Lu Chen died in a second supernatural incident. Not even his body was left behind.
Now he was a remnant echo of cognition, without a physical form. He could move only between blind spots in surveillance and gaps in people's memories.
Then he slipped into the phone of a courier named Gu Yao, twenty years old, whose consciousness was trapped in a loop of "abnormal deliveries." Lu Chen formed a symbiotic bond with him and obtained the key to the Gray Mist Sorting Station.
The Lost and Found Cabinet could seal away one anomaly in a state of cognitive collapse. The Receipt Stamp could collect residual ink from an anomaly within five minutes of its death. In the Cognitive Tuning Room, the ink could be injected into a symbiotic anchor cassette to increase cognitive capacity.
While others feared, broke down, and were erased during abnormal deliveries, Lu Chen faced cognitive contamination on the night-shift loop bus, calmly analyzing the origins of urban legends and searching for loopholes in the rules governing the three deliveries.
The professional perspective of a former anomalous-records analyst, the sealing abilities of the Gray Mist Sorting Station, and the three-hour time limit of the symbiotic contract.
A Man said, "Brother Yao will never be erased."
Lu Chen thought, I'm not Gu Yao. But I won't be erased either.
The countdown on the phone screen kept ticking. Abnormal Delivery: 1/3 stages remaining.
Beyond the mouth of the alley, gray mist churned.
