The iron gate of the abandoned factory resembled a gnawed, rusty biscuit. As Ah Che swung the fire axe to split the chains, rust rusted down his boots, tickling his ankles. The rain had long since stopped, but the fog remained thick as unmelted milk. The chimneys in the distance stuck out against the gray-blue sky like the stubs of broken pencils. The bird-shaped scar on the back of his hand shone coldly in the fog, like a fluorescent sticker with built-in location tracking, guiding the way.

"Hold on," Hui's voice drifted from the front. The gun in his hand was in low-light mode, and the blue beam dissipated after piercing the fog half a meter. "The fog here absorbs sound. Even if you shout at the top of your lungs, it'll be all for the ghosts to hear."

Ah Che clenched the axe, the sweat from his palm soaking the wooden handle damp. The crunching sound of boot soles rolling over broken glass was amplified in the silence. The wrecked car shells piled in the factory yard, twisted metal curled up in the fog like dormant monsters. The most striking thing was a rusted water tower, its sides painted in crooked red paint: "Memory is poison, but also antidote." The edges of the words were peeling, like a scab about to fall off.

"Miner's Graffiti." Gray swept his beam across the words, the light spot dancing on the flaking paint. "Last time, a fool dug up a fragment of memory from 'Childhood Candy Store' here, but got stuck inside and couldn't get out. In the end, both he and his memory were reduced to rust on the water tower's base." He suddenly stopped and stabbed the beam into the water tower's shadow. "Look there."