The aftershock of the "creak" from inside the threshold still trembled in his eardrums, and dust had already choked his nostrils. Lu Chenzhou paused half a step behind, his gaze sweeping flatly across the room. It wasn't large, about twenty square meters. A dark wooden desk hugged the east wall, with two chairs facing each other. High on the west wall was a window, its glass so dirty it only allowed a blurred halo of light to pass, casting a pallid, rough-edged rectangle on the floor. Cardboard boxes were piled in the corner, their edges collapsed, covered in thick dust. There was a smell in the air—the mustiness of dust, the slight sourness of damp wood, and a faint, almost imperceptible lingering hint of disinfectant. His stomach clenched violently. As if a hand had tightened inside it. The corner of his left eye began to twitch uncontrollably. Gu Zhixing stood one step behind and to his side, silent. The gaze behind the gold-rimmed glasses rested on his back, quiet as two probes. Lu Chenzhou took a deep breath. The air was thin, scraping past his throat with a gritty sensation. He took his first step, his shoe sole scuffing lightly against the concrete floor. Dust billowed underfoot, tumbling slowly in the slanted shafts of light. He walked towards the desk. There was a dent in the corner of the desk. Irregular, with blackened edges, as if something heavy had repeatedly struck it. Seven years ago, in that room, his cheekbone had slammed hard against that very spot. The cold touch of the metal table edge, the dull thud of bone hitting a hard object, and the explosive, rust-tasting agony that followed—these fragments suddenly surged up, sharp enough to almost pierce his reason. His muscles tightened. His spine locked, vertebra by vertebra. The prey had sensed the predator's presence. But the predator wasn't in this room. The predator was deep within time, inside his own skull. His fingertips touched the wooden desktop. Rough, with fine cracks. The dent was about three centimeters to the left of where he remembered it. He closed his eyes, rapidly retracing. The table back then had been made of iron, with a wrapped edge. Not a wooden table. The angle of impact should have been from an oblique downward force, not a direct collision. Bloodstains—if there had been any—should have sprayed to the right side of the tabletop, not coagulated into a dark brown mass around the dent as in his memory. This thought stabbed into his consciousness like an ice pick, catching him off guard. He opened his eyes, his gaze shifting to the window. Based on his judgment of the factory compound's orientation upon entering, this auxiliary building sat north-to-south. It was now 2:17 PM; the sun should be in the southwest. But this window faced east. At this time of day, an east-facing window shouldn't have direct light at this angle. Unless... unless someone had altered the room's directional markers. Or, the "direction of the light source" in his memory was itself wrong. "This place..." he began, his voice raspier than expected. He cleared his throat, maintaining his crouch, not turning around. "Has been abandoned for a long time." Gu Zhixing took a step forward. The sound of his leather shoes on the floor was light, but exceptionally clear in the overly quiet space. "Yes," came the reply, tone even, words precise. "But someone has been here recently. The distribution of the dust isn't quite natural." Lu Chenzhou stood up and turned towards the pile of cardboard boxes in the corner. He needed to divert his attention, needed to get his brain working again. The boxes were ordinary corrugated cardboard, printed with the blurred characters "Guanghua Printing Factory, Internal Use." The top box was open, stuffed with yellowed printed proofs. He reached in and brushed aside the top layer. Behind the drifting dust motes, something was revealed at the bottom of the box. Dark blue, plastic, edges worn. An old-style lunchbox. Rectangular, with a faded cartoon pattern printed on the lid—a grinning rabbit. His blood truly froze in that instant. Not a metaphor. An exact, spreading coldness starting from his extremities, crawling back up his veins towards his heart, then exploding in his chest. He remembered this lunchbox. Not just "remembered," but "recognized." In that night fragmented by drugs and pain, in his delirium, he had vaguely seen the interrogator take this lunchbox from a drawer, open it. Inside were cold rice and a few slices of fatty meat. The interrogator had taken a bite in front of him, grease glistening at the corner of his mouth. Then said, "Sign, and you can have something hot to eat "This table," he turned to Gu Zhixing, his tone returning to calm, even carrying a hint of professional criticism, "has been moved." Gu Zhixing adjusted his glasses. "Oh? How can you tell?" "The imprints in the dust on the floor." Lu Chenzhou pointed vaguely with the tip of his shoe at the floor to the left of the table. "There are four clear circular indentations here, where the table legs originally were. But now the table is positioned here." He pointed to the area of the wooden floor beneath the current table legs. "The dust thickness here is consistent with the surroundings, meaning the table was moved to this position recently. The person who moved it cleaned the path of movement but forgot to deal with the imprints at the original location." As he spoke, he observed Gu Zhixing's reaction. The other man showed no surprise on his face, only a posture of focused listening. But his eyes narrowed slightly behind the lenses, as if evaluating, or perhaps waiting for something. "So," Gu Zhixing said slowly, "someone deliberately rearranged the furniture. To recreate a certain scene?" "Perhaps." Lu Chenzhou avoided his gaze, turning toward the window. The light was still pallid, dust silently churning in the beams. He needed to leave. Now. Every second longer he stayed, his reason might be overwhelmed by those surging fragments of memory. "But the recreation is crude. The window orientation is wrong, the furniture material is wrong, even..." He paused, swallowing the words "even the erroneous details from the victim's memory were replicated," and changed his phrasing, "Even the basic spatial logic is problematic. It doesn't resemble a professional crime scene simulation, more like..." "Like it was pieced together based on second-hand descriptions, or..." He weighed his words, his fingernails unconsciously digging into his palm, "disordered memories." The room was quiet for a few seconds. Only the faint sound of dust settling in the light. Gu Zhixing suddenly smiled. Very faint, almost imperceptible. "Mr. Lu's powers of observation are indeed as reputed." He took two steps forward, stopping beside the table, and reached out to touch the dent on the tabletop. "Then, in your opinion, does this place have any connection to Zhao Mingcheng's case?" The pressure was like a tightening noose. Lu Chenzhou felt the muscles at the back of his neck ache from tension. He had to give an answer. One that could both explain the reason for their presence here and allow him to escape as soon as possible. "The possibility is very low." He turned to face Gu Zhixing, forcing himself to look directly at the other man. "This place is more like a... psychological game setting. Someone arranged it, perhaps to satisfy some performative desire, or to test something. But there are no direct clues linking it to the evidence flow or personnel connections in Zhao Mingcheng's case. I suggest—" From the other side of the room, behind the small wooden door he had always assumed was decorative or sealed shut, which was slightly ajar, came an extremely faint *click*. The sound was soft, but in the dead silence, it was as clear as a gunshot. The smile instantly vanished from Gu Zhixing's face. His right hand silently slid toward his waist—the hem of his suit jacket bulged slightly, clearly concealing something. His expression changed, shifting from polite scrutiny to icy vigilance, his gaze locked on that small door. Lu Chenzhou's heart slammed heavily against his ribcage. Not "Old K." His intuition told him it wasn't. That sound was too careless, too... accidental. A breathing sound. Very faint, but definitely there. Suppressed, with a barely perceptible tremor. Gu Zhixing gestured to Lu Chenzhou—stay where you are, don't move. He himself sidestepped, slowly approaching the small door, his left hand gently resting on the door panel, his right hand still pressed against his waist. His movements were professional and quiet. Lu Chenzhou stood in place, blood roaring in his eardrums. He should take this chance to step back, create distance, even turn and leave this room. But he didn't. Some sharper intuition nailed his feet to the floor—the breathing pattern from behind the door, he seemed to... recognize it. The door hinge emitted a piercing creak. Dust fell in a shower from the doorframe. Behind the small door was an even smaller compartment, windowless, pitch black. But the moment the door was pushed open, a cold white spot of light swayed out from inside—the beam of a tactical flashlight. The light swept across Gu Zhixing's face, flashed past Lu Chenzhou's eyes, and finally landed on the floor in the center of the room. Black jacket, dark trousers, hair tied back in a neat ponytail. She held the flashlight in one hand, the other hanging at Lu Chenzhou tightened his grip on the miniature light bead in his palm. The edge of the resin casing dug into his flesh, a slight pain like a needle piercing through the nausea churning inside him. He released his hand and slipped the bead into his trouser pocket, his movements as natural as if he were just smoothing his clothes. Too close. Close enough to smell the faint scent on the other person—a mixture of leather and disinfectant wipes. This smell reminded Lu Chenzhou of hospital corridors, of those people in white coats walking back and forth with clipboards. He shifted half a step to the left, creating distance. "How does Assistant Director Gu want to look at this?" Lu Chenzhou asked, his voice steady. The eyes behind the lenses looked toward the west window, then slowly swept across the entire room. His gaze was like a comb, meticulously sifting through the dust, the light, the angle of each object's placement. Finally, it stopped on the dark red stain on the wall. "Let's start there," he said. "You just said it was a replica." Lu Chenzhou walked toward the stain. As he crouched down, his knee emitted a faint *crack*—an old injury that always protested in damp environments. He ignored the slight sting and scraped the edge of the stain again with his hand. More red powder fell, spreading into a small patch on the gray-white floor. "Iron oxide powder," he said. "Mixed with a small amount of adhesive to simulate the texture of dried blood. But real blood would seep into the surface layer of the wall; what you'd scrape off would be flaky scabs, not this uniform powder." He paused, then added, "And there's no smell of blood." Gu Zhixing took out a pair of white cotton gloves from his suit's inner pocket and put them on unhurriedly. His movements were elegant, as if preparing for surgery. Once gloved, he dipped his index finger into a bit of the powder and brought it close to the tip of his nose. "Indeed," he said. "Only the smell of chemical agents." He stood up, took off the gloves, carefully folded them so that the powder-stained inner layer was on the outside, and then tucked them back into his pocket. The entire process was meticulous. "But the person who set this up was very thorough," Gu Zhixing continued. "The splatter pattern simulation is quite professional—radiating edges, highest concentration at the center, even a few trailing marks from 'dripping.' If you hadn't pointed it out, most people would have a hard time spotting the flaw." He walked to the interrogation table and ran his fingers over the dent on the corner again. A three-centimeter discrepancy. This number kept pulsing in his mind, like some ominous beat. He closed his eyes, trying to trace back his memories of that night. In his memory, there was a beam of light, slanting in from a certain angle, illuminating the dust dancing in the air. He remembered lying on the ground then, his forehead pressed against the cold cement floor, his blurry gaze fixed on that beam of light. Something was moving in the light—a moth? Or... Lu Chenzhou opened his eyes, a twitch at the corner of his left eye. He forced himself to look at the table, at the dent, at all the tangible, measurable physical details. Memory was a swamp; the more you struggled, the deeper you sank. "This table," he began, his voice drier than he'd expected, "wasn't just moved." The dust was thick, but at the points where the four table legs met the floor, the dust distribution showed clear differences. Under the two front legs, the dust was pressed firmly, almost glued to the cement floor; under the two back legs, it was relatively loose, with slight drag marks at the edges. "Someone adjusted the table's tilt angle," Lu Chenzhou said. "Probably to match a certain... specific memory scene." He stood up and walked to the table's original position. Based on the dust traces, the table was initially closer to the wall, only about half a meter away. But now it had been pulled a meter away. This change was subtle, but enough to alter the spatial sense of the entire room—especially when someone was pressed against the table, the range of vision they could cover. "Match a memory scene," Gu Zhixing repeated the phrase, a deliberately playful tone in his voice. "Are you saying the person who set up this room not only knew what the old crime scene looked like, but also what that scene looked like in *your* memory?" He turned to face Gu Zhixing. Their gazes collided again in the dim light. This time, Lu Chenzhou didn't avoid it. He stared into the eyes behind the lenses, trying to find a crack in that reflective surface. "My memory," he said, word by word, "is exactly Two lamp beads collided in his palm, emitting a faint "click." Lu Chenzhou clenched his fist, the edges of the resin shell digging deeper into his flesh. The pain was clear, sharp, like some kind of anchor, pinning him to this moment. "So," he said, "the lighting in this room was arranged artificially. To replicate the lighting conditions of a specific point in time." "Or," Gu Zhixing added, "to replicate the lighting conditions of a specific memory." Lu Chenzhou felt a suffocating pressure spreading upwards from deep within his chest. He took a deep breath, his nasal cavity filling with the mixed scent of dust and disinfectant. The smell was too familiar—familiar enough to make him nauseous. The cardboard boxes were made of ordinary corrugated paper, their edges already damp and soft, their surfaces printed with blurry trademarks and text. Most of it was waste material from the printing factory: trimmed paper edges, misprinted flyers, expired product catalogs. He squatted down and began searching. He picked up and examined every piece of paper, opened and checked every box. Gu Zhixing stood behind him, silent, but Lu Chenzhou could feel his gaze, like a searchlight, locking onto his every movement. In the third cardboard box, he found it. A flat, hard paper box, about the size of a palm, its surface printed with a faded product image and text. The image was of a desk lamp, with a very simple design: a cylindrical base, an adjustable lamp arm, and a frosted glass lampshade. The text was blurred, but a few keywords were still legible— "LED Energy-saving Desk Lamp" "Model: TL-203" "Manufacturing Date: November 2018" He had been imprisoned in 2015. He remembered the desk lamp in that "interrogation room" very clearly—a metal base, a green lampshade, the lamp arm a rusty spring mechanism that made a "click" sound when switched on. That was an old model from the 1990s, discontinued as early as 2010. In his memory, that lamp looked exactly like the TL-203. A frosted glass lampshade. An adjustable lamp arm. The cold white light emitted by the LED source, evenly spilling onto the tabletop, illuminating his trembling fingers and that unfolded, densely written confession. He stared at the image on the paper box, something in his brain collapsing. His memory was like a mirror struck by a heavy blow, cracks crazily spreading from the center outward. In every crack, distorted, contradictory images were reflected. The metal base became plastic. The green lampshade became frosted glass. The "click" of the switch became silent touch control. And the light—in his memory, that glaring, scorching, yellowish light unique to old-fashioned tungsten filament lamps became the even, icy cold white of LED light. Lu Chenzhou looked up. His vision was somewhat blurry, as if seen through frosted glass. He saw Gu Zhixing squatting down, right in front of him, their knees almost touching. Gu Zhixing reached out, seemingly wanting to touch the paper box, but stopped mid-air. He picked up the paper box and turned it over. Smaller text was printed on the back: product features, applicable scenarios, warranty terms. In the "applicable scenarios" column, one word was circled in red pen— "Study." The red pen mark was fresh, the ink not completely dry yet, giving off a faint reflection in the dim light. Lu Chenzhou rubbed it with his thumb, the red ink smearing, staining his fingerprint red. "This paper box," Gu Zhixing said softly, "was intentionally left here." Lu Chenzhou put down the paper box and stood up. The movement was too fast, darkness flashed before his eyes for a moment. He steadied himself by holding onto the wall. The wall was cold, the rough texture of concrete transmitting through his shirt sleeve. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then opened them again. "Assistant Gu," he said, his voice as hoarse as sandpaper rubbing. "Does the authority Mr. Shen gave me include access to the complete evidence list for the old case?" Gu Zhixing patted the dust off his knees, his movements still elegant, but Lu Chenzhou noticed his fingers trembling slightly—very subtly, almost invisible, but indeed trembling. "Theoretically, it does," Gu Zhixing said. "But actual operation requires procedure. What do you want to check?" "That desk lamp," Lu Chenzhou said. "The desk lamp listed on the scene evidence list in the 2015 case file. I want to know its specific model, and... photos." Gu Zhixing's gaze lingered on Lu Chenzhou's face, as if assessing something. Then, he took out his phone, unlocked it, his fingers quickly swiping across the screen. The cold light of the screen illuminated his Lu Chenzhou leaned against the wall, listening to his own heartbeat. Thump, thump—heavy and slow. He looked toward the west window—the two empty holes left by the gouged-out light bulbs, like a pair of blind eyes, staring blankly into the room. The light had indeed changed, growing darker, more uneven, revealing the forged flaws. 2015. Autumn. Late at night. That room had no windows—no, that wasn’t right. There were windows, but they were boarded up with planks. The light came from a bare fluorescent tube on the ceiling. One end of the tube was broken, flickering constantly, emitting a sizzling electrical sound. The flickering light made everything sway: the table, the chairs, and the shadowy figures surrounding him. Lu Chenzhou clenched his fists, his fingernails digging deep into his palms. The pain kept him alert and fueled his anger. Anger churned like a pot of boiling oil in his chest, scorching every shred of reason. It wasn’t blurring, wasn’t distortion. It was meticulous, systematic alteration. Using drugs? Interrogation? Repeated suggestion and guidance? He didn’t know. He only knew that what he had believed to be real might just be an elaborately staged illusion. The silence after Qin Wangshu’s departure was like a thick, viscous gel, slowly filling the entire room. The professional, faintly surprised smile on Gu Zhixing’s face hadn’t completely faded yet, but the look in his eyes had already changed. It was a cold gleam stripped of excess emotion, leaving only pure scrutiny. He raised a hand, gently pushing the bridge of his gold-rimmed glasses with the knuckle of his index finger—a motion like adjusting a focus. “Mr. Lu,” he began, his voice still steady, polite, but each word seemed carefully honed, sharp-edged. “It seems your former colleague is also quite interested in this place.” He took a step forward. His leather shoes made a soft *shush* sound against the dusty concrete floor. This step precisely blocked Lu Chenzhou’s direct line of sight to that small door and subtly altered the spatial dynamic between them. He was no longer an escort, but had become, in a sense, a guard—or an examiner. “How about…” Gu Zhixing’s gaze swept across the room before finally settling back on Lu Chenzhou’s face. “We take a closer look at this room? Perhaps there’s something we both missed earlier.”