69novels Chapter 4 The Low Whistle
Chapter 4 The Low Whistle
At 6:30 in the morning, the daylight was just like the pie in the sky painted by the leader—it looked bright, but it was actually useless.
Cheng Song stood in front of the sink, staring at his face in the mirror. The bruises under his eyes were even more pronounced than yesterday, as if he could dip a brush in them and write Spring Festival couplets. His beard was unkempt, as if it had been gnawed by a goat that hadn't eaten for three days, and his hair had the standard "just been blown by a gale and then went back to sleep" look.
He twitched the corners of his mouth, and the man in the mirror followed suit—excellent, this subtle, forced smile could definitely win an award for playing a "forced office worker." A persistent burning sensation came from deep within his right arm; it wasn't an injury, but rather the subtle discomfort of "a tenant inside the body renovating and refusing to communicate."
His skin showed no abnormalities, but only he knew that beneath that thin layer of flesh, a black substance was slowly wriggling, digesting the nutrients from last night's "feeding," as well as those fragmented and frenzied memories that did not belong to him.
Splattering cold water on my face helps me wake up physically.
"Xiaosong! Time to eat! The porridge is getting cold!" Mother Liu Xiuying's voice was extremely penetrating, carrying the unique, undeniable vitality of the early morning.
"Coming," Cheng Song replied, his voice like sandpaper scraping against rusty iron. He grabbed a towel and roughly wiped his face, trying to suppress the cold discomfort rising from deep within his body.
On the dining table, there was plain congee, pickled vegetables, and fried eggs—simple and unpretentious, like a beginner's gift pack in some mini-game. Father Cheng Jianguo held his phone, his brow slightly furrowed—an expression Cheng Song was familiar with, usually appearing when he saw headlines like "Shocking! Law enforcement officer seriously injured in a sudden incident..."
"Did you stay up late again last night?" Liu Xiuying pushed the bowl of porridge towards him, her eyes scanning his face. "Look at your complexion, you look like someone has drained your life force. How many times have I told you to go to bed early at night? Your job is already exhausting..."
"Patrol, I've walked too much." Cheng Song lowered his head and shoveled some porridge into his mouth. The rice grains were scalding hot, making his tongue numb. He needed this real, earthy pain to fight against the empty hunger and the never-ending void within him.
"Patrol, patrol, all you ever do is patrol." Liu Xiuying sat down opposite him and began her daily nagging, "Your job, you're called an auxiliary police officer, sounds alright, but the pay is so low, and it's dangerous... Look at Aunt Wang's son, he works in an office, he was just promoted to supervisor last month, and I heard his year-end bonus is this much!" She gestured, "And look at you, you're not getting any younger, and you don't even have a girlfriend..."
Cheng Song switched to "uh-huh, yes, yes, right, right, right" response mode, letting it go in one ear and out the other. His brain processed the information in multiple threads: the temperature of the white porridge was 73.2 degrees Celsius, the salt content of the pickled vegetables was too high, the edges of the fried egg were slightly burnt... The heat of the porridge stung his eyes, and for a moment, he almost hallucinated—the white porridge in the bowl was wriggling, turning into a viscous, green liquid with a sweet and fishy smell.
He suddenly closed his eyes, then opened them again.
It's still just porridge.
"...So I'm saying, 2 PM, Starbucks, you better have a good chat with that girl, you hear me?" Liu Xiuying finished her nagging, tapping her fingers on the table with a soft thud. "You've seen the photo, she's such a quiet girl, a primary school teacher, stable job, and good-tempered. Don't let me down!"
Cheng Song looked up, flashing a standard filial son's smile: "I know, Mom."
"Knowing isn't enough, you have to take it to heart!" Liu Xiuying glared at her. "Dress smartly, don't always look like someone owes you money. Where's your blue plaid shirt? The one I bought you last year..."
"Mom," Cheng Song interrupted, his voice a little dry and lacking confidence, "I might have to go on a business trip this Saturday and Sunday."
The air around the dining table froze instantly.
Cheng Jianguo lifted his eyelids from behind his phone: "Business trip? Where to?"
"It was arranged by the station, a closed-door training program for police skills enhancement." Cheng Song tried to make his tone sound normal, even a little impatient. "It was a surprise visit; they said a high-ranking leader from above was coming to inspect."
"When are you leaving?" Liu Xiuying asked.
"Meet at eight o'clock." Cheng Song avoided her gaze, staring at the porridge in his bowl. "So the blind date this afternoon... I might miss it."
Silence. Only the rising steam from the bowl of porridge and the occasional cough from an early-rising neighbor outside the window.
"Another training session." Liu Xiuying sighed, her voice filled with a deep, long-accumulated disappointment. "Last time it was also training, but what happened? He came back covered in injuries and wouldn't say a word. Cheng Song, are you...?"
"Alright." Cheng Jianguo put down his phone, his voice soft, yet it abruptly silenced Liu Xiuying. He looked at his son, something flickering in his eyes, weathered by time, before returning to calm. "Go to work if you need to. Be careful."
Cheng Song's throat tightened: "Mmm."
"I'll go talk to the girl again." Liu Xiu's tone softened, but she sounded even more tired. "It's not easy for her to find the time... When will you ever give me a break?"
Cheng Song didn't reply. He shoved the last mouthful of porridge into his mouth, swallowing with some difficulty. The porridge had cooled and was stuck in his esophagus, feeling heavy.
He got up after finishing his meal and started clearing the dishes, the water running. He stared at the foam in the sink and suddenly remembered the thick, green liquid from last night—that stuff was much harder to clean than dish soap.
Back in my room, I closed the door, and the world fell silent.
He leaned against the door and let out a long sigh. He took out his phone; the screen lit up—a new message. The profile picture was a cartoon girl holding a cat, nicknamed "Wanwan."
"Hello Mr. Cheng, this is Li Wan. My aunt gave me your WeChat ID. It's a pleasure to meet you. [smile]"
Below is another message posted a few minutes ago: "Auntie said you're very busy with work, please remember to rest! [Cute]"
Cheng Song stared at the two lines of text and the emoticons. Standard, polite, a gentle kindness belonging to the normal world.
He hovered his finger for a few seconds, then typed: "Hello. I'm sorry, I have an urgent mission and I may not be able to meet this afternoon. I'm very sorry."
send.
A few seconds of silence.
"It's okay, work is important. Let's talk about it after you finish your task. [smile] Good luck."
Cheng Song didn't reply. He exited the chat and looked at his phone's home screen—a photo of him and his parents in a park many years ago, back when he still believed the world was reasonable.
He threw his phone onto the bed as if it were a hot potato.
Then, he took two things out of his inner pocket.
In his left hand was the metal badge, neither gold nor iron, cold to the touch, its twisted symbols seeming to faintly glow in the dim room.
In his right hand was a black whistle, seemingly carved from the bones of some creature. At that moment, it was vibrating continuously with an extremely slight amplitude. No sound was produced, but the vibration traveled through his fingertips to his bones, then spread throughout his body, bringing a tingling, tooth-grinding sensation, as if countless tiny insects were crawling within his marrow. Even more bizarrely, the vibration wasn't random; it possessed a rhythm—three rapid beats, a pause, then two slow beats, repeating endlessly, like some kind of…heartbeat? Or perhaps, a summons?
Meanwhile, in the lower right corner of his vision, a cold, silver countdown was relentlessly ticking:
[Task matching time remaining: 06:42:15]
Six hours, forty-two minutes, and fifteen seconds.
Cheng Song closed his eyes, then opened them again. The coldness of the badge, the trembling of the bone whistle, the ticking of the countdown, the lingering, chilling aftertaste of last night's "nourishment" in his stomach, and the greedy throbbing that seemed to come from the depths of his soul, belonging to another existence—all these feelings intertwined, twisting into a rough rope that tightened around his heart.
There was no other choice.
Or rather, the choice was made long ago. From the moment he stumbled through that door, stepped into that virus-ridden world, and became the monster he is now, from the moment he first "cleaned up" those things to cover up the abnormality, from the moment he first lied to his parents.
That ordinary, mundane path of "daily life," which he desperately wanted to hold onto, now seemed to be crumbling inch by inch beneath his feet.
He gripped the badge and bone whistle tightly, the metal edges digging painfully into his palm. Then he pulled open the bottom shelf of the wardrobe and dragged out a black backpack.
The Spirit Street remains prosperous.
When Cheng Song stood in front of Rongqizhai again, the vibration of the bone whistle was obvious, even making a buzzing resonance in his pocket. He pushed the door open and went in.
"Oh, it hasn't been long? Here we go again." Rong Shou curled up in the raised armchair, now wearing a dark jacket embroidered with silver patterns, still clutching the huge animal-skin book. She raised her glassy golden eyes, sweeping them over Cheng Song's face, then landing on the pocket he had subconsciously pressed. "What's wrong? Did you not finish your midnight snack last night? Got diarrhea? Or..." Her nose twitched slightly, like a kitten smelling something strange, her brows furrowing in disgust. "Did that lump of non-combustible trash on you have a chemical reaction with this whistle?"
Cheng Song ignored her sharp tongue and walked straight to the counter, taking out the still slightly trembling bone whistle and placing it on the smooth, dark wood surface. The bone whistle made contact with the wooden surface, emitting a continuous, unsettling, subtle hum.
"Boss Rong, do you offer a seven-day no-questions-asked return policy?" Cheng Song asked seriously. "I signed for this last night based on your information. It was fine at first, but today it's acting up all by itself. My heart can't take it."
Rong Shou put down his book, slowly leaned forward, and pinched the bone whistle with two slender white fingers as if he were handling something dirty: "Seven days without a reason? Do you think this is like buying slippers on Pinduoduo?"
"I'd at least give it a bad review," Cheng Song sighed. "The product quality is terrible, and the user experience is awful. There's not even an on/off switch for the vibration mode, and the battery life is ridiculously long. I've been vibrating all the way from my house to here. People who don't know better would think I'm hiding a sex toy in my pocket."
Rong Shou's lips twitched, a hint of "Is this person crazy?" flashing in her eyes. She touched the bone whistle with a faint glow at her fingertips, and the buzzing stopped.
"Alright, I've turned it off for you." She casually tossed the bone whistle back. "But this is only in silent mode. This thing is bound to its owner; even if you throw it in the river, it'll crawl back to your pillow in the middle of the night."
Cheng Song picked up the bone whistle and weighed it in his hand. "So what exactly is this thing? A cult version of AirTag? Specifically for tracking down runaway employees?"
"Hmm..." she drawled, "a low-level communicator and location beacon from the corrupted cult under the Reapers, with a rudimentary mental pollution function. It's usually used by cannon fodder running errands on the periphery. The workmanship is rough, the energy circuit is even crooked, it can only fool newbies who are just starting out."
Rong Shou leaned back in his chair, swinging his legs. "Did you 'optimize' one of their group leaders last night? Did you even format the whole thing, hard drive and all?"
"I was just advising him to realize his mistake and turn back before it's too late," Cheng Song said sincerely. "Maybe I was a little... a bit too forceful in my advice."
"No wonder." Rong Shou leaned back in his chair, swinging his legs. "The junior employee went missing, signal lost. You, the living embodiment of 'absorbing company secrets,' naturally got caught on to the whistle. Now this thing considers you a 'new outstanding employee,' and is enthusiastically inviting you to the company's team building event. The location, well, it's probably one of those closed training bases where once you're in, you can't expect to get out. Now it's not only giving directions, but if you keep refusing, it'll slowly marinate you so that higher-level HR can find you by following the scent."
Cheng Song frowned: "Can I take leave? Just say that the sow in the family is getting married, and as a member of the maternal family, I have to go and help."
"The leave slip must be submitted to headquarters in person." Rong Shou shrugged. "And the HR at headquarters loves promising newcomers like you the most. The smell you're giving off right now can be detected from three blocks away—'This person just swallowed my driver's confidential documents and urgently needs to be retrained.'"
Cheng Song fell silent. He stroked his chin and suddenly asked, "So if... I take down their company headquarters, will this employee ID card be automatically cancelled?"
Rong Shou looked at him for two seconds, his eyes crinkling into a smile: "Theoretically, that's true. But I have to remind you, that's a legitimate, unscrupulous company with a well-established organizational structure and corporate culture. You're just an intern, going to cause trouble all by yourself—what's the difference between that and poking a hornet's nest with a broom?"
"So that's why I'm here to buy equipment." Cheng Song rubbed his hands together, revealing a professional smile. "Boss Rong, do you have any... good stuff that can make wasps think I'm one of our own?"
Rong Shou reached under the counter and pulled out a small black jade box, pushing it towards her: "Soul Cleansing Incense Plus. It will minimize your presence for twelve hours, making the signal on this broken employee ID card as weak as a 2G network—it exists, but it doesn't work. 1200 spirit crystals."
Cheng Song picked up the box and smelled it: "Can I try it out? What if it doesn't work?"
"Once sold, items in this store are non-refundable and non-exchangeable." Rong Shou crossed his arms. "However, considering how poor you are yet how hard you work, here's a bonus piece of information—the team mission you took on to 'destroy the black-hearted factory,' the 'hatchery,' right?"
Cheng Song nodded.
"That place is nominally a production line, but it's actually a laboratory," Rong Shou said in a low voice. "They're using living people for product upgrade testing. If you want to completely solve this employee badge problem, just smashing the production line isn't enough; you have to scatter their research and development data as well."
Cheng Song stared at her: "Boss Rong, this intelligence of yours... you wouldn't be suggesting I become a corporate spy to sabotage your competitors' technology, would you?"
"Do I look like that kind of person?" Rong Shou blinked.
"You don't seem like it," Cheng Song said sincerely. "You are."
Rong Shou smiled, a smile that appeared exceptionally innocent on her porcelain doll-like face: "Then it's up to you to choose. Do you want to continue being harassed to the point of nervous breakdown by this damn employee ID, or do you want to solve the root of the problem and run an errand for me while you're at it?"
Rong Shou sat up straight: "For those who want to completely eliminate them, or..." She gave Cheng Song a meaningful look, "for those who want to figure out what exactly happened to them and how they should live in the future, the things there are more valuable than spirit crystal equipment."
She picked up the book again, covering most of her face, revealing only a pair of curved, emotionless eyes.
"The reward is included in the incense. Good luck, little one. Hopefully, next time you come, you can walk in again."
Cheng Song picked up the black jade box and the now-quiet bone whistle, then turned and left.
The moment I pushed open the door, a crisp sound came from behind me:
"Oh, by the way, just a reminder. 'Hatchery' is a raid instance. Keep an eye on your teammates; who knows what kind of people are mixed in with them?"
Cheng Song walked to the door, turned back and smiled: "That's perfect, I'm best at dealing with moles."
The door closed behind them.
Cheng Song stood on the wet stone pavement of Ling Street, clutching the black jade box tightly. In his arms lay the bone whistle, which had been dormant for the time being.
Cheng Song stood by the window; the room was silent. He changed into dark clothes and checked the contents of his backpack: a knife, a black jade box, a badge, and a bone whistle.
The black jade box was opened, and the incense sticks left a cool aftertaste at the nose. A cool stream rushed to the top of the head, clearing the drowsy mind and temporarily calming the restlessness within, like a wild beast that had been given a sedative.
The effect is good, but I don't know how long it will last.
He put away the incense sticks and brought up the system interface.
[Optional Team Dungeon Quest: Annihilate the "Hatchery"]
[Task Type: Team Collaboration (Timed Match) / Scenario Exploration]
[Estimated Difficulty: C+ ~ B-]
[Accept match? Time remaining: 00:02:17]
There are only two minutes left in the countdown.
Cheng Song's gaze swept over the cold text, finally settling on the "Participate in Matching" option. His finger hovered in the air, his fingertips turning white.
I could hear my father's soft snoring from next door as he took a nap.
He seemed to feel the warmth of the morning porridge again, hear his mother's nagging, and see that cute emoji on WeChat.
The bone whistle in my pocket vibrated slightly, carrying an undeniable urgency.
The countdown has reached 00:01:59.
Cheng Song closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and slowly exhaled. When he opened his eyes again, the hesitation and struggle in his eyes were replaced by a cold resolve.
He moved his finger and tapped it.
[Player confirmed: Scavenger. Matching with teammates... Matchmaking complete. Teleportation will begin in 10 seconds. Please prepare.]
3, 2, 1.
[Teleportation initiated.]
Darkness, pulling, dizziness.
My feet are firmly planted.
A pungent odor assaulted the nasal cavity—a mixture of formaldehyde, blood, putrefaction, and sweet-smelling chemicals, so strong it was nauseating.
Cheng Song suddenly opened his eyes.
Before me lay an indescribably vast underground space. Beneath the dome, rusted pipes and an unidentified viscous substance, lay abandoned medical equipment, rusted iron cages, and ruptured culture chambers. Dim red lights flickered on and off. Spore-like dust particles floated in the air.
The ground was slippery and sticky, making a squelching sound when stepped on. In the distance came inhuman roars, and the dripping sound of liquid echoed.
He stood on a relatively clean metal platform with a white halo around the edge—a temporary safe zone.
But he is not alone.
On the platform, several other figures were recovering from the dizziness of teleportation, warily observing each other and the extremely uncomfortable environment.
The black bone whistle, which had been temporarily shielded in Cheng Song's pocket, vibrated very slightly the moment he stepped onto this land.
Like a traveler returning home, letting out a satisfied sigh.