Chapter Sixty-Eight: Red Flame Unquenched, Ground Lines Rewoven
Section One: Clearing Lines Behind the Street, Embers Hide
Rustmouth Fifth Stretch west, back alley of the old logistics relay, five AM sharp.
Once a Red Gang "front patrol" outpost, a marker plate still hung on a ruined wall, words faded but faintly reading "Patrol Code · 07-Diagonal."
Maria crouched in the rubble's corner, operating an ARGUS portable module, three faint signal trails pulsing on the terminal screen.
"These three aren't ours," she said low.
Zhao Mingxuan stood by, tuning the main console.
"Last night's retreating remnants—didn't return to the hall, didn't surrender."
Maria scanned the data, frowning: "They're not waiting for orders—they're waiting for time."
"For what?"
"For us to unravel," her eyes chilled. "They know they're useless, but they're betting on our first crack."
ARGUS mainframe prompted:
[Anomalous Signal Sync Rate Dropping × Remnant Self-Preservation Intact]
→ "Unlinked to Enemy Rear Dispatch × Signals Split into Triad Structures × Intent for Independent Survival"
→ "Non-Command Counter × 'Point-Monitoring Residual Toxin'"
—
Jason wasn't at the scene.
He left two lines:
"Don't kill all."
"Don't let them go."
Maria knew what it meant.
Some didn't need killing to die.
But they couldn't walk—alive, they were rust-mold in pipes, not spreading, but brewing the next corrosion.
—
She lowered the frequency, switching ARGUS to "Behavioral Prediction Match," the system auto-scanning target hideout paths.
[Match Results:]
→ Signal 01: Fifth Stretch · South Civilian Passage Mouth × Activity Unclear
→ Signal 02: Fourth Stretch · Sealed House Basement × Low Traffic
→ Signal 03: Sixth Stretch Ruin Warehouse Fringe · Comms Silent × Status Unknown
Zhao Mingxuan frowned: "Third group's self-cut."
Maria shook her head: "No—they're waiting for us to cut our judgment."
She stood, unplugging the interface, pointing to the second: "Here first. That basement… Qing's old backup grain stash."
—
Fifteen minutes later, they arrived.
Under a crumbling eave, a dry ration wrapper lay pressed by bricks, empty, only a burned-out smoke stub inside.
Maria crouched, eyeing the ash.
"Someone was here."
"Within forty minutes," Zhao Mingxuan judged.
Maria nodded, looking inside.
A faint glint in a wall crack—a sealed micro-transmitter, Red Gang's old contact module.
She plucked it.
ARGUS linked, the beacon flashing a short burst:
["East street unsteady, can main stretch be reentered?"]
Maria, cold: "Not waiting for a chance—they're making one."
Zhao Mingxuan, grim: "Report Jason?"
"No," she pocketed the beacon. "He saw this coming."
—
Meanwhile, Jason sat on a high platform beyond Rustmouth Seventh Stretch, an old newspaper spread before him.
A metal-framed photo centered it—a Red Gang street feast years back.
He stared at an unremarkable youth in the left rear, then spoke low: "This one's still alive."
A nameless team member replied: "Sent to Third Stretch fringe, posing as a street cleanup worker."
Jason nodded.
"Keep him cleaning."
"Clean enough, I'll decide if he stays or I drive him out."
—
ARGUS prompted:
[Rustmouth Residual Hostile Node Tracking × Status: Retreated, Unreturned × Camouflaged Lingering]
[System Suggestion:]
→ Avoid Full Purge, Shift to "Tagged Intervention" Mode
→ All "Non-Surrendered but Non-Disruptive" Units Enter "Observation Signal Group"
—
Fuxi whispered:
[☰ Mountain over Water: Obscurity]
[Nurture integrity in obscurity, the sage's work.]
[Prompt: Foes linger, fire lives; if foes scatter but hearts persist, govern with order, not slaughter.]
Jason folded the paper, handing it off: "They think they're hidden because we haven't hunted."
"We're not rushing—they're not worth first blood."
He stood, gazing into the street's gray fog: "Rustmouth's ground lines still pulse."
"I want more than silence."
"I want them to know—we know they live, and we know the day they'll kneel."
Section Two: Ad Hoc Response Team, Street's First Clash
Rustmouth Seventh Stretch edge, old maintenance station, eight-fifteen AM.
Street sealed, sound unquelled. Iron track seams clanged intermittently, some workshop unclosed, noise and faint tremors piercing the morning wind.
Tarn pressed his lower back, gripping a comms unit. Fresh from a new outpost task, eyes shadowed, a bruise at his lip—grazed in last night's Red Gang remnant skirmish.
Chen Lei stood aside, silent. Short-sleeve combat shirt, knife scars faint on his arms, expression unchanged, iron left years on the street—dull, unrusted.
Jian Ci leaned on a fence, head low, adjusting a dagger sheath, eyes drifting, avoiding them.
Jason's "special response team."
No code, no leader.
Just a map—three Seventh Stretch fringe gaps to seal, neutralize remnant signals, screen lurkers, and "leave no heavy marks on the street" in three hours.
Tarn sighed: "Three's not impossible… just an odd mix."
No reply.
Jian Ci flipped his blade, flat: "If it were odd, Jason wouldn't send us together."
Tarn opened his mouth, held back.
Chen Lei, deaf to it, looked west.
A group approached.
Five, ragged clothes, unarmed, steps heavy.
An elder in an oil-stained cap led, raising a white cloth, nearing slow.
"We're not trouble—" he rasped. "Old street workers, Red Gang forced us on patrols, now back, not for rank, just food."
Tarn frowned, stepping back.
Jian Ci didn't move, eyes chilling.
"Hands up," Chen Lei said, voice low, steady.
The elder complied, but a youth behind twitched an elbow, stiff. Jian Ci's gaze snapped, lunging, kicking over a cloth bag at the youth's feet, a short blade tumbling out.
Chen Lei drew his short stick, leveling it.
Tarn pulled his briefing terminal, uploading visuals to ARGUS.
The trio pinned the five.
"Still claim you're not remnants?" Jian Ci's tone bit.
The elder knelt: "We're not…! That's his! We're factory folk—check! Check my name!"
Tarn hesitated, glancing at Chen Lei.
Chen Lei's eyes froze, but he held, nodding to Jian Ci.
Jian Ci, silent, crouched before the youth.
"You carried a blade, scared we'd block you—or to test if we're like Red Gang?"
The youth gritted: "I… don't know who you are."
Jian Ci stared two seconds, rising: "You can not know us."
"But know the street you tread."
To the elder, soft: "Five of you, stay. We verify, you walk."
"No match—we don't kill."
"But you'll learn—wrong street's a lifelong debt."
—
Tarn, low to Chen Lei: "Just leave them?"
Chen Lei: "Jason said, first wave, no hands."
"You trust he won't kill?"
Chen Lei glanced far: "I trust he wants others to know he can spare."
—
ARGUS returned:
→ Three Confirmed Old Street Residents, Records Mixed, Movements Unsteady, "Half-Trust" Structure
→ Two Unclear, Youth Tied to Red Gang Fringe Courier Group, Allegiance Unset
→ System Suggestion: "Restricted Observation × Limited Movement × Non-Public Handling"
Maria, remote: "Jason's assessment logged—no clear, no take, no kill, no release."
Jian Ci spat: "You're not back for the street."
"You're testing us."
He walked off, fingers grazing his hilt, no bloodlust, only stark distrust.
Tarn glanced back: "Really keep them?"
Jian Ci: "I don't trust them."
"But Jason trusts my choice of who doesn't stay."
Chen Lei, distant, silent.
—
Fuxi whispered:
[☰ Earth over Mountain: Humility]
[The humble cross great rivers.]
[Prompt: Sparing isn't mercy, taking isn't justice; true subjugation—let them go, they dare not leave.]
—
No more debate, the five isolated in the back alley, tagged with ARGUS limiters, awaiting verification.
Not victory—pressure.
Jason didn't want them "winning foes," but ensuring foes dared not move, even unvictorious.
Section Three: Those Within Rules Need No Reminder
Rustmouth Sixth Stretch east, second-floor temp command, afternoon light through bulletproof film, falling on a spread war map.
Jason stood before it, finger tracing a red line—ARGUS's remnant movement overlap from two days prior. Below, fourteen "sub-rule gray points."
Jian Ci and Tarn stood before him, fresh from task reports.
Air heavy, stifling.
Tarn, dirt-streaked, a fresh scrape on his back, wanted to speak but held, seeing Jason's eyes on the map.
Jian Ci stood rigid, gaze calm, as if nothing happened, needing no stance.
Jason spoke.
"You sealed three Seventh Stretch lines."
"One hour, forty-six minutes—system predicted forty."
No blame, voice flat, reciting trivial data.
"Identified five foes, cleared two, kept three."
"You judged independently, no pre-intercept reports, no risk signals triggered."
He glanced at Jian Ci: "You trust no one, not even yourself."
"Here, that's not wrong."
Jian Ci didn't argue.
To Tarn: "You trust process too much."
"You think spotting 'non-foes' gives control."
He pointed to a thin blue line at the map's edge: "This, you let go this morning."
Tarn blinked, recalling: "…Old neighbor, tools, said he's fixing a warehouse roof—"
Jason cut in, soft: "Last night, he scouted signals at Third Stretch fringe."
"He didn't lie—he's fixing a roof. Not ours."
Jian Ci's eyes shifted: "Why no order to stop him?"
Jason didn't answer, spreading a new map.
Rustmouth's behavioral grid—not stretches or fronts, but pattern nodes.
Each marked "old lifestyle retention."
Jason, low: "These aren't Red Gang soldiers."
"They're Red Gang's street."
"You can block men, not a street's memory of its old ways."
He drove a metal pen into the map's edge: "Don't tell me this street's mine."
"You can drive men out, not their wish to return."
"I don't want obedience—I want them too scared to stray."
Tarn gritted, low: "How do we know if they're thinking of coming back?"
Jason's tone, frost behind damp brick: "I don't ask their thoughts."
"I watch—dare they hang a Red Gang rag again?"
—
Outside, a house door, someone painted.
Black-gray, covering a half-scraped "Red Martial Patrol." The old owner crouched, brushing slow, blank-faced, unwatched.
Jason didn't go see, didn't comment.
He raised a hand to ARGUS.
[System Log: Rustmouth Sixth Stretch × Former Red Gang Residents × Actively Overwriting Old Markers]
[Assessment: Non-Submissive × Self-Clearing Under Pressure × Not Logged in Trust Chain]
—
Fuxi whispered:
[☰ Fire over Earth: Advance]
[Soft gains position, firm gains will.]
[Prompt: Hearts unreadable, no need to read; keep rule-keepers in line, outsiders fade.]
Jason eyed the door: "We don't ask if they accept me."
"They painted over—it means this street's name ties to me."
—
He turned, handing the new map to Jian Ci.
"Next, not fighting men."
"But seeing who dares think."
Section Four: Peng Flees, Inner Line Cut
Rustmouth Ninth Stretch, dead rail end, fog thick as curtains.
An unguarded handcart stood at the switch, hooked by iron rope, half-tilted. Three rags hid an outdated multi-band transmitter, rusted shell, green interface blinking.
Old Peng crouched beside, one hand on the transmitter, the other tuning, sweat beading, lips tight.
Not waiting for men—for a reply.
The machine clicked "beep, beep, snap," low-frequency signal in relay.
A Red Gang peripheral node, beyond Jason's control, held by "Far Alley Hall" remnants, rumored tied to an "unaffiliated" group outside.
Peng muttered the code: "Green line unreturned, can main stretch be reentered?"
His voice low, compressed, unwilling—a cold gust from a wall seam, brief, flickering a room's flame.
—
Rustmouth Third Stretch main command.
Zhao Mingxuan stared at ARGUS's pulsing frequency, low: "It matches."
"Signal from Ninth Stretch relay, code Red Gang Fourth Band remnant… it's him."
Jason stood aside, not at the screen, eyes on an old photo—early Red Gang feast, Peng and Qing side by side, a nameless clerk between.
Jason's gaze faint, tone rare with mockery: "He thinks the outside still takes him?"
Zhao Mingxuan's fingers flicked, pulling a feedback module.
"System suggests: cut the band?"
Jason shook: "No—answer."
He paused: "Not words, their 'victory structure.'"
Zhao Mingxuan's eyes lit: "Meme feedback?"
Jason nodded.
"Let them think we're split."
—
Ten minutes later.
ARGUS sent a coded echo, Red Gang syntax:
["Main stretch voices multiply, new lord unsteady, outer line should probe."]
Simultaneously, it locked Peng's node, creating a "signal self-feedback loop"—data looped locally, faking "delivered."
Zhao Mingxuan named it: "Live Coffin Monitor."
—
Peng, hearing the echo, exhaled.
"New lord unsteady… as expected…"
He wiped sweat, boosting the signal, sending: "If landing, suggest East Thirteenth Plant entry, still viable."
Unseen, "East Thirteenth Plant" was flagged by ARGUS—a Jason-controlled fringe depot.
Maria, via ARGUS sub-terminal, saw:
[Hostile Recommending Landing · Location Under Our Control]
[Suggestion: Build Pre-Lure Field × Monitor × Trap Structure]
Jason nodded: "Prep to silence."
Zhao Mingxuan: "One more send, we pin him."
Fuxi whispered:
[☰ Mountain over Thunder: Nourishment]
[Those who nurture, eat their own fruit.]
[Prompt: Let them think they control the game, they bite their own tail.]
Jason, soft: "Not tricking him."
"Letting him trick himself."
—
By the cart, Peng's eyes glinted.
He thought the east gate open.
He didn't know, through Jason's "window," he gazed at Rustmouth, not one word escaping.
He thought he fled far, never leaving the street mouth.
—
ARGUS prompted:
[Peng Signal Channel Locked]
[Status: Self-Believed Contact × Actual Local Loop Monitor × Relay Faked as Rally Point]
[Suggestion: Retain Link × Set Keyword-Triggered Counter-Seal]
—
Jason turned to the window, final: "Give him a thread—see if he dares jump."
"His landing's already buried."
Section Five: Jason Absent, Street Knows Its Lord
Rustmouth Third Stretch main hall, seven-fifty-eight AM.
Hall empty, lights off, Red Gang's wooden chairs gone, only a floor scar slashing center, a burned-out fireline.
Jason hadn't returned all night.
He didn't come to the hall, nor the monitoring hub. Two orders left:
"No report unless needed."
"Don't wait for me if needed."
Maria rose at six, finding the main terminal idle; Zhao Mingxuan checked street lines; Tarn ran Seventh Stretch handover "lure mode"; Jian Ci—expectedly—absent.
Jason's whereabouts, unknown.
At seven, ARGUS tagged Rustmouth Sixth Stretch outer signal tower top—Jason there over six hours.
No calls, no broadcasts triggered.
He sat, watching fog.
—
Tower top, wind heavy, signal lamp flickering.
Jason's hands clasped on his knees, head tilted, gauging wind's slant.
Not waiting.
Testing—could this street, without his presence, orders, or claims, stay silent.
—
Far off, a vendor's cart passed Third Stretch mouth.
No shouts, no haggling. He stopped at the old post, pulling paint, wiping "Red Martial Patrol" to gray.
He didn't glance around, no one asked his name.
Done, he pushed on.
—
Farther, a child leapt from rubble, clutching a scratched copper tag with Jason's name, etched days ago at an old warehouse. His mother snatched it.
"Don't hang names at doors."
The child: "Isn't he lord?"
Soft: "He doesn't say he's lord."
—
ARGUS auto-logged:
[Crowd Behavior Metrics Updated × Control Stabilization Enters "Image Default Phase"]
→ No Oaths, No Rebellion
→ Non-Violent Control × Emotional Suppression × Orders Non-Explicit but Accepted
→ No Core Structure Claimed × Authority Cognition Self-Generated
System Assessment:
Jason's rule forms a "Fuzzy Trust × Explicit Fear × Cold Rule Priority" street dominance embryo.
—
Fuxi whispered:
[☰ Qian · Ninth Five]
[Dragon flies in heaven, great men profit seen.]
[Prompt: The true lord sits not at the head, but where none dare sit.]
—
Nine AM sharp.
Jason rose, overlooking Rustmouth.
Roofs low, patchwork, streets scabbed, unhealed. Today, no cries, no slogans, no "who owns the street."
It lived, silent.
Jason, low: "They don't need to know if I'm lord."
"They need to know they dare not name another."
—
He descended, crossing alleys to the waste square's heart.
Once Red Gang's execution point, now leveled. A broken stele stood, old street records carved. Someone wiped it, etching shallow:
Not Jason's name.
"From now, no more random takes."
Unsigned.
Jason glanced, no smile, no words.
He brushed sand from the line, revealing Red Gang's old slogan: "Guard Street with Right."
His hand scraped it to ruin.
—
ARGUS prompted:
[Street Control Completion: 98.7%]
[Active Surrender Groups: 0]
[Public Resistance Attempts: 0]
[Crowd-Generated Rule Responses: Over 17 Sets]
Logged Phrases:
→ "No triple takes now"
→ "It's about rules now"
→ "Who dares hit doors?"
→ "He didn't say who he is, but we know who's behind."
—
Jason walked to the low street.
Footsteps trailed—Tarn, task done, following afar.
Tarn wanted to call, thought, didn't.
Jason didn't turn.
Street quiet.
An old wall, painted thrice, bore chalk: "You're here."
No one erased.
No one changed.
It stayed.
That moment, Rustmouth stopped asking "who's lord."
It defaulted—who spoke least, ruled.