Chapter 64: No Shadows Beneath the Lamp

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The first rays of dawn had yet to pierce the horizon; sky and earth remained shrouded in a profound, gray-blue gloom.

At five-thirty in the morning, the air outside the Jiangcheng Funeral Home seemed frozen, every breath of wind tinged with a chilling solemnity.

Dong Lan stood by the command vehicle, her earpiece relaying the low whispers of “ready” from every checkpoint.

Her gaze was as sharp as a hawk’s, sweeping over every exit of the funeral home; the invisible net had been cast, waiting for the prey to walk into the trap.

Dozens of special police officers crouched like leopards in wait, merging with the shadows. The faint glimmer at their gun barrels was the only cold star in this field of deathly silence.

In Area B of the funeral home, inside an abandoned changing room, the mingled odors of mildew and disinfectant invaded the nostrils of Song Zhao and Old Qin.

Song Zhao adjusted a small device in his hand, its screen flickering with ghostly green waveforms.

This was a frequency A Qiang had paid for with half his life—the key to the gates of hell.

He pressed the activation button. A low-frequency hum, almost beyond the range of human hearing, filled the air, like the beating of countless ghostly wings.

The air vibrated. On the western wall opposite, a line barely distinguishable from the mortar seams began to emit a faint light. Then, with a deep, grinding sound, a heavy stone slab slowly slid inward.

A gust of cold wind, tinged with the ancient scent of lamp oil and decay, surged from the opening.

Old Qin drew a deep breath, carefully extracting from the worn inner pocket of his faded police uniform a photo, its corners curled from constant handling.

The girl in the picture wore her hair in a ponytail and smiled radiantly—his daughter, Qin Yue.

“Yueyue…” Old Qin’s voice was hoarse, as if rasped by sandpaper. “Don’t be afraid. This time, Daddy’s bringing you home.”

He pressed the photo tightly to his chest, then raised bloodshot eyes to look at Song Zhao, his tone brooking no refusal: “I’ll go first. I know how these people operate. You cover me from behind.”

Song Zhao wanted to protest, but was silenced by the mixture of determination and fatherly tenderness in Old Qin’s gaze.

He could only nod, watching his old partner stride forward with unwavering resolve, like a dagger thrust without hesitation—his figure swallowed up at once by the abyssal darkness of the opening.

6:11 a.m., underground sewer.

Here lay another face of Jiangcheng: damp, shadowy, the walls slick with moss.

In Song Zhao’s tactical goggles, the infrared thermal imaging fed back a clear scene.

A hundred meters ahead, a bizarre procession was moving slowly.

Dozens of blurred figures, backs hunched, formed a single file—like a line of marionettes, soulless and slack.

These were the “Lamp Slaves.” Each held a small oil lamp radiating faint warmth, the dim yellow glow casting eerie shadows on their numb faces.

Suddenly, chaos erupted.

A figure burst from a side maintenance tunnel—it was Old Qin!

He charged like a furious lion, brandishing the sweat-soaked photo, and roared with all his might: “Qin Yue! Qin Yue!”

His voice cracked like thunder in the dead silence underground.

The procession of “Lamp Slaves” was thrown into turmoil; several raised their heads blankly, a flicker of struggle passing through their vacant eyes.

The black-clad guards at the rear reacted instantly, pouncing like hunting dogs.

Old Qin had never intended to brawl—his aim was never to fight.

In the split second he tangled with one guard, his other hand, in a deft and hidden motion, slipped a small metal lighter into a gap in the overhead ventilation shaft.

The next instant, a tremendous force hurled him to the edge of the passage.

There, a service pit yawned—a railingless shaft, black as the mouth of a beast.

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Old Qin did not cry out. He merely turned back, casting one last, lingering look in Song Zhao’s direction—his eyes filled with trust and acceptance.

Then he plunged into the endless abyss.

Song Zhao’s heart clenched, as if it might leap from his throat.

He bit down hard, forcing himself to stay calm.

Ten seconds crawled by, each one an eternity.

Then, from the ventilation shaft, a thread of flame suddenly shot up—igniting something at once.

The fire, like a serpent awakened, raced along an almost invisible line of oil stains at the base of the wall, spreading in a flash.

In an instant, blazing flames illuminated the entire passage, the winding fire tracing a clear path toward the core area—the escape route Old Qin had marked out over years of painstaking study, in red ink on countless city sewage maps.

Today, it became the trumpet of attack.

7:03 a.m., the heart of the secret chamber.

The fire Old Qin had sparked with his life now guided Song Zhao’s assault team.

With a thunderous blast, the heavy alloy door was blown open. Amid swirling smoke, Song Zhao was the first to charge inside.

The sight before him made his eyes nearly burst with fury.

At the center of the chamber, a massive lampstand shaped like a lotus throne burned with a ghostly green flame.

At its base, twelve children huddled together, eyes vacant as if their souls had been drained.

“Team one, secure the guards! Team two, rescue the hostages! Team three, secure the evidence!” Song Zhao’s orders were quick and cool.

The fight ended almost instantly; the remaining guards were subdued.

Technicians rushed to the control console, where they found a registry listing all the “Lamp Slaves,” along with an encrypted hard drive containing codes and transaction records with foreign groups.

“Su Wan, signal is live!” Dong Lan’s voice came through the earpiece.

Outside, Su Wan—already waiting—began broadcasting the incriminating accounts in real time through a secret network.

Within moments, the online world exploded.

The bizarre name “Guild of Fishing Lamps” rocketed to the top of every trending chart, public outrage surging like a tidal wave.

Yet in the midst of this victory, the great lotus-shaped oil lamp in the center wavered—and without warning, was snuffed out.

The room was plunged into a darkness deeper and more absolute than before.

Only the faint glow of emergency lights barely outlined the shapes within.

A figure stepped soundlessly from the shadows behind the lampstand.

He had striking silver hair, a gaunt, haggard face, but his eyes burned with a wicked fervor.

He held a burning torch aloft, its light illuminating the face of a mad zealot.

This was Xu Zhaoshan.

Ignoring the black muzzles trained on him, he chanted in an ancient, uncanny tongue: “The lamp gate closes; souls return to the abyss.”

At 7:26, his chant stopped abruptly.

Xu Zhaoshan had stored large amounts of special lamp oil here.

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Boom!

Flames leaped skyward, erupting into a blazing wall that engulfed the entire central chamber.

A searing wave of heat swept the room. Xu Zhaoshan stood amidst the inferno, arms outstretched, cackling like a night owl: “You can destroy the lamp, but you cannot cut the root! The fire of the Guild of Fishing Lamps will never be extinguished!”

“Old fox!” Song Zhao roared, about to charge into the flames.

A hand gripped his arm in a vise—it was Dong Lan.

“Don’t go! He’s seeking death!” Her voice was icy calm. “He’s completing some kind of ritual. If you go in, you’ll be helping him finish his sacrifice. Don’t let him succeed!”

Song Zhao’s reason snapped back.

He stared at Xu Zhaoshan, who now drew his arms in, pressed his palms together, and closed his eyes. There was no pain on his face—only an eerie serenity, a twisted sense of fulfillment.

The flames licked his body, yet he did not flinch.

In the final moment before death, Xu Zhaoshan’s eyes snapped open. Across the blazing wall of fire, he stared straight at Song Zhao.

His lips moved in silence.

Song Zhao’s pupils constricted—he understood the words.

He had said, “Your father… was here, too.”

8:11 a.m., the open ground outside the funeral home. Morning light had chased away all darkness, but could not dispel the lingering scent of scorched earth and sorrow.

The fire had been extinguished. Firefighters combed the scene.

Amid the ruins of the secret chamber, police found hardly any remains of Xu Zhaoshan—only a charred, twisted bronze pendant, its design of fish and lamp barely discernible.

Meanwhile, Su Wan cradled a battered volume from Xu Zhaoshan’s study, a fragmentary copy of “Jiangcheng Disaster Relief Chronicles.” At first glance, the century-old book seemed unremarkable.

But as she wiped the last page clean with a damp cloth, something miraculous happened.

Under the dampness, a line of watermark text slowly emerged, like a message from the past: “When the lamp goes out, someone will light it again.”

Song Zhao stood in the dawn light, his shadow stretching long behind him.

He took the scorching bronze pendant, and with tweezers placed it carefully into an evidence bag.

Xu Zhaoshan’s final words pierced him like a poisoned barb.

His father’s disappearance had always been a wound he could not touch—and now, it was entwined with this sinister organization.

He was the new keeper of the lamp.

As he sealed the evidence bag, Dong Lan hurried over, her expression grave.

“Song Zhao,” she whispered, urgency in her tone, “one of the children has woken up.”

Song Zhao turned at once. “What did she say?”

“She won’t speak to anyone. Her mind’s still clouded, but she’s clutching a drawing, repeating a single word over and over.”

“What word?”

Dong Lan fixed her gaze on him and said, one syllable at a time: “Wick. She says the ‘wick’ is about to be lit.”