I Loaded the Occult Panel

Richard was walking down the street when a sudden shout caught his attention.

”The pamphlet’s been updated! The new edition is still just a penny!”

He stopped dead in his tracks.

That wasn’t right. He hadn’t written anything for the pamphlet lately, so how could there be an update?

He doubled back immediately, fished out a penny, and handed it to the paperboy.

The moment the paper touched his hands, it felt even more wrong.

He could identify Mr. Dawn’s batch of paper with his eyes closed.

The thickness and deckled edges were always consistent, and it felt smooth to the touch. The man had only ever supplied him with high-quality paper.

But the paper he now held was incredibly coarse, and the cover bore an unfamiliar title: Alleyway Edition.

”Are you sure you didn’t make a mistake?”The paperboy quickly wiped his nose on his sleeve.

”This is what we’re selling now. They just switched to the new one last week. Still one penny.”

Pirated copies had appeared this quickly. Although Richard had half-expected it, he still felt a surge of irritation.

He stepped under the eaves of a roof to shelter from the rain and flipped the pamphlet open.

The small print at the top of the first page and the overall layout were almost identical to his own.

The story described a family living next door:

The lights in their house stayed on until two in the morning;

Every Thursday, they sent a letter to the post office bearing one more stamp than a normal person would use;

When their youngest son read a certain word at school, his dental consonants were heavier than the other children’s.

Richard flipped to the last page.

In his own edition, this page contained rules like ”do not answer if there are three knocks at midnight.” This counterfeit, however, was printed with: How to Identify the People Around You.

First, the lights in their house stay on until two in the morning;

Second, when they send letters, they always affix one more stamp than most people do;

Third, they never go to church on Sundays, walking toward the east instead;

Fourth, their child refuses to sing the national anthem.

The bottom column featured even bolder text:

”Call for submissions: Do you have neighbors like this around you?

Please send letters to XXX Printing House, care of the editor. Once adopted, you will be gifted a full set of the Alleyway Edition.”

Why were they even copying this? An unnameable anger flared in Richard’s chest.

He prepared to write a letter to Charlotte, planning to phrase it like this:

”I’ll write this into the next edition of the pamphlet. I’ll write about someone who uses this booklet to identify whether there are spies around them.

After days of observing, the first person they end up identifying is actually their own father.”

Mr. Dawn’s letter arrived shortly after.

”That batch of paper was requisitioned under the guise of charity pamphlets, pressing the unit price extremely low.

It’s difficult to get even a few pages approved for this kind of pamphlet all year round, and doing so requires many stamps of approval.

However, the money came from a private merchant firm, and their accounts are tied to a wartime procurement line.”

This meant the counterfeit pamphlet likely had official backing.

Richard flipped back to the last page of the pamphlet and continued reading:

Eighth, shops with a plain storefront and only a small brass plaque for a signboard;

Ninth, shops where the lettering on the brass plaque is too small to read without getting close;

Tenth, shops that only serve regular customers, display no prices, and do not allow strangers inside.

The more he read these descriptions, the more familiar they sounded. They immediately reminded him of the shops on Flower Moon Street.

He remembered the great purge from last year. Folding the pamphlet and stuffing it into his inner pocket, he grabbed his coat and ran toward the post office.

He needed to write a letter to Mrs. MacNeil and make a phone call to his grandfather.

However, subsequent events were quietly developing in the exact direction Richard least desired.

That day, the shops on the outer street of Flower Moon Street that sold atmospheric wares were open as usual.

Incense candles, sugar-roasted chestnuts, and the cheap incense lingering behind the storefronts were all baked together by the afternoon sun, making the street feel sticky and stifling.

Three groups of people surged in from different directions.

The group from the east came from the back street of the docks, while the group in the middle carried iron bars.

The group from the west was the most orderly, marching in two columns. Someone carried a stack of pamphlets, handing them out as they walked:

”Free of charge, no money needed! Take a look. Once you read it, you’ll know why we’re here.”

At 4:20, the first group of people turned into the archway leading behind the wall.

Naturally, there was nothing there—no guards, no iron gates, only brick walls on either side blackened by decades of soot.

They walked in, and about two minutes later, they walked back out of the archway... emerging on the exact same side they had entered.

”What’s going on? Did we take a wrong turn?”

”How could we take a wrong turn in a place this small?”

The leader cursed, turning around and plunging back in.

This time, he counted his steps. When he reached the 307th step, he looked up, only to find the same blackened brick walls on either side.

Out on the main street, the vendor at the roasted chestnut stall was turning his chestnuts with an iron shovel.

The leader stood in place for a long time, stunned. ”Looks like they weren’t wrong. This place is unnatural.”

By 4:50, over two hundred people were jammed in front of the archway.

Every person who walked out was muttering to their companions about how bizarre the place was.

Seeing that things were taking a bad turn, the shops on the outer street began closing their doors.

The chestnut vendor shoved his iron shovel into the pot and pushed his cart toward the south.

After taking a dozen steps, his cart wheel got stuck in the crack of a stone slab. He simply abandoned the cart and ran, looking like a night market vendor being chased by city inspectors.

At 17 Flower Moon Street, Madam Marie’s door was also shut, and the black cat on the steps had disappeared.

Someone tried to wedge an iron bar into the crack of her door to pry it open, but after struggling for a long time, it proved completely useless.

At 5:10, the air raid sirens began to blare.

The sound started from the docks across the river first—one long blast, two short.

The West District followed, and then the South District. Within a single minute, every siren in the entire city was wailing.

As if by conditioned reflex, the hundreds of people on the street began doing what they had become most proficient at over the past year.

They frantically squeezed toward narrow spaces, pressed against the base of walls, and burrowed into archways.

The group squeezed into the archway no longer possessed the strong desire of ”I want to go in”... they were being forcefully shoved forward by the people behind them.

Just like that, hundreds of people pressed against that Curtain wall at almost the exact same time.

At 5:14, the Curtain wall’s ether field completely shattered.

The person at the very front stepped into empty air, stumbling half a step forward and only steadying himself by grabbing the wall.

He raised his head and realized the stone-paved road stretched all the way inside. The storefronts on either side were plain, and their signboards were small brass plaques embedded in the door frames, the lettering on them exceedingly small.

”Haha! So it’s here. We finally found it.”

With that shout, the hundreds of people behind him surged in together.

...

The Bronze Bell chimed, and the door was pushed open from the outside. The sound was exactly the same as when a customer entered on any ordinary day.

”Your name is Donner?” The person standing at the very front was gripping a copy of the Alleyway Edition.

”That name doesn’t sound like someone from our Empire.”

Donner took his half-moon spectacles off the bridge of his nose.

”Sir, my grandfather opened this shop on this street back in 1845.”

”I’m asking about this name of yours.”

”My grandfather boarded a ship from Anatolia. Counting back three more generations, our family came from Persia.”

He spread his hands open on the counter.

”Where is Persia?” someone in the back asked.

”It should be in the east, right?”

”How far east, exactly?”

”I don’t know how far, but it’s definitely across the sea!”

Donner shut his mouth. He could already tell that these people were not customers at all.

He subconsciously reached under the counter, but the people pressing in thought he was reaching for a gun or a knife.

The counter was instantly flipped over, sending bronze candlesticks rolling across the floor.

The glass of old picture frames shattered piece after piece, and the stone bowls on the middle shelf smashed against the wooden floor.

Donner was dragged out from behind the counter. He was quite short, and when they grabbed him by the collar, both his feet dangled in the air.

”What about the back of this shop?”

”What are you hiding in the back? Is it a spy gathering spot?”

The tapestry woven with a phoenix’s nirvana pattern was torn down completely, and then they set their sights on the Fire Worship Temple Pillar.

On Flower Moon Street, there were also powers of the mystical side.

The old gentleman in charge of timekeeping heard the commotion and made all the clocks in his shop chime at exactly the same time.

The people charging forward stopped in their tracks in unison.

This trick worked for less than two minutes before someone in the crowd shouted in a shrill voice:

”Did you hear that? I told you this place was weird!”

Mrs. MacNeil also blocked quite a few people.

She only dared to carefully utilize a single Spirit Lodging Vessel, brushing it past them very lightly.

Those people immediately began to wander around on the spot, completely disoriented.

A woman in the back saw this and shrieked:

”They’ve been cursed! They put a curse on these people!”

The glass shop at the end of the street would polish mirrors that cast no reflections.

Someone grabbed a brick and hurled it at the display window, where several polished mirrors stood.

The flying brick went straight in and was instantly swallowed by the mirrors.

The people in that area hastily retreated a few steps, but after stepping back, they continued to surge forward with even fiercer momentum.

Everyone on Flower Moon Street possessed some skills, but none of them dared to use them against ordinary citizens outside the mystical side.

Mrs. MacNeil knew why her teacher hadn’t stepped forward.

The people living on this street came from all sorts of backgrounds, and for so many years, they had run businesses that couldn’t see the light of day.

If a Major Adept medium, who was already under suspicion, were to use genuine mystical side methods in front of hundreds of ordinary citizens, this street would never be able to clear its name.

By 6:40, an unbranded tailor shop was on fire.

...

”Williams! Phone call for you!”

Richard rushed downstairs and grabbed the receiver.

”Grandpa? What’s wrong?”

”Something’s happened on Flower Moon Street. The outer street has been completely smashed, and the interference behind the wall was broken a little after five o’clock.

People from the Branch Office came by once, stood around for half an hour, and then retreated.”

”They retreated?”

”The higher-ups’ orders are to prioritize police forces to secure vital areas. You should be very familiar with that phrase by now.”

Richard gripped the receiver, saying nothing.

”I have to make myself clear first. I’m not calling to persuade you to go help.”

”What do you mean?”

Gerard’s tone was very steady:

”Listen to me explain the pros and cons clearly first.

If you don’t go, nothing will happen. You’ll sleep in your dormitory as usual tonight and attend classes normally tomorrow.

No matter if there are purges or interrogations in the future, none of it will involve you.”

”And if I do go?”

”If you go, there will naturally be trouble. There are official personnel present over there, and your name has already entered the archives.

Moreover, Madam Marie has been investigated during every purge. Although no one has dared to touch her, if you take the initiative to get close to her, you will definitely become a target of investigation as well.

In short, if you go, you’ll stir up a heap of trouble.

And this old face of your grandfather can only help shield you slightly.”

”And the benefit?”

”There is only one benefit: it will make this Major Adept medium owe you a favor.”

After Gerard finished speaking, he fell silent.

Richard finally spoke up. ”Grandpa, I don’t want to calculate this ledger that way.”

”Speak.”

”Old Biggs taught me the basics of Spirit Vision and divination back then, and he is a man under Madam Marie.

Then there was that night in Whitcom, and that night in the Black Trench. If it weren’t for Mrs. MacNeil, I might not have come back.

Furthermore, Madam Marie personally mended the seal on this Ring on my chest twice, and she didn’t ask for a single penny.

In March, when that invitation letter with the tooth marks appeared on our family’s door pillar, you had someone take a message to her.

She was in a closed-door period at the time, but she still made an exception and accepted it.”

Richard switched the receiver to his other hand.

”Right now, I can be considered half a student of hers.

Just watch the street my teacher manages get smashed, while I hide in my dorm and sleep soundly?

Grandpa, if I had someone like that by my side, I probably wouldn’t ever contact them again.”

The other end of the line was quiet for a long time, followed by the sound of a teacup being picked up.

”Your grandmother said something similar to me back in the day.”

”What did she say?”

”I don’t remember,” the old man answered briskly.

”In any case, I was so choked by her words that I couldn’t even manage a single reply.”

He coughed. ”Wear a thicker coat. It might rain again tonight.”

”Got it.”

”One more thing.”

”Go ahead.”

”Don’t just run over there by yourself.

Adding one more of you over there will probably just mean one more person getting smashed.”