Chapter 72: The Lantern Language of the Bone Crevices

1:08 a.m., outside the cold storage room, Section B, City Third Hospital.

The air was stagnant. The chill that seeped from the cracks of the metal door condensed into a thin mist in the darkness.

Song Zhao stood against the wall, his breathing so light he seemed like a forgotten shadow at the corridor’s end.

He glanced at his watch; the luminous hands pointed to 1:08. The access card Old Hu gave him was already damp with sweat in his palm, but he hesitated not at all—he swiped the card, pushed the door, and slipped inside.

In Section B of the cold storage, he stopped in front of freezer B7.

Here lay the only remains ever found from the “Lantern Child Festival” disappearance three years ago—a seven-year-old girl’s partial skeleton.

The official record stated accidental drowning, the autopsy concluded hastily.

But just three days ago, Su Wan deciphered a code from a Republican-era mortuary manual: “Bone as witness, lantern as guide, seven beats fall, the door opens on its own.” The “seven beats” matched exactly the drum rhythm in each stanza of the “Lamp Lighting Song.”

Song Zhao withdrew three items from an evidence bag, laying them out in order: a pale, cracked bone fragment, a yellowed dental mold, and a scratched piece of rearview mirror.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and touched the bone fragment with his fingertip.

The retrocognition began.

Suddenly, reality tore open—a dim underground corridor, gurney wheels rolling through puddles, a child’s hand dangling, a faded red string tied around her wrist.

A low male voice sounded by his ear, mechanical and rhythmic: “B7 departing, admitted at three quarters past midnight.”

The vision snapped off.

Song Zhao opened his eyes; a fleeting golden pattern shimmered in his pupils, sweat beading on his brow.

First retrocognition: twenty seconds. He had precisely locked onto the “departure” command and time.

He remained still, picked up the dental mold.

Second retrocognition.

Under a shadowless lamp, a man on the operating table convulsed, empty-eyed, a thin tube inserted at his temple.

A doctor in a white coat bent over, recording: “Neural remodeling complete, sonic anchoring success rate 87%. Recommend entering ‘enrobement’ phase.” As the camera panned to the corner, an old radio played the prelude to the “Lamp Lighting Song,” drumbeats slow and steady.

Song Zhao jerked back, throat tight.

Neural remodeling?

Enrobement?

These were not medical terms, but belonged to some ritualistic transformation.

Gritting his teeth, he reached for the last piece—the rearview mirror shard.

Third retrocognition.

This time, the vision did not clarify immediately; it trembled violently, like a broken signal.

Then, three scenes began to overlap!

First: an alley behind a funeral home, a black van parked, windows tinted, a lamp-shaped ornament faint atop the roof.

Second: the hospital’s underground parking, the same van rolling in, license plate smeared with mud, the car radio playing the chorus of the “Lamp Lighting Song.”

Third: a logistics depot, the van’s door sliding open, two masked figures lifting a gurney, the ground illuminated with twisted shadows, eerily reminiscent of the Lantern Hall’s dance formation.

Most suffocating of all—the three scenes spanned two years and dozens of kilometers, yet in all, the car radio played the exact same recording, not a second off.

The retrocognition lasted forty-five seconds.

Song Zhao staggered back, hitting the freezer, pain splitting his head, darkness creeping at the edge of his vision.

He braced against the wall, biting his lower lip to keep from crying out.

This was the longest retrocognition since he’d awakened the “Eye of Truth”—far beyond his usual limits.

He looked down; on the mirror shard, a faint trace of blood remained.

This was no coincidence.

This vehicle—it was the mother vessel for transporting “Lamp Slaves,” a mobile altar, the connective hub of all the disappearances.

It shuttled between hospitals, mortuaries, logistics—its legal identity masking illicit transfers, every movement choreographed to the “Lamp Lighting Song.” That was not background music—it was a command signal.

His hands trembled as he pocketed the shard, about to leave, when a chill ran down his neck.

Surveillance? Infrared? No.

It was the sense of being watched, as if a needle pierced his consciousness from the depths of darkness.

Song Zhao spun around. The cold storage was empty.

But in that instant, he caught a glimpse—wedged in the seam of B7’s metal door was half a piece of charred paper, marked in cinnabar with a tiny symbol: a lamp within an eye.

His heart jolted.

This was a Lantern Hall internal mark, appearing only once before in Su Wan’s Republican archives: “Spirit awakened.”

No time to ponder, he bagged the ash, killed the light, and withdrew.

2:34 a.m., abandoned boiler room.

Dr. Chen was already waiting, haggard, clutching an old USB drive.

No pleasantries—he handed it over. “Original evaluation files. I’ve hidden them for three years. The encryption is ‘lamp rhythm’—seven taps, pause, then seven more. Try it.”

Song Zhao tapped out the rhythm on his notebook. The screen unlocked; a document popped up.

The title chilled the spine: “Sonic Anchoring Experimental Progress Report.”

Its contents were horrifying—by exposure to certain frequencies, the subject’s limbic system would be reshaped, forging a conditioned response to rhythm.

Eventually, they could receive commands via heartbeat, breath, even the blink of an eye.

The final page: “Codename Lin Seven. Exhibits strong dependence on the reflection of a police badge. Requires staring at reflective surfaces no less than seven times a day. Recommend termination—risk of loss of control.”

Song Zhao stared at the words “Lin Seven,” fingers icy.

Little Lin’s presence in the forensic tech unit was no accident.

He’d been awakened.

A “Lamp Slave” in police uniform—a living beacon who could freely access the force, touch evidence, transmit information.

“They’re not hiding people,” Dr. Chen rasped, voice hoarse. “They’re creating them—making someone who stands in the light, yet serves the darkness.”

Song Zhao said nothing.

A flash—the reflection of a police badge at his father’s murder scene. Twenty years ago, had someone delivered the order to kill in just this way?

3:51 a.m., mortuary mezzanine.

He returned to B7, prepared to extract the residue from the freezer’s seams.

As his gloved hand touched the metal, the vent vibrated faintly.

He killed the light, switched on night vision.

On the dark stair, two masked guards descended slowly.

One was missing a left pinky—matching the freezer guard’s description from Chapter 68.

They swept each unit with metal detectors, movements mechanical yet unnervingly rhythmic.

Song Zhao pressed to the wall, heart rate dropping to near zero.

He knew—being discovered meant not only mission failure, but the “Eye of Truth” would be exposed.

At the critical moment, he touched the mirror shard again.

A brief retrocognition.

A flash: in the training yard, guards drilled combat moves—every punch, every kick, synchronized to the “Lamp Lighting Song’s” drumbeat.

Repetition became muscle memory.

He understood at once—their patrol rhythm had also been “anchored.”

He closed his eyes, counting heartbeats.

Drumbeats echoed: seven, pause, seven.

The guards turned, eleven seconds apart.

He seized the gap, slipped into the drain, vanishing into darkness.

4:26 a.m., outer hospital wall.

Song Zhao vaulted the iron fence, landing without a sound.

Clutched in his hand was a blood sample scraped from the freezer seam, the sealed bag glinting coldly in the moonlight.

He pulled out his phone, dialed Dong Lan.

When the call connected, he said only one thing—

“I saw their lanterns.” 4:26 a.m., outer hospital wall.

Weeds outside the fence tore his trouser leg; the night air was thick with River City’s damp, rusty scent.

When Song Zhao landed, he was silent—a drop of water vanishing into a deep pool, swallowed instantly by darkness.

He still gripped the sealed bag, the blood inside shining a near-black crimson in the moonlight, like congealed lamp oil.

As the call connected, he heard his own breath shudder in his ears.

“I saw their lanterns,” he said.

A long silence followed.

Not hesitation, but the slow formation of some heavy realization.

At last, Dong Lan’s voice sounded, cold and nearly cruel: “B7 was opened three times in the past seventy-two hours. Last time was last night at 10:18—signed in by ‘Forensic Zhang’ on duty.”

Song Zhao shut his eyes, cold seeping up his spine.

“Zhang was transferred to the frontier last week,” Dong Lan continued, her pace steady, each word a nail. “The system hasn’t updated his access—someone used his account, bypassed two-factor authentication, and opened the freezer with the Lantern Child’s remains.”

This was not simple evidence theft.

This was provocation, a test—the opposition confirming: is someone investigating?

Song Zhao’s eyes snapped open.

A golden pattern flickered in his pupils, then vanished.

He remembered the charred ash in B7, the cinnabar symbol—“Lamp within the eye.” Not a mark, but a message.

They were waiting for him. They even…knew he’d come.

“They’re not trying to cover up,” he whispered, half to himself, half to Dong Lan, as if revealing a truth. “They’re arranging a ritual. Every time the freezer opens, it’s ‘lighting the lamp.’ They’re awakening something.”

A brief silence.

“The blood sample,” Dong Lan asked suddenly, “can you trace its source?”

“Not certain.” Song Zhao stared at the bag. “But it’s not the girl’s DNA. The age is older, male, with metabolic traces of long-term sedative use—matching the physiological signs of the ‘enrobement’ phase.”

“Enrobement”—donning the skin of another, becoming the final form of a Lamp Slave.

He suddenly recalled Dr. Chen’s trembling hands, the “Lin Seven” at the end of the report.

Little Lin—the youngest trace examiner in the forensics unit, always silent at case discussions, always offering the “right” advice at critical moments.

He wiped his badge every day, mechanically, eyes vacant.

A chill struck Song Zhao’s heart. He wasn’t just assigned—he’d been awakened.

After the call ended, silence returned.

He walked along the river embankment, his steps crunching dew, stopping at 5:03 a.m.

Milky fog drifted on the river; across the way, the chimney of the B7 crematory at the funeral home pierced the sky.

At that very instant, pain stabbed his temple, as if a red-hot needle drove into his brain.

Then came the sound.

Not through his ears, but rising from the marrow—broken drumbeats of the “Lamp Lighting Song,” chanting, word by word:

“The next…will be your colleague…”

Song Zhao jerked his head up.

From the chimney, a wisp of black smoke curled, twisting and stretching—like a finger pointing straight at him.

The wind was still, the smoke unmoving.

He slowly clenched the mirror fragment, knuckles white, his voice so soft the river mist nearly swallowed it:

“You’ve forgotten…”

“I can hear what the lanterns are saying, too.”