Chu Lin's Return to the Convenience Store
When Chu Lin trundled back from the convenience store alley, one foot deep and one foot shallow, clutching a tattered mop caked with some unknown viscous fluid, his charcoal-gray trench coat was soaked through. The coat was originally designed to absorb light, concealing his body that had grown increasingly translucent from frequent reality corrections—but now, it looked more like a massive, damp rag reeking of aged soybean paste.The so-called soy sauce umbrella ghost had finally caved, worn down by Chu Lin's relentless physical persuasion. To be precise, after Chu Lin had forcibly extracted three glass shards marked with production dates from the creature's body, the abomination stitched together from flesh and umbrella ribs had devolved back into a homeless man retching his guts out by the trash can.Old Chen's soy sauce really is too high-purity, Chu Lin muttered to himself as he walked. That batch from seventeen years ago—even a ghost with centuries of cultivation would probably be stuck on the toilet, scrambling to achieve logical consistency, let alone a homeless guy.Inside the convenience store, the sensor door shrieked an electronic welcome—Welcome.Su Yaoguang remained frozen in that stiff posture, her fingers white-knuckled around a bag of cucumber-flavored potato chips. She watched Chu Lin saunter in, watched him casually toss the mop dripping with black and red fluid into a bucket, his movements as natural as if he'd just mopped up a spilled drink.But from Su Yaoguang's perspective, everything had gone utterly insane.The moment Chu Lin crossed the threshold, she saw it clearly: his shadow did not shrink back as the automatic door slid shut. On the contrary, the edges of the shadow were expanding wildly, like a pool of sentient black ink, oozing through the cracks in the floor tiles. Under the pale fluorescent glow of the cash register, the shadow's outline grew sharper by the second—a colossal, sharply pointed frame, and a canopy arched like the vault of heaven… this was no human shadow. It was a red umbrella, large enough to cover an entire street, slowly unfurling."Ms. Su, you did a fine job tidying those chips—very rhythmic," Chu Lin said, walking behind the counter. He paid no mind to Su Yaoguang's deathly pale face, reaching out to grab the rice ball from the table and taking a bite. His words were muffled around the food. "The tomato-flavored ones are 'violence in orange packaging'—putting them next to the cucumber flavor would cause a logic allergy."Su Yaoguang jolted, looking down to find the chip bag in her hand was on the verge of bursting. She took a deep breath, trying to activate her S-Rank logical algorithms to suppress the physiological tremors born of fear."Your shadow…" she pointed at the floor, her voice trembling uncontrollably."Shadow?" Chu Lin glanced down, then stamped his foot on the inky mass as a matter of course, even twisting his toe like he was stubbing out a cigarette butt. "Oh, this thing. Probably got swollen from logic dampness with all the rain these days. Like kelp expanding when soaked—no need to make a fuss. It's called the marginal increment effect of light and shadow refraction."Su Yaoguang felt like her IQ had just been subjected to a dimensionality reduction strike. She was a logic-slaying agent, not a student listening to a slacker clerk spout nonsense about physics."Chu Lin," she finally dropped the poor chip bag, her gaze locking onto his eyes, which flickered with TV static. "Do you realize that what you dealt with in the alley wasn't just an anomaly? That homeless man was consuming primitive logic shards. Forcing them out of him will trigger a chain collapse in the semantic slum around here.""Semantic slum?" Chu Lin swallowed the last bite of his rice ball, wiping his hands casually on his trench coat. "Isn't that a good thing? I've been complaining about the old town's drainage system for ages. If the space collapses a bit tighter, I could cut two stops off my commute every day.""You're worried about your commute?!" Su Yaoguang stepped forward, the black patterns on her right arm growing warm with her agitation, the crimson throttle valve lines flickering beneath her skin like a tightening shackle. "Chu Lin, you're a Reality Corrector! Your duty is to maintain the stability of reality—not to let high-dimensional logic crumple the world into a scrap of paper just to save a few bucks on bus fare!"Chu Lin looked at her, his eyes suddenly turning deep and profound. The TV static ripples in his pupils throbbed violently for a split second. In that instant, Su Yaoguang felt the air around her grow impossibly heavy, as if every oxygen molecule had been weighted down with some crushing meaning."Ms. Su," Chu Lin tapped the counter glass lightly, his voice flat and cold. "To me, reality stability means my convenience store won't randomly sprout two extra shelves due to space overlap. It means my expense report receipts won't get eaten by ghosts, leaving me unable to pay my salary. As for what happens to the world… that's your Bureau's problem. I'm just a civilian struggling below the poverty line, trying to pay rent."He pointed at her right arm. "Besides, I hold the authorization to your power right now. If you keep talking to me in that self-righteous tone, I'll downgrade your 'Black Umbrella' permissions to a 'lace parasol that only opens automatically on sunny days to block the sun'."The long lecture Su Yaoguang had prepared died in her throat instantly. She was certain this man would actually do it.The two faced off across the cash register. The rain outside grew heavier, the raindrops slamming against the sensor door with a sound like human teeth chattering.The old radio in the corner of the store suddenly blared with a burst of harsh static. Victor's voice drifted out, thick with sticky amusement: "Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant. A saint trying to save the world with violence, and an anomaly trying to bury the truth with absurdity. Chu Lin, let me ask you—when you wake up tomorrow morning and find your landlord has turned into a giant payphone, will you still think this 'ordinary life' is worth protecting?"Chu Lin grabbed the fly swatter from the side and swatted the radio hard."Shut up, Victor. You're just a conceptual entity with no physical form, leeching off my store's Wi-Fi. You don't get to talk about landlords."The radio crackled once, then fell silent again.Chu Lin turned back to Su Yaoguang, slipping back into that lazy demeanor. "Alright, Ms. Su. Shelf-tidying duty is over. As a thank-you for your volunteer work, I won't charge you for that crushed bag of tomato chips. Now—we've got a real big business deal to take care of.""Big business deal?" Su Yaoguang frowned.Chu Lin pulled a crumpled copy of False Notes from under the counter, flipped to a blank page, and doodled a circle at random. "The whispers of the semantic slum. That homeless guy was just bait. The real trouble is—the scent of that soy sauce has lured out the 'logic loopholes' in the old town. If you don't want to step out tomorrow and fall into a swamp made of 'sorrow', you'd better come with me now."Su Yaoguang let out a cold snort. "I'm an S-Rank Investigator. This is my job by default. I don't need you to tell me what to do."Chu Lin shrugged, pushing open the convenience store door."Let's go. Time to see what real 'old town renovation' looks like."The moment the two stepped into the rain, the world shifted.If the area around the convenience store still barely clung to the appearance of a modern city, then the old town they entered after turning two street corners—what the Bureau called the semantic slum—was a reality logic warped into a hangover nightmare.The sky here was no longer black, but a grayish-yellow, like an old newspaper. When raindrops hit the ground, they didn't make a pattering sound—instead, they emitted faint, indistinct whispers. If you listened closely, you'd hear the raindrops repeating the same word over and over: damp, damp, damp…Chu Lin skillfully dodged an old man eating "sunlight". The old man squatted under a streetlamp, his mouth wide open, catching the dim yellow light. Every time he swallowed, his stomach glowed like a lightbulb."What's he doing?" Su Yaoguang tightened her grip on her black umbrella."He's supplementing his 'light perception vocabulary'," Chu Lin replied without looking back. "Here, matter and concepts are muddled together. Because of the lack of logic fuel, sunlight here has weight, and lamplight is edible. If you shout 'I'm so hungry' here, your stomach might actually turn into a black hole and swallow you whole. So—less talking, more walking."They passed a dilapidated two-story building. Its architectural style defied all laws of physics: the stairs ran horizontally, and the windows opened onto the ground. A woman dressed like a housewife walked out of a window—yes, walked out—and then strolled nonchalantly up the vertical wall to the "exit" on the first floor.Su Yaoguang watched as the so-called exit was actually a tattered wooden table placed by the road. The woman stepped over the table, and in an instant, she appeared on the other side of the street."Space overlap," Su Yaoguang murmured. "Has the logic here become this fragile?""It's called 'resource sharing'," Chu Lin corrected her flatly. "These families can't afford their own spatial coordinates, so they share an exit. That table you see is semantically defined as a 'door'. So as long as you believe it's a door, it can take you anywhere.""What if you don't believe it?"Chu Lin stopped walking, pointing under the table.Su Yaoguang looked down, and her scalp went numb. Under the table, there was a pile of mutilated human tissue. "These are the 'doubters'," Chu Lin said. "They had a moment of sanity when stepping over the table, so the logic correction instantly classified them as 'illegal cross-dimensional garbage'—and physically shredded them."Su Yaoguang unconsciously clenched her right arm. She finally understood why Lu Chen had paid such pathological attention to an anomaly like Chu Lin. In this slum of collapsed logic, violence could solve 99% of problems—but the remaining 1%—how to survive in this mess—required a mind like Chu Lin's, one that could define reality more shamelessly than any anomaly."That breakfast stall is up ahead," Chu Lin said, pointing to a small stand hanging a sign that read Breakfast.The stall looked perfectly normal, even cozy. White steam billowed from large bamboo steamers, and youtiao (fried dough sticks) sizzled in a wok.Su Yaoguang frowned in confusion. "This is the crisis you were talking about?"Chu Lin didn't answer. He walked up to the stall and called out to the boss, who was busy with his head down: "Uncle Zhang, the usual—two youtiao, one bowl of soybean milk."The boss looked up.It was a face with no features at all. On the smooth skin, only two black Song-style characters were written: Boss.Su Yaoguang nearly drew her black umbrella on the spot."Don't move," Chu Lin said, grabbing her wrist. His grip was surprisingly strong, and the cold seeping from his palm instantly suppressed the black ink swirling within her. "This is a 'vocational definition'. The logic here is too thin—Uncle Zhang can't even remember what he looks like anymore, so he has to use words to anchor his identity. As long as he's still the 'Boss', the youtiao he makes is safe."The boss made a rustling sound, like the turning of old newspaper pages: "Chu Lin… soybean milk… gone… logic… too thin…"Chu Lin frowned. "Impossible. The purity here was pretty high yesterday."The boss pointed to the empty space beside him: "Borrowed… by neighbor…"Chu Lin followed his finger.In the spot that should have been empty, a man in pajamas was sitting cross-legged on the ground. He held a straw in his hand, sucking frantically at the air. With every gulp, the colors that represented reality around him faded rapidly, turning into a blank, pale void.Su Yaoguang's pupils constricted sharply. "He's absorbing 'existence'?""That's my neighbor, Lao Wang," Chu Lin sighed. "He's a non-existent person.""A non-existent person?""He died in a logic collapse three years ago. But he refused to accept his death, so he redefined himself as a 'neighbor'. Because the word 'neighbor' can only exist if someone else exists, he's been stealing my sense of existence to sustain his delusion."Chu Lin let go of Su Yaoguang's hand and walked straight toward the man sucking at the void."Lao Wang, you've gone too far," Chu Lin said, kicking the leg of his chair. "Stealing my logic fuel is one thing—but you even sucked Uncle Zhang's soybean milk? Do you have any idea that without soybean milk, the semantics of my breakfast would be incomplete? An incomplete breakfast would trap me in a 'hunger' logic loop all day. If I get so hungry I lose my mind, I'll redefine you from 'neighbor' to 'a can of expired spam'—and you won't even have a place to cry."The man called Lao Wang slowly turned his head. His face was like a pixelated photo, blurred to the point of nausea."Chu Lin…" he made a sound like wind chimes breaking. "I'm so thirsty… this world… is too dry… all the words… are withering…"He suddenly reached out, his fingertips piercing directly into Chu Lin's chest—or rather, into the static-like, translucent blur that was Chu Lin's body.Chu Lin didn't dodge. He just stared at Lao Wang calmly.Su Yaoguang watched in horror as the faint light clinging to Chu Lin's trench coat began to converge on Lao Wang's fingers at a visible speed. Lao Wang's face grew clearer, even gaining a hint of human color, while Chu Lin's body became more and more translucent, until he was almost indistinguishable from the gray mist surrounding them."What are you doing?! Save him!" Su Yaoguang roared, clutching her black umbrella, the destructive logic within her surging wildly with extreme anxiety."Quiet," Chu Lin said, turning his head. He gave her a strange, unsettling smile.There was no warmth in that smile—only a weariness that seemed to see through the hypocrisy of all things."Ms. Su, you asked me earlier what happens if you don't believe the table is a door."Chu Lin turned back to look at Lao Wang, whose face was glowing with joy. His voice was gentle, like he was coaxing a child: "Lao Wang, what do you think you're sucking right now?"Lao Wang panted greedily: "It's life… it's reality… I feel… I'm alive again…""Is that so?" Chu Lin's voice suddenly rose, sharp and metallic, grating on the ears. "That's because I just rewrote the definition of 'reality'. Now, I define this: I am the most terrifying anomaly in this world. And you—are trying to eat a nightmare that cannot be digested."In that instant, Lao Wang's face twisted in agony.The "light" and "reality" he had sucked in suddenly transformed into countless tiny, barbed red umbrella ribs. Lao Wang's body inflated like a balloon about to burst, red spikes piercing through every pore in his skin.He let out a blood-curdling scream—but the scream died almost immediately, because what spewed from his mouth was not blood, but thick, pungent soy sauce, reeking of aged soybean paste.Chu Lin waved his hand sharply.The torrent of soy sauce and red spikes was suddenly compressed into a ball mid-air, then casually tossed into Uncle Zhang's wok.Sizzle!A strange, savory aroma wafted from the pan."Alright, Uncle Zhang," Chu Lin said, clapping his hands. His pale, weakened appearance vanished in an instant, his body solidifying again. "Got enough logic fuel now?"The boss's featureless face twisted slightly, the rustling sound tinged with joy: "Enough… enough… this batch… very high purity…"Chu Lin took the two youtiao wrapped in old newspaper and a steaming bowl of soybean milk from the boss, then turned to look at Su Yaoguang, who was rooted to the spot in stunned silence."Here, have one," he said, holding out a youtiao. "Fried with the 'non-existent neighbor'—extra crispy texture."Su Yaoguang stared at the golden, glistening youtiao, which seemed to be twitching slightly (or maybe it was just her imagination). Her stomach churned violently."You… you killed him?""Nope. I just corrected him from 'neighbor' to 'added value of breakfast'," Chu Lin said, taking a bite of the youtiao with obvious relish. "In the semantic slum, no one ever truly dies. They just exist in a different grammatical structure. Lao Wang is part of this bowl of soybean milk now. He should be honored."Su Yaoguang felt like she would never be able to look at the word "honored" the same way again. She watched Chu Lin sip his soybean milk calmly, watched the absurd scenes unfolding around them, and the scales in her heart between "justice" and "order" came crashing down completely.This man didn't care about saving the world at all. He was playing a jigsaw puzzle game with rules only he knew, right here in this ruined wasteland.On their way back to the convenience store, Chu Lin paused for a moment when he passed the full-length mirror that served as the door to his rental unit.He glanced at his notebook, his brow furrowing slightly."What's wrong?" Su Yaoguang asked warily.Chu Lin didn't answer. He just handed her the notebook.Su Yaoguang took it, and her heart skipped a beat.On the last blank page, a line of messy handwriting had appeared out of nowhere. The ink was still wet, exuding a faint, familiar scent—the ink from her black umbrella.The words read: Chu Lin, Su Yaoguang is not here to protect you. She is here to observe the awakening level of the 'Red Umbrella'. When the shadow covers the entire street, she will kill you with her own hands.Su Yaoguang's first instinct was to defend herself: "I didn't write this!"Chu Lin smiled, taking the notebook back. His eyes were eerily calm in that moment, like a deep, bottomless well."I know."He pushed open the mirror, stepping into his cramped rental unit."Ms. Su, there's a detail I missed too."Chu Lin stood on the other side of the mirror, half his body already swallowed by shadow."When I was at the breakfast stall earlier, the shape of my shadow did change. But what changed wasn't the shadow's shape—it was…"He pointed at Su Yaoguang.Su Yaoguang looked down, and her blood ran cold. The black logic-slaying umbrella that had been shielding her from the rain had, without her noticing, turned into a blood-red umbrella, adorned with eerie smile patterns.And what was even more terrifying was her right arm.The arm woven from black ink was moving uncontrollably in the air, drawing invisible strokes. With every movement, it left a blood-red word hanging in the air: Kill him.Tears and TV static welled up in Su Yaoguang's eyes simultaneously."Chu Lin… save me…" she whimpered, her voice barely audible.Chu Lin looked at her, the flicker of gentleness in his eyes fading away, replaced by an extreme, godlike coldness.He slowly closed the mirror door."As a Reality Corrector, the last order I received is this: if the carrier mutates, perform physical classification immediately."Before the mirror clicked shut completely, Su Yaoguang heard Chu Lin's final words:"Ms. Su, in my logic right now, you are defined as—expired merchandise."The mirror door locked with a click.On the street, the soft, whispering patter of rain suddenly turned into a deafening scream.Su Yaoguang stood alone in the center of the empty semantic slum, clutching the red umbrella. She watched as every table, every window, every streetlamp around her turned to face her, revealing faces identical to her own.And all those faces were smiling at her.Welcome to the anomalies, S-Rank Investigator.