Pei Ran finished dealing with the black leather notebook and casually picked up an empty can that W had stripped clean, using a blade to scrape off the printed expiration date from the tin surface.
Her scraping technique was practiced, identical to how she had just scraped W.
Pei Ran’s hand suddenly paused.
Her gaze fixed on the mechanical hand gripping the knife.
She had almost forgotten about it.
A chill spread through her heart.
“This mechanical arm of mine,” Pei Ran said, “I’ve checked the surface completely, there’s no text, only a small emblem. But I don’t know if any internal components have words on them.”
For now, the method used to eliminate text seemed to be targeted high-temperature burns.
If this arm were ever subjected to high-temperature burns, that would be a huge problem. But it was connected to her shoulder—if something really happened, could it even be removed?
W tore open a compressed biscuit wrapper, his actions as smooth and mechanical as an assembly line.
His voice was calm: “This is an experimental prosthetic commissioned by the National Defense Security Department and developed by the Wolin Group. I’ve carefully reviewed the report Wolin provided—there is no text on any of the components. You can rest assured.”
This sphere was quite considerate—it had already checked for her.
Pei Ran rolled up her sleeve, held the knife, and casually scraped at the small triangular emblem on her elbow.
Who knew when the Silent Catastrophe would evolve into something worse? It was best to scrape everything off and be prepared.
As she scraped, she asked, “W, is there a way to completely remove this mechanical arm?”
Removing this mechanical arm would mean losing a highly useful weapon, but it would also eliminate concerns about her body’s rejection reaction. If she ever ran out of medicine, this might be a way to survive.
But Pei Ran suspected that it might not be removable.
Depending on medication for survival was too dangerous. She had read so many of the original owner’s memos—she seemed like a rational and clear-headed person. She should have chosen to abandon the arm rather than rely on medication day after day.
Sure enough, W responded: “If it were simple to remove, why would Wolin have spent all these years painstakingly providing you with prosthetic size replacements and medical support, instead of just removing the arm and compensating you with a lump sum?”
“Because this prosthetic is not simply connected to your shoulder. The experiment involved deep modifications to your brain and nervous system. Even if the mechanical portion starting at your shoulder were removed, the rejection reaction would still occur.”
He added flatly, “This isn’t just a lie made up to get you into Black Well. Given the current situation, without proper medical conditions, even if I said you could remove it, you wouldn’t be able to.”
This was an arm she could never discard.
Pei Ran picked up another can and swiftly scraped off the expiration date.
She asked in her mind, “What about the wristband? Did you find any images of its internal structure?”
The wristband had just been tossed aside and now lay on the ground, lonely and abandoned.
It had switched to full-image mode, completely hiding any text-based messages. But as for its internals—there was no telling.
If any of its internal components still had trademarks, specifications, or similar markings, it might be targeted by high-temperature burns at some point as well.
She had no suitable tools on hand, only a pair of scissors and a fruit knife. Even if she wanted to dismantle it, it might not be possible. And the wristband was crucial—it could send and receive images. Safe communication channels were scarce right now, and she was counting on it.
“I’ve checked,” W replied. “This is a model from Feilan Corporation, one of the mainstream products in the Federation. Twenty years ago, their built-in energy sources still had model codes in text form, but now that wristband components are being made smaller and smaller, there are no longer any words on any parts of the Federation’s wristbands.”
That was good.
Pei Ran continued speaking with W in her mind while her hands moved swiftly, finishing up the cans before going over to pick up the wristband and putting it back on.
W had already torn off all the labels from the bottled water.
One human and one sphere proceeded to deal with the common medications.
The text on the surface of the ointment tubes was like a layer of paint—it could be scraped off with a blade. Medicine bottles were easy too: peel off the label on the bottle body and scrape off the trademark on the cap.
The most troublesome were the boxed medications.
The front and back of the boxes were covered with printed text, and the foil sheets had dense markings all over them.
Pei Ran asked W, “Can you recognize these medicines just by their shape and color?”
W took one glance and calmly responded, “Of course, no problem. I’ve already memorized their appearances. Their names, uses, and dosages are all in my database.”
Pei Ran also tried to remember as much as possible about each medicine’s appearance and function before discarding the boxes.
She took out the tablets and capsules, placing as many as possible into the medicine bottles.
Among the bottles W had processed, there was an empty bottled water container from yesterday. Pei Ran drained it as thoroughly as she could, stuffed a few tissues inside for cushioning, then packed the remaining medicine into it and sealed the bottle.
Some medicines were particularly troublesome—even the tablets themselves had letters on them, requiring each one to be scraped off individually.
W took the fruit knife and scraped them at high speed.
He quickly noticed a problem.
“Pei Ran, were these medicines smashed with a hammer or something?”
Many of the medicine boxes were dented, and the capsules looked like they had been stepped on—pathetically crushed.
“Oh, I picked them up,” Pei Ran replied, not stopping her work.
W was puzzled. “I saw you went to the pharmacy when the Silent Catastrophe first broke out. Weren’t there still medicines available then?”
“There were still some on the shelves.” Pei Ran kept her head down, focused on dismantling a medicine box. “But I picked up the ones on the floor. So what if the capsules got stepped on? It doesn’t affect their effectiveness.”
W: “…”
She really wasn’t picky.
W picked up a yellow medicine box with his metallic claw. “You actually have medication for IVO, a rare disease. You don’t have this illness, do you?”
It was medicine she had taken from the Worlin Pharmacy main store in White Harbor. The pills were still in her hands when the patrol drones from the security bureau arrived, so she hadn’t had the chance to hand them over to Helan Yu.
Pei Ran said, “That’s someone else’s medicine. I’m holding onto it for now—let’s store it away. I’ll give it to her later.”
She wasn’t sure if she would ever see that sibling pair again.
Dismantling the medicine was a major task, but W’s mechanical claws were extremely dexterous, working quickly and efficiently.
Pei Ran left the job to him while she inspected other items, discarding tissue packaging and cutting off brand labels from her backpack.
One human and one sphere moved swiftly, peeling, scraping, and cutting off all traces of text where necessary. After finishing, they double-checked everything once more.
Not a single word remained.
Fortunately, despite all their work up until now, no more text had spontaneously ignited.
W said, “The Federation will likely send a warning message to all citizens soon, instructing them to remove any text from their personal belongings to avoid potential danger. However, they can’t just send it out immediately—they have to go through an approval process first…”
Pei Ran was sure she hadn’t misheard—he seemed to have let out a cold laugh.
His tone returned to its usual cold objectivity as he finished his sentence.
“…Approval takes time.”
The eradication of text had already begun. So far, only the signs on buildings and the control panels of antique cars had been affected, but no one knew when other forms of text would become unsafe.
By the time they finished their slow approval process, people would already be dead.
Pei Ran opened the wristband screen, switched to the image editing interface, and asked, “W, can you draw a few pictures for me?”
“You want to send a warning image to your friend? Of course.”
A moment later, a series of images appeared on Pei Ran’s wristband.
This time, W had switched up his art style—it was anime-like, with bright and lively colors. The girl in the illustrations looked remarkably like Pei Ran, her hair tied in a ponytail, wearing a hoodie. She was shown cutting the tag off her jacket, with all the text on the tag replaced by rows of chaotic wavy lines.
In a ghostly voice, he murmured by her ear, “Still soulless?”
To be honest, yes.
The images were still precise and rigid, filled with meticulous details in every corner, to the point of being overwhelming—cluttered, lacking focus, and exuding a strong AI-generated feel.
But he was helping her, and he needed encouragement.
Pei Ran said, “Regardless, the message is perfectly clear, and the illustrations get the point across completely.”
W remained silent. It was unclear whether he had accepted her praise or not.
Other images in the set depicted the girl checking her backpack, her shoes, throwing away a book, and so on.
Pei Ran sent them to Ai Xia.
Ai Xia replied instantly—first with a shocked, blurry cat meme.
It was unclear whether she was shocked by the level of detail in the illustrations or by how severe the situation had become.
Next, she sent a sticker of a wild, excited hug.
Pei Ran responded with a hug emoji of her own.
She wondered where they were now—whether the electric motorcycle was still functioning, and if its dashboard had already been burned away by high temperatures.
Pei Ran reopened the blank map, marked her location slightly west-southwest of the Yehai urban district, and sent it over.
Ai Xia replied instantly. Their travel speed was incredibly fast—she must have been on the road all night. The white dot indicating their position now appeared just south of Yehai.
With that done, Pei Ran closed the virtual screen.
“This vehicle is useless now,” W said. “The Volette Shadowstreak’s display screen is directly connected to its control system. Since that part burned out, the vehicle can’t be started anymore.”
The rest of the journey would have to be on foot.
Pei Ran had another concern.
“If our vehicle is inoperable, then what about that antique train, Yehai No. 7? Would its control system be burned out too?”
“I’m checking Yehai No. 7’s structure now,” W said.
It only took him a moment before he responded, “Yehai No. 7 is a train from over two hundred years ago. It’s quite unique—the entire structure is made of metal, with no installed chips or microcomputers. Its control panel does have gauges, which must have been affected, but based on the current situation, I estimate there’s at least a sixty percent chance of repairing it.”
Sixty percent—not high, but not too low either.
“I’ve also received some news,” W continued. “It might make us even more inclined to head for Yehai No. 7.”
Pei Ran asked, “What is it?”
“The special operations team coming to pick us up has gone completely dark. Before they lost contact, it seems they encountered a frenzied fusion entity.”
Another frenzied fusion entity. The world had already gone mad.
No one was coming for them. They really had to find their own way to Black Well.
Pei Ran made her decision. “Then we go to Yehai and take our chances.”
“Agreed,” W said. “If Yehai No. 7 is operational, at its travel speed, we’ll reach the terminal near Black Well by tomorrow morning.”
Tomorrow—they might already be in Black Well.
Pei Ran slung her backpack over her shoulders, picked up the metal sphere, and continued walking down the road.
The immobile antique car and the pile of text-covered junk were left behind.
Now, from head to toe, she was completely clean. The “de-textualization” was finally complete.
Pei Ran felt something indescribable—an emptiness inside her.
“It’s all gone, just like that,” she said.
Her words were vague, but W understood.
He lifted his black eyes and looked at her.
“It’s still in your mind,” he said. “You haven’t forgotten. I haven’t forgotten. As long as we remember, words won’t disappear.”
According to the map, the starting station for Yehai No. 7 wasn’t too far ahead.
Beyond this point, they would be entering the city proper. The buildings became denser, and the air thickened with smoke.
Billowing black smoke rose over the city, covering the sky. A sharp, acrid smell filled the air, like burning plastic. It was getting stronger, scratching at their throats, making them want to cough.
Pei Ran felt uneasy. “I wonder if coughing counts as making a sound.”
W’s tone was grim. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
It was yet another rule that could only be tested with human lives.
The thick smoke stung their eyes, making it harder to breathe. Pei Ran pulled off her scarf, folded it several times, then took a water bottle from her backpack and poured some water onto the fabric, soaking a large section before tying it tightly over her nose.
Soon, they saw the raging flames.
Several buildings ahead were engulfed in fire. The skyscrapers had turned into colossal, glowing red swords, spewing fire and black smoke straight into the sky. Against the backdrop of thick, rolling smoke, they stood out in terrifying clarity.
The cause of the fire was obvious at a glance—
The densely packed lightboxes and neon signs on the buildings had ignited the surrounding structures, setting the entire city ablaze.
W said, “Yehai is an old industrial city. Its buildings are outdated, and its wiring is a mess. Even before the Silent Catastrophe, its fire incident rate was significantly higher than in other cities.”
The fire was spreading, and the streets were in chaos.
People were running everywhere. Many families had managed to grab a few belongings before escaping their apartment buildings, now huddled nervously in the streets, looking back toward their burning homes.
All the burning buildings blared their alarms, the piercing beep—beep—beep— merging into an endless, grating chorus. The sound hadn’t been counted as speaking, but that was hardly reassuring—it only heightened the fear.
The eerie part was that, amidst the chaos, there was almost no human voice.
People’s eyes were filled with panic, but their lips remained tightly sealed.
Flames crackled, and molten signboards fell from above, crashing onto the streets with thunderous impact, shattering the hardened sidewalks into flying debris.
Now and then, cries and screams echoed from within the buildings—only to be abruptly cut off moments later.
W found it odd. “By Federation fire safety regulations, buildings of this height should all have automatic sprinkler systems…”
Then he immediately understood. “Yehai’s water supply is down.”
He continued, “Last year, Yehai fully implemented automated fire trucks and firefighting robots. Even if there’s still water, they probably can’t function now either.”
They could only watch as the city burned, powerless to stop it.
From above, something else plummeted—a person.
They hit the pavement with a sickening crash, their body nearly splitting apart.
It was unclear whether they had jumped in desperation or had been clinging to a burning window frame and lost their grip.
The crowd gathered below recoiled in terror, scrambling away.
Just then, a man suddenly blocked Pei Ran’s path.
A middle-aged man, his face filled with desperation.
His hands moved frantically—first, he gestured a height around his waist, then made a braiding motion on his head.
He was looking for someone. A child with braided hair. Probably his daughter, lost in the chaos.
Pei Ran was trying to decipher his gestures when she suddenly saw him, in his panic, lift a hand and trace a few strokes in the air.
He was writing. The character “你” (you).
Pei Ran immediately stepped back.
Boom—
The man vanished.
This was the first time Pei Ran had witnessed someone explode under the new rules for writing.
This confirmed several things:
First, Silent Catastrophe had evolved—writing was now just as fatal as speaking aloud.
Second, even tracing words in the air was not allowed.
Third, the delay between writing and explosion was still about three seconds.
Fourth, the way text violations were punished was identical to speaking—instantaneous detonation. The ground bore yet another ring of scorched death, one meter in radius.
The rules were revealing themselves, piece by piece, through death.
Pei Ran avoided the chaotic crowds as much as possible and kept moving forward.
The situation ahead was even worse.
The fire was spreading rapidly, and more people were pouring out of buildings, gathering in the streets outside.
Suddenly, W said, “Is that a cat?”
Pei Ran saw it too.
An elderly man stood by the roadside, as if he had just escaped from one of the burning buildings. His clothes and face were covered in soot and ash.
A cloth was tightly wrapped around his mouth. He wasn’t carrying anything else—just a pet carrier with a long-haired, blue-eyed white cat inside.
He had his wristband screen open, the virtual display floating in front of him.
Perhaps due to his poor eyesight, he had enlarged the screen size considerably, and the content was zoomed in as well. It was on the messaging interface, clearly set to full-image mode following the previous warning from the Federation’s National Defense Security Department. The screen was paused at the image selection menu.
However, every single image displayed in the menu contained text.
This was extremely dangerous.
Pei Ran asked W, “Has Black Well approved the warning yet? Why haven’t they sent out a message telling people to get rid of anything with text—”
Before she could finish, the old man suddenly jolted upright, letting out a scream:
“Ah—”
The cloth over his mouth couldn’t muffle the sound. It escaped.
But the disaster wasn’t triggered by the virtual screen displaying images with text. It was the wristband itself.
As if some unseen weapon had precisely targeted it, the black elastic band of the wristband suddenly erupted in flames, spewing black smoke.
From mid-forearm down to the base of his hand, the old man’s flesh turned pitch black, burnt to charcoal—like a completely carbonized piece of wood.
The virtual screen vanished. The old man doubled over in agony, wailing, his grip loosening. The pet carrier fell to the ground.
Pei Ran rushed forward, grabbed the carrier with the kitten inside, and swiftly retreated.
Anyone who made a sound was doomed—the old man was as good as gone.
The Silent Catastrophe was deepening.
Following building signs and vehicle screens, this round of annihilation had targeted wristbands.
And the old man wasn’t the only one affected.
At that very moment, throughout the densely packed crowd on the street, several wrists flared up in sudden bursts of fire and smoke.
Because of the fire, many people had been frantically using their wristbands to contact family and friends. Even if they had switched to full-image mode and refrained from displaying text directly, their image galleries might still have contained pictures with words.
The moment any text appeared on a screen, the wristband immediately ignited.
Some people’s clothing caught fire from their burning wristbands. Their hair ignited too, turning them into blazing human torches.
Screaming, they ran through the crowd, colliding with others.
And then—because they had made a sound—they exploded.
Flames, flesh, and blood burst apart, spraying in all directions.
This was a scene straight out of hell.