Chapter 759 - 637: Youth of the Old District (4)
Chapter 759: Chapter 637: Youth of the Old District (4)
Jeming put down the fragment and sat down on the chair.
The probes of the past few days gave him a preliminary understanding of the strange ecosystem of this Plane.
During the day, he could slightly expand his Spiritual Power to explore, as long as the intensity wasn’t too high, it wouldn’t attract anything.
The sensitivity of this world’s strangeness to Spiritual Power was far less than his expectations of the patterns of mysterious nightlife activity.
But after dusk, it was different.
Jeming raised his head and glanced at the small basement window.
The window was level with the ground, and through the fogged glass, one could see the sky outside darkening.
It was dusk.
In the distant horizon, the last streak of ashen light was being swallowed by the dark gray rising from the sea.
Dusk in Wudu had no usual fiery clouds, only a seamless transition from day to night.
The gray sky slowly turned deeper gray, then became black.
The street lamps began to light up.
The orange-yellow light flickered inside the glass cover, casting a circle of blurry halo in the dense fog.
The number of pedestrians rapidly decreased.
The workers, vendors, and housewives that were everywhere on the streets during the day hurried back home as if driven by some invisible force before dusk.
The doors and windows were shut tight, curtains drawn, and every crack in the houses emitted light.
The light of electric lamps, oil lamps, and candles of all kinds seeped from every window and door seam, weaving a mottled pattern of light and shadow in the thick fog.
No one wanted to be exposed in the darkness at night.
Jeming withdrew his Spiritual Power.
The gentle, low-intensity probing suitable for the day was no longer appropriate for the night.
The Night Mysterious covered this Plane comprehensively, and he wasn’t sure if a Spiritual Power scan would be interpreted by the Night Mysterious as some kind of "attack" or "provocation."
Before fully understanding the rules and boundaries of the Night Mysterious, the safest course was to do nothing.
He stood up, tidied the things on the workbench, then left the basement and returned to the old bookstore on the first floor.
The oil lamp in the bookstore was still on.
Jeming adjusted the lamp wick, making the light soft yet sufficient to cover the whole room.
He walked to the door, closed the wooden door, and bolted it.
Then he returned to the rocking chair and picked up the newspaper again.
The front page was a news story about the expansion of Wudu’s harbor, accompanied by a blurry black-and-white photograph, showing piles of steel and blurry figures of workers.
Jeming glanced at the headline, then moved his gaze to the corner of the newspaper, where a small, inconspicuous area contained several brief local news snippets.
"A disappearance incident occurred again last night on the third street of the old town, a middle-aged male resident went out at night and has not returned yet..."
"The port authority reminds all nighttime operators to strictly follow lighting safety procedures, and no ship may dock without lights..."
"The official Spirit Communicator Association announced that it will hold a ’Mysterious Protection Knowledge’ public lecture at the Wudu Exhibition Center next month, welcoming citizens to participate for free..."
Jeming folded the newspaper and placed it on the table.
The flame of the oil lamp flickered gently in the breeze, casting his shadow on the mottled wall.
The fog outside grew denser, and the light from the streetlamps scattered in the fog into a blurry orange-yellow halo, like a drop of paint on a vast gray canvas.
In the distance, the horn of a ship sounded in the night sky, low and long, like some unknown beast howling in the dark.
Jeming closed his eyes and swayed slowly in the rocking chair.
The boards creaked softly, mingling with the wind outside, the distant horn, and the occasional footsteps on the cobblestones below, forming the unique rhythm of a Wudu night.