The policeman froze.

"Oh... right," he seemed to slowly dredge up the memory, glancing at his companion first before saying, "Yeah, there is a rumor like that... but the person we caught today isn't him. Well, probably not."

"Good luck to you, officer," Chai Si smiled, turned around, and walked out of the subway station.