[SYSTEM RECORD: FILE #012]

  Subject: Transit Phase / Spatial Anomaly Detection

  Location: Dacun Township $\rightarrow$ Taichung Train Station

  Time: 06:15 AM

  [Investigator's Record]

  Walking barefoot through a Taiwanese vineyard in the early morning is a masterclass in misery.

  The freezing mud squelched between my toes, mixed with sharp pebbles, broken twigs, and the occasional crushed snail shell. Every step sent a jolt of cold directly up my spine. My internal body temperature was still struggling to stabilize after spending the night pressed against a zero-degree metal wall.

  Survival isn't just about outsmarting supernatural entities; it's about logistics. If my feet blistered and got infected by the fertilizer-rich mud, I wouldn't survive the next encounter.

  I needed shoes. Now.

  I hobbled along the edge of the vineyard until I spotted a small, corrugated iron pump house used for irrigation. Outside, on a concrete slab, sat exactly what I was looking for: a pair of black, calf-high rubber rain boots—the standard equipment for every farmer in the county.

  Beside the boots was an open PVC water pipe trickling water into an irrigation ditch.

  I didn't hesitate. I shoved my numb feet under the freezing water, washing away the worst of the mud and the lingering smell of the A-p?'s ghost money. I frantically scrubbed the dried blood from my face and hands, wincing as the freezing water hit the torn flesh on my chin. I popped the collar of my jacket high to hide the wound as best as I could.

  I dried my feet with the relatively clean inside lining of my jacket, then slid them into the boots. They were two sizes too big and smelled heavily of damp rubber and old sweat, but at that moment, they felt like a luxury upgrade.

  I dug into my damp jacket pocket and my fingers brushed against a forgotten emergency stash. I pulled out a soggy five-hundred NT dollar bill and left it under a brick on the pump house window, grateful that I still had a handful of cold coins jingling at the bottom of the pocket for train fare. Looting was necessary, but I wasn't going to steal from a civilian if I could help it.

  I started the two-kilometer walk to the Dacun local train station.

  The rural township was waking up. Scooters buzzed past me on the narrow asphalt roads, carrying elderly farmers and sleepy students. The contrast was deeply jarring. Just an hour ago, I was locked in a life-or-death logic puzzle with an opera-singing entity. Now, an old man on a Honda scooter was honking at me to get out of the way.

  The "Formosa Archives" wasn't a parallel dimension. It was an overlay. A parasitic system bleeding into the real world, targeting specific individuals while the rest of society remained completely oblivious.

  I reached the elevated Dacun Train Station just before 6:50 AM. I bought a physical ticket to Taichung. No digital footprint.

  When the silver commuter train (區間車) pulled up to the platform, my heart rate instantly spiked.

  My Hyperthymesia isn't just a memory tool; it's a curse. The rhythmic clack-clack of the doors opening instantly triggered a flawless, high-definition playback of the Midnight Train from my first week in the system. The smell of rust, the bloody red envelopes, the ticket inspector whose face was just a smooth expanse of skin.

  I forced my breathing to steady and stepped onto the brightly lit, air-conditioned car.

  It was normal. High school students were sleeping against the windows. Office workers were staring at their phones. There was no incense smell. No rules written in blood on the windows.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  I stood by the doors for the entire forty-five-minute ride, my right hand buried deep in my pocket, my fingers tightly gripping the heavy brass transit coin Pan had left me. Its cold metal was my anchor.

  By the time the train pulled into the massive, modern architecture of the Taichung Train Station, the morning rush hour was in full swing.

  I stepped off the train and joined the massive flow of humanity heading towards the escalators. Every step burned; standing in oversized, unlined rubber boots for forty-five minutes had rubbed the skin on my heels raw, but I ignored the pain. Taichung Station is a major transit hub. It's clean, organized, and logically structured.

  I looked up at the giant LED departure boards and the hanging directional signs.

  Platform 1: Northbound.

  Platform 2: Southbound.

  Platform 3: Coast Line Transfer.

  There was no Platform 0.

  I walked the entire length of the second-floor concourse, dodging commuters with rolling luggage and students rushing for their transfers. I checked the digital maps, the emergency exit blueprints, and the physical signage.

  Nothing. In a purely logical, architectural sense, Platform 0 did not exist.

  I stopped near a large concrete pillar in the center of the concourse, closing my eyes for a brief second to process the data.

  Think. The system operates on loopholes and hidden syntax.

  Pan's note was specific: Go to the Taichung Train Station. Find Platform 0. Don't speak to the conductor.

  He didn't say "find the hidden door." He said "find Platform 0," implying it was a structural part of the station, just obscured.

  I pulled my hand out of my pocket. I looked down at the brass coin sitting in my palm. [檔案通行] (Archives Transit).

  The coin was freezing cold. Not just "metal in an air-conditioned room" cold, but the same unnatural, biting frost I had felt when the Opera entity was pressing against my spine.

  I flattened my palm, letting the coin rest freely.

  Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the heavy brass coin began to slide. It wasn't sliding due to gravity; my hand was perfectly level. The invisible pull directed me towards a blank, polished granite wall between the restrooms and a closed convenience store.

  I walked towards the wall. As I got closer, the temperature around me plummeted. But what was truly disturbing wasn't the cold—it was the people.

  Hundreds of commuters were walking past this specific section of the wall, but their paths subtly curved. They were subconsciously giving it a wide berth. A businessman reading a newspaper nearly walked into it, but at the last millisecond, he sidestepped, his eyes never leaving the paper, completely unaware of his own evasive maneuver.

  It was a cognitive blindspot. A piece of code instructing the NPC brains of normal humans to ignore.

  But I wasn't a normal human anymore. I was a registered Investigator holding a transit token.

  I stood directly in front of the blank granite wall. The brass coin in my hand was now vibrating so violently it felt like it was buzzing.

  I took a deep breath, pinched the coin tightly between my thumb and index finger—ignoring the sharp sting as the vibrating metal dug into my half-healed puncture wound—raised my hand, and pressed it flat against the solid stone.

  The granite didn't resist. The stone rippled outward like a drop of water hitting a dark pond, and my hand sank straight through the solid wall into an abyss of absolute, freezing darkness. The cognitive blindspot expanded, wrapping around me like a digital cloak. To the rushing commuters behind me, I had already ceased to exist.