novelraw Chapter 313: Man in the Wall
Chapter 313: Man in the Wall
Lower Manhattan.
The Chelsea Gate Hotel.
This was a typical late Victorian-era building.
Its red brick exterior was blackened by soot and smoke, and a heavy main door blocked out the street's clamor.
The lobby was laid with thick Persian carpets, and the air was filled with the scent of old cigars and lemon-scented floor wax.
It was notorious for its poor soundproofing and its complex mix of residents.
But for Lin Jie, who had just experienced a bloody battle, it was quiet enough.
No swamp stench, no roars from living corpses, no hunt requiring constant, tense vigilance.
Today was the third day since returning to New York.
Lin Jie sat in an armchair by the window.
Outside, a cold drizzle fell, rain washing over the window glass, blurring the outlines of the steel forest beyond.
In his hand was the notebook he had brought from the old Delacroix slaughterhouse.
On the small round table beside him sat a cup of tea that had gone cold, and the disassembled [Serene Heart], currently undergoing maintenance.
The gun's parts were neatly arranged on a velvet cloth.
Lin Jie picked up a cleaning cloth and carefully wiped oil from the firing pin.
His movements were slow.
This was a rare indulgence.
He replayed the previous battle in his mind; the fight in the New Orleans cemetery had given him a new understanding of his own combat style.
"Surgical Blade."
He murmured the codename softly.
It sounded unpleasant, but it was accurate.
He set down the cleaning cloth, his gaze falling on a nautical chart at the corner of the table, a map of shipping routes to Southeast Asia.
There was still one week until the cargo ship "Messenger" set sail.
These seven days were his final preparation period.
Ethan had been shuttling between Wall Street and the Redgrave family offices these past two days.
The young noble was using the family's vast funds, attempting to cause some trouble for Edison's General Electric Company in the financial markets.
As for Hawk, he had returned to the Native American community in Harlem.
Lin Jie, however, had chosen to remain in this inconspicuous old hotel.
He needed some time alone.
*Knock, knock, knock.*
Urgent knocking shattered the quiet within the room.
Lin Jie's eyes instantly sharpened, his right hand instinctively moving to rest on the gun barrel on the table.
"Lin? It's me. Evelyn."
A girl's voice, deliberately hushed, came from outside the door.
Lin Jie relaxed, reassembled the revolver, and slid it into the holster under his arm.
"The door isn't locked."
The door was pushed open.
Evelyn Marconi hurried in.
Her attire today was somewhat casual, her hair messily pinned up at the back, a pair of goggles smudged with machine oil perched on the bridge of her nose.
In her hands, she carried a heavy, square box wrapped in black cloth.
She looked excited, yet had obvious dark circles under her eyes.
Clearly, she hadn't slept much these past two days.
"You need to see this."
Evelyn placed the box heavily on the round table, causing the teacup to jump.
"What is this?" Lin Jie asked.
"Upgrade parts for the [Echo Goggles]." Evelyn said as she untied the black cloth.
Inside was revealed a piece of precision machinery with a distinct steampunk aesthetic.
Its main body was crafted from brass, connected to the complex goggles.
Numerous fine copper wires and vacuum tubes were intricately tangled together.
The core of the device was a sound pickup apparatus resembling a phonograph needle, next to a fist-sized black carbon microphone.
"I found some inspiration in the Wardenclyffe materials."
Evelyn's fingers quickly adjusted knobs on the instrument.
"The original goggles could only visualize sound waves. That's useful in combat, but not enough for intelligence gathering."
She picked up the goggles and connected a rubber-coated cable.
The other end of the cable plugged into the brass box.
"So I added this, an audio filtration and amplification array."
She pointed at the still-warm vacuum tube.
"It filters out environmental white noise. Like rain, wind, the sound of horse hooves on the street. Then it directionally amplifies sounds of certain specific frequencies."
Lin Jie raised an eyebrow. "So, a listening device?"
"A directional acoustic collector." Evelyn corrected. "The principle is similar to a hearing aid, but more advanced. I want to get it calibrated before we head East. You know, we need more intelligence-gathering methods."
She handed the goggles to Lin Jie.
"Help me test it. I need someone with high spiritual sensitivity to confirm if its inherent noise causes any spiritual discomfort."
Lin Jie took the goggles.
Their weighty feel reminded him of old Delacroix's diary.
He put them on.
His vision changed accordingly.
Over the normal view of the room, a faint blue rippling mesh was overlaid, a visualization of the surrounding sounds.
Evelyn handed him a pair of stethoscope-style headphones connected to the instrument.
"Put these on."
Lin Jie complied.
At first, the headphones delivered a cacophony of static, like countless bees buzzing in his ears.
"That's the inherent noise." Evelyn explained. "I'm starting to adjust the frequency now."
She carefully turned a dial.
The static began to diminish.
The sound of rain outside the window vanished.
The rumble of a carriage passing below also disappeared.
The entire world seemed to have been suddenly muted.
It was a strange sensation; visually everything was normal, but aurally, it had fallen into absolute dead silence.
"Now, I'll point the directional pickup over there."
Evelyn rotated a horn-shaped receiver on the instrument, aiming it at the wall behind Lin Jie.
It was a side wall of the room, covered in deep red wallpaper printed with intricate damask patterns.
"The space behind this wall should be..."
Before Lin Jie could finish his thought, a clear sound suddenly came through the headphones.
It was so abrupt, as if someone had spoken directly into his ear.
"...that block of ice is too big, it won't fit in."
It was a man's voice, rough, with a heavy nasal tone, sounding somewhat anxious.
Lin Jie froze slightly.
"The soundproofing is that bad?"
He looked at Evelyn, who pointed at the amplification meter. The needle was resting in the red zone marked "High Sensitivity."
The voices in the headphones continued.
"Stop complaining, move faster."
This was another man's voice, deeper, laced with an impatient, ruthless edge.
"This batch of goods has to be processed before dawn. The boat is already waiting at the dock."
"But... this bone is too hard, this knife won't do it."
The first man complained.
Then came a series of unsettling sounds.
*Thud! Thud! Thud!*
That was the sound of something heavy being chopped on a cutting board, or perhaps on something harder than a cutting board.
Lin Jie frowned.
It sounded like someone processing a large animal.
"Where is this?" He took off the headphones and asked.
"Directly behind you." Evelyn pointed at the deep red wall. "According to the sonic feedback from the direction, the sound source is right behind this wall. Approximately... three meters away."
"Three meters?"
Lin Jie glanced back at the wall.
He remembered clearly.
When he checked into this hotel, he had deliberately studied the floor plan out of professional habit.
He was currently in Room 308.
It was the last room at the end of the corridor.
The space behind this wall should be...
Lin Jie stood up abruptly.
He walked quickly to the window and pushed it open.
Cold raindrops hit his face. He leaned out, looking at the building's exterior facade.
Just as he remembered.
Beside the window of Room 308 was the building's corner.
Behind that deep red wall corresponded to the exterior wall of this Victorian building.
Outside that wall was empty street, a void over ten meters high.
There was absolutely no room there.
Not even a fire escape.
Lin Jie closed the window, turned around, his expression turning grave.
"What's wrong?" Evelyn noticed his change. "Is something off?"
"There's nothing behind this wall." Lin Jie pointed at the wall. "Outside is just the street."
Evelyn was stunned.
She instinctively looked at the operating instrument.
The waveform on the display was still jumping violently.
That meant the sounds were continuing.
"That's impossible."
As a scientist-inventor, Evelyn's first reaction was that the instrument had malfunctioned.
"Maybe an echo refraction? Or sound conduction from upstairs or downstairs?"
She tried to find a rational explanation.
"This building's piping structure is complex. Sometimes sound travels far through ventilation ducts."
"Let's check the corridor." Lin Jie didn't argue, simply picking up the [Serene Heart].
The two left the room.
The corridor was carpeted in dark red. Gas lamps on either side cast a dim yellow light.
Lin Jie walked to the door of Room 308.
To the left of the door was Room 306.
To the right of the door was the end of the corridor, where there was a floor-to-ceiling window looking out onto the dark, rainy night.
There was no Room 309.
The wall was solid.
Lin Jie knocked on the wall at the corridor's end with his knuckles. The sound was dull and heavy, the characteristic texture of a load-bearing brick wall.
There was absolutely no way a room could be hidden here.
Nor could anyone be chopping meat here.
Evelyn's face paled slightly. She hugged the heavy brass instrument, standing under the corridor's dim light.
"Maybe... it's sound from the building next door?" She pointed out the window. "Even though there's an alley between, if there's a window facing this way..."
Lin Jie shook his head.
"The building next door is at least six meters away. And the clarity of that sound just now... it didn't sound like it came through two streets and two layers of glass."
That level of clarity was like...
Like someone was speaking right next to your ear.
"Let's go listen again." Lin Jie said in a low voice.
The two returned to Room 308.
The moment the door closed, that eerie atmosphere once again enveloped the space.
Evelyn's hands trembled slightly as she put the headphones back on.
The next second, she covered her mouth, her eyes widening.
Lin Jie didn't need the headphones.
Because this time, the sound was so loud it even penetrated the headphones' foam padding, faintly audible in the quiet room.
"...Damn it! This blood is getting everywhere!"
The rough-voiced man was roaring.
"Get the ice! Hurry up! Freeze it!"
"It's still moving! Hell! This thing is still moving!"
A flurry of panicked footsteps.
Then the sound of something heavy hitting the ground.
*Thump!*
The sound was extremely dull, as if someone on the other side of the wall had violently slammed a heavy sack onto the floor.
Lin Jie walked over to the wall.
He pressed his ear against the cold wallpaper.
This time, without any instrument.
He heard it.
The sound was so real.
Not just voices.
Heavy, ragged breathing.
The sound of fabric rubbing.
The clatter of ice blocks colliding.
And even...
A sticky, liquid dripping sound.
*Drip.*
Right behind this wall.
On the other side of that layer of brick and plasterboard.
Two invisible people were conducting some kind of brutal dismemberment work in a non-existent space.
"Lin..." Evelyn's voice trembled. "The waveform over there... it's not right."
She pointed at the instrument screen.
The displayed sound wave frequency was exceeding the limits of human hearing.
Those sounds were mixed with a large amount of high-frequency noise that couldn't be parsed.
It wasn't ordinary noise.
It was more like... the sound of space tearing.
Lin Jie took a deep breath.
This situation exceeded his conventional understanding.
As a hunter, he was used to facing monsters he could see and touch.
Even an entity like the Plague Butcher, at least it had a physical form, could be killed by bullets.
But now.
He was facing a wall.
A wall that should lead to open air, yet was now transmitting sounds from a murder scene.
"Turn off the instrument." Lin Jie commanded in a low voice.
Evelyn immediately cut the power.
The room returned to dead silence.
Without the instrument's amplification, those sounds also vanished.
But that didn't mean they didn't exist.
Lin Jie slowly extended his right hand.
He removed his glove, placing his palm gently on the deep red wallpaper.
[Reverberation Touch].
Since ears could be deceived by physical rules into hearing illusions, he would use a deeper layer of perception to verify.
Anything that has existed leaves traces on matter.
If a room had truly existed behind that wall, or if something had truly happened there, the bricks and stones would remember.
Memory would tell him the truth.
Lin Jie closed his eyes.
Normally, he would see the scene of this wall being built.
See dust-covered masons.
See the emotional fragments left by guests who had stayed in this room over decades.
Even if this was just an exterior wall, he should see the traces of wind and rain.
But.
Nothing.
There was nothing.
Lin Jie's eyes snapped open.
His pupils contracted violently.
A chill stronger than any he'd felt facing a UMA shot up his spine to the top of his skull.
It wasn't "no memory."
If it were that, he would at least perceive the state of "emptiness."
But now, the feedback his perception received was...
Error.
Absolute blankness.
As if this wall, on a conceptual level, simply didn't exist.
Or rather, his consciousness had touched something incomprehensible to the human brain... a BUG.
This wall was the boundary of this world.
Beyond it was no longer physical space, nor the spiritual world.
But a chaotic mess of illogical code.
"Lin?" Seeing Lin Jie's face turn deathly pale, Evelyn couldn't help but call out.
Lin Jie withdrew his hand.
His fingers trembled slightly.
"Don't speak."
His voice was hoarse.
"Don't touch this wall."
At that moment.
The instant Lin Jie's palm left the wall surface.
That sound returned.
No instrument needed.
No amplification needed.
The sound penetrated directly through the brick wall, through the wallpaper, drilling into both their ears.
No longer an argument.
No longer the sound of chopping.
But an extremely rhythmic, heavy knocking sound.
*Thud.*
The sound was coming from "inside" the wall.
As if a person was sealed inside that non-existent room.
He was pressing against this wall, using his fist, or perhaps his head, knocking slowly.
He was responding.
He was responding to Lin Jie's touch just now.