The train continued to crawl forward at a slow pace. During this time, several familiar investigators from other carriages kept calling, asking what had just happened. Even from where I sat, I could hear bursts of laughter from Xiong Wanyi's phone on the other side. Worried that the three uncle-nephew men might unexpectedly regain consciousness and cause trouble, Ximen Lian arranged them in a triangular formation in a corner. Then he pulled out a small bottle, removed its stopper, and held it under each of their noses to sniff. Through my Heavenly Eye, I saw their souls inside begin to wither. I'd heard from Po Jun that members of Division Two always carry a kind of soul-calming smoke when on missions. It's generally used to soothe souls that have been startled or stressed, preventing them from going mentally unstable. Unless exposed to soul-stimulating medicines or artifacts, those who inhale the smoke will fall into a deep sleep lasting over ten hours before gradually waking up.
Time quickly reached past 1 a.m. After a full day of travel, I still wasn't tired; staring at the more than a hundred restless souls kept me alert. Yet Sun Fatty kept yawning nonstop, his eyelids drooping closer and closer. Just as I began admiring his carefree attitude, a phone suddenly rang, pulling him back from the brink of sleep.
"Who the hell is this now…" He glanced at the caller ID and swallowed a curse halfway through. He stared at the screen in a daze but quickly composed himself. Sun Fatty lifted his eyelids to glance at me and Xiong Wanyi, then got up and walked to the rear door before answering the call. When he spoke, his voice was barely audible, and none of his usual catchphrases appeared. He just kept repeating four words: "Yes... I understand... yes... yes... yes, I understand... yes... yes..."
The call lasted over two minutes before he hung up. Returning to his seat, he pretended nothing happened, leaning back and yawning again. Seizing the moment before his eyelids fully shut, I asked, "Big Fatty, who's calling you at this hour? It must be someone important to be calling so late."
Sun Fatty squinted, not looking at me immediately but first casting a glance at Xiong Wanyi. Then he said, "It's an old colleague from the Narcotics Division. I'm telling you, Hotshot, look at my connections. It's been half a year since I left the Narcotics Division, and old buddies still remember me, insisting on inviting me out to dinner. I said I don't have time to go, and they almost flipped out. Ah… what can I do? It's just that I'm naturally well-liked."
"You're just making excuses…" I cursed silently. He only said those four repeated words, never once mentioning he was too busy to eat out. But I didn't think Sun Fatty was deliberately lying—probably with Xiong Wanyi listening, he just couldn't say everything and had to make up something.
While I was wondering who that call could be from, the speaker overhead crackled to life with Xiao Heshang's voice: "We are about to pass through the Broken Yin Gate. All investigators in each carriage, watch your souls carefully. The souls may show signs of losing control."
As soon as Xiao Heshang finished, old investigators like Xiong Wanyi and Ximen Lian started complaining loudly: "Why didn't you say anything earlier about the Broken Yin Gate? How can this rickety train even make it through…"
Seeing their worried faces, my own heart sank. I knew a bit about the Broken Yin Gate — it's a barrier in the mortal world designed to prevent wandering lost souls from entering the underworld's gateway. It has no effect on living people, but once the light is out, any wandering soul attempting to cross without underworld guides instantly dissolves into nothingness, turning to pure void. Although this train was specially treated by the Bureau of Paranormal Investigation, whether it could safely pass through the Broken Yin Gate without harming the souls onboard was still uncertain.
At that moment, I felt the air pressure slowly dropping, and signs of agitation began to appear among the souls. Most of the more than a hundred restless souls lifted their heads and looked around aimlessly. Suddenly, a terrified wail echoed from other carriages, and following that first scream, nearly all twenty-plus carriages erupted in waves of piercing shrieks. In our carriage, all the souls curled up into balls on the floor, their bodies shrinking tight.
This state lasted for only about a minute. Then the air pressure rapidly returned to normal, and the wailing abruptly ceased without a trace. After a few seconds of adjustment, the souls slowly stood again. Just as I thought we had safely passed through the Broken Yin Gate, a tremendous explosion suddenly boomed from the front of the train. At the same moment, the train slammed its emergency brakes and screeched to a halt. Thankfully, the train had been moving slowly; otherwise, that jolt might have sent us flying somewhere unknown.
I rolled down the car window and looked ahead—the explosion had occurred in the front carriages. Someone had been blasted out of the train, lying on the snowy ground, covered in blood. My heart skipped a beat. Please, let that not be Xiao Heshang. I was just about to open the door and jump out to check when my phone rang. The caller ID showed Xiao Heshang. He was practically shouting on the other end: "You and Sun Dasheng, get over here right now!"
Things were already in chaos. People from other carriages were jumping off the train and running toward the blast site. Through the small speaker in the carriage, Xiao Heshang's voice came through: "All investigators except designated personnel are to remain on the train! Anyone who got off—get back in immediately!"
Outside, it was a vast expanse of snow and ice. By the time Sun Fatty and I reached the site of the explosion, Xiao Heshang had already disembarked. The explosion had taken place in his second carriage, where a massive hole had been blown out. I glanced inside but didn't see the strange Soul that had been accompanying Xiao Heshang. The man lying on the ground was a bloody mess—his upper body looked like a gourd filled with blood. He was face-down in the snow, his features unrecognizable, limbs twisted into unnatural angles. If not for the faint rise and fall of his chest, I would've thought he was already dead.
"Master Xiao, this guy isn't another train-hopper, is he?" Sun Fatty looked from the man to Xiao Heshang. "Not to call you out or anything, but that was a bit much. A single kick would've done the trick. I knew nothing good would come from you calling the two of us over. So, where do you want us to bury him?"Xiao Heshang ignored him, staring down at the man as he said two words: "Lin Feng."Sun Fatty and I both jumped. He pointed at the man and asked, "You mean Lin Feng from Fourth Section?"Xiao Heshang glanced up. "You think I meant the one from Hong Kong?"
I looked at the barely-alive Lin Feng and said, "Doesn't matter if he's from Hong Kong or Xianghe. First we get him back into the carriage—if we leave him out here, he'll bleed out or freeze to death."With that, Sun Fatty and I began searching for a tarp or canvas to carry him, but before we could act, Xiao Heshang stopped us with a low shout: "Don't touch him!"He pointed to Lin Feng's body. "If I could've moved him, I would've already. He's full of Yin Poison. He's lucky—this place is a natural Yin-dissipating site. Let it drain the Yin Poison first, then we'll figure out how to save him."
Only then did I notice that the snow around Lin Feng had started to melt. A pale green mist was seeping from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. Wherever it touched the snow, the melted water turned green and soaked into the earth.
As the green mist from his seven apertures gradually faded, I looked up and said, "Xiao, that should be enough. If we wait any longer, he really might freeze to death.""Just a little longer," Xiao Heshang replied, eyes fixed on Lin Feng. Only when the last wisp of mist disappeared did he finally say, "Alright, he won't die. Bring him in."
Sun Fatty found a large tablecloth in the ruined carriage. The two of us gripped either end and carried Director Lin inside. Before we moved him into the train, I gave him some basic first aid. His mangled limbs were beyond me—he'd likely be permanently disabled even if he pulled through. But for now, saving his life was the priority.
After we settled Lin Feng back into the second carriage, Xiao Heshang called the train driver to resume the journey. Only once everything was arranged did he come over to inspect Lin Feng's injuries. I hesitated before asking, "Xiao, weren't you in this carriage? Then how did Director Lin get blasted out from here…" My voice trailed off. Who knew if Xiao Heshang had blown Lin Feng out himself?
Xiao Heshang seemed to sense my suspicion and gave a weary snort. "I switched carriages with Lin Feng. He was guarding a corpse poison not of this world—once the Ghost Gate is opened, we need to return that poison. Lin Feng was originally in Carriage Three, but we worried that the corpse poison might resonate with the Soul in Carriage Four, so we swapped."
Then his gaze shifted sharply, and he added, "If we hadn't switched, I'd be the one lying in the snow."
Sun Fatty glanced around the wrecked carriage, then looked back at Xiao Heshang. "Master Xiao, why did you call Lazi and me over? Don't tell me you only know the two of us in the Bureau?"Xiao Heshang was briefly at a loss for words. After a long pause, he finally said, "When the explosion happened, I got here immediately. Lazi, you're the expert—what do you make of it?"
I didn't expect the question and took a long time before answering. "Aside from the blast injuries, most of Lin Feng's wounds were caused by hand-to-hand combat. His limbs were broken—by someone."Xiao Heshang nodded in agreement, then turned to Sun Fatty. "I've got surveillance footage from each carriage taken when we passed through the Yin-Severing Barrier. Once you see it, you'll understand why I brought you two."
He had us carry Lin Feng into Carriage Three, which had been divided into two areas by a curtain. At the central console, Xiao Heshang pulled up the surveillance footage from the moment we passed through the Yin-Severing Barrier. As we watched, we saw that nearly every Soul displayed fear as we crossed. But at one particular moment—except for the last carriage—every other carriage's footage became distorted and chaotic. When the video resumed, it jumped directly to the aftermath of the explosion in the second carriage.
"You see it?" Xiao Heshang asked.Before I could react, Sun Fatty beat me to it: "There are fewer Souls. Every carriage is missing one or two."I stared at him in surprise. "How can you tell?"He grinned at me. "I counted them myself."
Then he turned back to Xiao Heshang. "Alright, Master Xiao, stop beating around the bush. Just say what you're thinking."Xiao Heshang let out a heavy breath, eyes still on the screen. After a pause, he said, "As long as they're on this train, I can track every Soul…"
While he was speaking, I noticed the left-side windows of the carriage had been sealed off completely. The windows had been converted into countless small wooden compartments, like a hyper-dense bookshelf. Each large grid housed over a hundred smaller ones, all labeled with numbers ranging from four to twenty-two. Each small compartment contained a yellow talisman paper. A few near the front had burned to ash, but most remained intact. The last two major grids were filled with burned paper—ash layered upon ash. They looked exactly like the Life Talismans Ouyang Pianzuo had made for us when we first joined the Bureau.
Xiao Heshang continued: "When we passed the Yin-Severing Barrier, all carriages except your last one lost a total of thirty-two Souls, but I didn't register a single one of them disappearing."
He paused, scanned the footage of every carriage, and then said slowly, "But one thing's certain: the Souls didn't escape during the blast. Outside may be beyond the Barrier, but it's still a Yin-Dissipating Field. If they got off the train, they wouldn't even get the chance to become Nyeh. Since they didn't disembark, that means…""They're still on the train," Sun Fatty finished.
Xiao Heshang turned back to the monitor, his tone lower than before. "The cameras didn't catch anything. None of these sixty or seventy people saw anything. What—are all their Heavenly Eyes blind?"His words made me recall the time when Yang Xiao's wife was reincarnated. Sun Fatty and I exchanged a glance—perfect mutual understanding.
Sun Fatty then turned to Xiao Heshang and said, "Come on, Xiao, just say it. Who are you suspicious of?"Xiao Heshang narrowed his eyes and looked at the two of us. "Everyone but you two."