Lu Chenzhou’s thumb unconsciously rubbed the edge of the metal door handle, the coldness beneath his fingertip repeatedly warmed and cooled by his body heat. Outside the door panel, Gu Zhixing’s voice was as precise as a scalpel, slicing through the deathly silence of the room. “Regarding some unusual… electronic signals inside the residence early this morning.” A twitch began at the corner of his left eye. Subtle, uncontrollable nerve spasms. He could not open the door. Opening it meant a search, meant exposure—the old phone in the hidden compartment of the water tank, the dynamic password for Mirror Lake Villa in his pocket, the information Wu Ma might have already passed on, all would be finished. But not opening it? Gu Zhixing had brought men, armed with the pretext of “anomalous signals.” Breaking down the door was only a matter of time. A distant, muffled boom came from overhead. Not thunder, but an explosion. An extremely faint tremor followed through the floor, like a giant beast turning over underground. The firefight on the surface of the Shen estate had begun. Qin Wangshu’s people. Lu Chenzhou’s gaze swept across the room. The window was no good. The bathroom vent pipe was too narrow, an unknown, a dead end. His eyes finally fixed on the heavy oak wardrobe, then moved upward—the ceiling, a slightly darker-colored access panel, its edges dusted with a thin layer of grime. Another explosion, closer. The vibration made the crystal pendants of the chandelier knock against each other, a delicate, crisp sound forming a bizarre contrast with the oppressive pressure outside the door. Gu Zhixing’s voice sounded again, steady, but with an added layer of unyielding hardness: “Mr. Lu, please cooperate. This is for the safety of everyone in the Shen residence. I’ll count to three. One…” Lu Chenzhou moved. He slid to the side of the wardrobe like a shadow, his shoulder and back braced against the solid wood side panel, his legs suddenly exerting force. The heavy wardrobe’s bottom scraped against the floor with a dull, grating screech as it was pushed behind the door. The voice outside paused. “Two.” He stepped onto a chair, reaching for that access panel. His fingertips touched the edge, cold dust. A hard push. The panel loosened, sliding backward to reveal a dark, narrow space behind it. A current of air mixed with years of dust, damp concrete, and a faint hint of mold rushed out, choking his nostrils. “Three.” The door handle was violently turned from the outside, slamming into the suddenly blocked wardrobe with a heavy *thud*. Followed by an even heavier impact, both the door panel and the thick solid wood wardrobe shook simultaneously, dust cascading down from the top of the cabinet. Lu Chenzhou’s arm muscles tightened, hauling himself up into that dark opening. Rough concrete edges scraped against his shirt, dust rushing straight into his mouth and nose. He fiercely suppressed the itch in his throat, reached back to pull the access panel back into place, and fastened it shut. Almost simultaneously, a crashing roar of the door being forced open by immense strength came from below, immediately followed by the thunderous boom of the wardrobe toppling over, wood smashing against the floor, fragments flying everywhere. He curled up in the dark, cramped duct space, holding his breath. Flashlight beams crisscrossed chaotically below, cutting through the darkness. Gu Zhixing’s calm commands seeped up faintly through the floorboards: “Check the windows. The bathroom. Look at the ceiling too.” The light beam swept past the edge of the access panel above his head several times, pale spots of light skimming through the cracks. It did not linger. Footsteps moved back and forth in the room below, hurried, carrying the harsh, intrusive rhythm characteristic of a search, mixed with the indistinct static crackle of walkie-talkies and the distant, continuous dull thuds of explosions—those thuds were growing more and more frequent. “Mr. Gu, nothing found. Windows locked, bathroom vent too small, impossible for anyone to pass through.” A brief silence. Then, Gu Zhixing's voice sounded, seemingly tinged with a faint, icy trace of regret: "It seems Mr. Lu... is more adept at utilizing the building's history than we imagined. Notify all exits, double the guard. Focus the search on all abandoned passages and underground areas. He can't have gone far." The footsteps faded away, the door was pulled shut, and the lock clicked into place. But Lu Chenzhou knew the security net had already been cast, like an invisible yet barbed iron mesh, and was now tightening. He waited quietly in the darkness for five minutes. Only the heavy, slow thudding of his own heart, pounding against his eardrums. And, faint It was an abandoned vertical elevator shaft. Rusted steel cables hung like dead snakes on one side, the shaft walls were exposed concrete, covered in dark water stains and moss. Looking up, the shaft opening was welded shut with thick steel plates, only a few faint rays of pale light seeped through the edge gaps. Looking down, there was a bottomless darkness, as if leading to the earth's core. The distant explosions were amplified and echoed here by the shaft walls, turning into a continuous, low rumbling that shook down rustling dust and rust flakes. He cautiously leaned forward to look down. About ten meters below, on one side of the shaft wall, there was a pitch-black square opening, like the entrance to an abandoned maintenance passage. There, a faint, trembling LED white light flashed three times, stopped, then flashed twice more. The agreed signal. Lu Chenzhou took a deep breath of the icy air thick with rust and dust, grabbed a still sturdy rusted steel cable, braced his feet against protruding cement blocks on the shaft wall, and began to descend. His palms were quickly cut by the rough, sharp rust, a wet, sticky pain spreading. He didn’t care. Reaching the height of the opening, he used his core strength to swing sideways, his body hitting the edge of the opening, elbows propping him up as he nimbly flipped inside. Shen Qinghuan was curled up deeper in the shadows inside the opening, clutching a mini LED light tightly in her hand, knuckles bone-white. Her face was deathly pale, lips devoid of color, her eyes appearing unnaturally large in the dark. The moment she saw Lu Chenzhou, they welled up with relief bordering on collapse and deeper lingering fear, but she bit her lower lip hard, not letting a single sob escape. "Go." Lu Chenzhou uttered only one word, voice pressed extremely low, squeezing sideways into the passage. Shen Qinghuan immediately extinguished the light, darkness completely swallowing everything, her icy fingers groping to tightly clutch the fabric at the back of his waist. The passage was more complex than imagined, leftover abandoned freight passages and utility corridors from the early expansion of the Shen estate, long forgotten. The air was foul and thick, mixed with dust, mold, and a faint, cloyingly sweet chemical odor that was unsettling. Relying on his memory of the blurry blueprint from the old phone file, Lu Chenzhou navigated through absolute darkness and the increasingly clear explosive tremors from afar. Shen Qinghuan followed closely behind him, breathing rapidly, the fingers clutching his clothes icy cold and trembling violently. They moved along the cold, damp walls, avoiding a residual, almost invisible dark red infrared beam. They bypassed several black holes in the ground formed by collapse, rubble rolling underfoot. The cloying smell grew stronger, beginning to sting the eyes, throat tightening, nausea rising. Lu Chenzhou suddenly tore off the already tattered hem of his shirt, handed a piece to Shen Qinghuan, and covered his own nose and mouth with the other. The fabric, soaked with sweat, couldn't fully block the smell; instead, it mixed with their own sweat and dust, turning into a more nauseatingly sweet, damp odor clogging their airways. The metal grating floor underfoot transmitted a clear, heart-palpitating tremor with each explosion, humming as if it might collapse at any moment. Faint shouts and running footsteps echoed from afar, but muffled by the thick concrete structure, unclear, like noise from another world. They finally reached a heavy metal isolation door. The screen of the electronic lock on the door was pitch black, completely dead. Beside it, the metal number keys of an old-fashioned mechanical combination dial gleamed coldly. From under the door crack, that cloyingly foul odor was so intense it almost materialized, seeping out in wisps, coiling in their breath. Lu Chenzhou signaled Shen Qinghuan to step back, crouched down himself, and carefully inspected the combination dial. The dust showed signs of recent contact. He recalled the information from the file—it wasn't a numeric password, but a combination of a physical key and a dynamic passphrase. The key was hinted at in the information left by Shen Qinghuan's mother, it was... "Birthday." Shen Qinghuan suddenly whispered very softly by his ear, breath unsteady, "My mother's... reverse date. She liked using that as a password." Lu Chenzhou nodded, quickly dialed the combination. A soft click, the mechanical lock core sprang open. He pushed the heavy isolation door open with force. A thicker wave of white mist, cloying yet pungent, rushed at their faces. Behind the door was a massive underground space, towering metal archive shelves standing like silent giants, extending rows into the dark depths. Only a few dim red emergency lights provided meager illumination, shrouding everything in an eerie glow. The "Unauthorized life activity detected. Underground archive self-destruct sequence initiated. Countdown thirty minutes begins." The voice was Gu Zhixing's. Immediately afterward, several inconspicuous ventilation grilles high on the surrounding walls began to hiss, emitting more white mist. The cloying smell intensified instantly, like invisible needles pricking the nasal passages and eye sockets. Shen Qinghuan let out a stifled retch, her body swaying. Lu Chenzhou grabbed her wrist; the skin felt cold, wet, and slick with cold sweat. "Follow my footsteps exactly," he said, turning his head slightly, his voice pitched extremely low, calm yet carrying undeniable force. "Slow your breathing. Don't touch anything." He pulled her along, moving forward close to the shadows of the icy archive shelves. His gaze swept sharply across the floor, avoiding the nearly invisible, occasional flickers of sensor light. The tremors from the distant explosions caused the metal containers on the shelves to sway slightly, emitting dull grinding sounds. Each tremor felt like stepping into the gap between heartbeats. Time passed in the poison-fogged silence and distant roars. The ticking of the countdown seemed to echo directly in their minds. Relying on the blueprint in his memory, Lu Chenzhou navigated through row after row of archive shelves, heading toward the independent, thicker vault door deep in the core area. Behind him, Shen Qinghuan's breathing grew increasingly labored, her grip on his wrist tightening and loosening intermittently. Just as they were about to cross an area of seemingly flat metal grating, Lu Chenzhou suddenly stopped, signaling Shen Qinghuan to step precisely where he had just walked. Shen Qinghuan nodded, her eyes already beginning to glaze over. She stepped carefully, but her foot caught on some tiny protrusion, and combined with the dizziness from the gas, she stumbled violently. "Careful!" Lu Chenzhou hissed. But it was too late. To keep her balance, Shen Qinghuan instinctively reached out to steady herself against the base of a nearby archive shelf. *Bzzzt—* A piercing alarm blared without warning! The dim red emergency lights overhead instantly switched to a frantic, flashing crimson, illuminating their pale faces in a strobing, hellish glow. Gu Zhixing's broadcast sounded again, faster now, still icy: "Unauthorized intrusion confirmed. Self-destruct sequence accelerated. Remaining time: fifteen minutes. Main ventilation system shutting down." A louder hissing erupted from all directions as more vents opened, spewing thick, almost impenetrable white toxic fog that rapidly filled the already foul air. Visibility plummeted. Their throats and lungs felt as if set ablaze, a burning sensation accompanied by a suffocating pressure. "I'm sorry..." Shen Qinghuan's voice was choked with tears and violent coughs, sweat and tears mingling on her face. "I... I think I messed up again..." "No time for apologies," Lu Chenzhou cut her off, his gaze piercing through the thickening fog, locked onto the silver isolation door shimmering faintly in the red light not far ahead. His tone was urgent, yet strangely steady. "Look forward. The safe is behind that door. It's the last chance your mother left you," he squeezed her icy hand firmly, "and our only chance." He half-dragged, half-carried Shen Qinghuan toward the isolation door. It was an electronic lock, with a biometric scanner beside it—fingerprint and iris recognition. Trembling, Shen Qinghuan pressed her thumb against the cold, smooth scanning area. A red light swept over it. "Verification failed. Please try again." A cold, electronic female voice. Her hand, slick with sweat and shaking, made poor contact. She wiped it hastily on her clothes and pressed again. Second scan. This time, the fingerprint area glowed a faint green, but the iris scanner above suddenly emitted a blinding, intense light directly into Shen Qinghuan's eyes! She cried out in pain, instinctively squeezing her eyes shut and turning her head away. The intense light didn't fade; instead, it locked onto her. From a small speaker came Gu Zhixing's real voice, no longer electronically processed—steady, precise, carrying a faint, almost imperceptible sigh. At this moment, it chilled the heart more than any alarm: "Miss Qinghuan, the authority your mother left you ends here. I regret she could not protect you to the end. If you surrender now, there is still time for dignity." "Mom..." Shen Qinghuan murmured, tears flowing harder. But the next second, she fiercely wiped her tears with the back of her hand, opened her eyes—stinging from the light, bloodshot—and glared fixedly at the scanner lens. Her voice was weak, yet it held a desperate, defiant stubbornness. "Mom... wouldn't want me to die here. And she would *never* want Almost the moment her words fell, an unprecedented, massive explosion roared from above! The entire underground space shook violently, as if hammered by a giant. A large section of ceiling plasterboard along with shattered light fixtures crashed down, landing less than half a meter from their feet, kicking up choking white dust that mixed with the toxic fog, completely obscuring their vision. Amidst the swirling dust, the strong light of the iris scanner went out. Immediately after, came a crisp, heavenly-sounding *click* of a mechanism releasing. The heavy silver isolation door slid slowly inward. Behind it was a small vault room, with a heavy, old-fashioned mechanical combination safe sitting in the center. The safe's surface bore no electronic devices, only a keyhole. Shen Qinghuan threw herself at the safe, pulling a thin chain from her neck. Hanging from it was an antique-style brass key. Her hand shook violently; it took her two tries to insert the key into the lock. Turn. The heavy door swung open with a click. Lu Chenzhou yanked out the cold, waterproof document bag. Its surface was smooth, the texture like the skin of some cold-blooded animal. He tore open the seal and, by the flickering red light of the emergency lamp seeping in from outside, poured the contents into his palm. On top were several pages of paper records. That confession that had nailed him all those years ago, with the original interrogation transcript and the final archived version photocopied side-by-side, discrepancies circled in dark red ink like dried bloodstains. His gaze stabbed directly to the last page, the signature section. Two signatures. The first was from Zhou Zhengping, the officer in charge of the case back then, a handwriting he knew. The second, imitating Zhou Zhengping's script, but with a subtle upward flick at the end of the last horizontal stroke in the character "Ping" — a writing habit another person couldn't shake off even after twenty years. Zhou Zhengping's most silent assistant back then, the shadow who had swiftly taken "medical retirement" after the incident and vanished. The infiltration had been there from the very beginning. Right beside his most trusted mentor. He flipped the page. Beneath it was a slightly faded group photo, the background the edge of some internal meeting venue. In a corner of the photo, several people were conversing, turned sideways. A briefcase in one person's hand was slightly open, revealing a corner of a document cover inside. On the cover, an emblem was blurry, yet clear enough to recognize: an abstract eye, nested within a ring of intricate gears and wheat ears. The covert emblem of the Parliament. An identifier only seen by those who had reached a certain level. The chill didn't crawl up his spine; it pierced through it abruptly. But what followed immediately was something harder — not fear, but that bleak sense of confirmation upon finally seeing the enemy's outline. All the scattered clues, the wrongfully dead souls, the altered trajectories, were welded into a cold chain by this emblem at this moment, the other end stretching into the deepest shadows of this city. He didn't hesitate, pulling a miniature camera from his breast pocket. The shutter sound was almost inaudible in the silent vault, yet it rang like a hammer nailing a coffin shut. After taking the final shot, he pried open the camera's back cover, retrieved the memory card smaller than a fingernail, turned, parted Shen Qinghuan's sweat-drenched collar, and slipped the card into an extremely concealed inner pocket. His fingertips were ice-cold, his movements precise as surgery. "Evidence backup is here," he whispered, the gas burning his throat, each word like sandpaper grating. "If I don't make it up, give this to Qin Wangshu. Tell her the real culprit is within the Parliament's shadow. Tell her to be wary of those around her." He paused, his gaze locking onto Shen Qinghuan's unfocused pupils. "Especially... those she trusts." Shen Qinghuan's eyelashes fluttered, as if trying to focus, before finally closing weakly. At that moment, the vault's only display screen suddenly lit up. Blinding white light tore through the red mist, revealing Gu Zhixing's figure seated in a brightly lit monitoring room. His eyes behind the gold-rimmed glasses were as calm as instruments on an autopsy table. His voice came through the high-fidelity speaker, clear, steady, carrying a detached, prudent tone: "Lu Chenzhou, you have the evidence. But like you, it cannot see the light. Put it down, hand over Shen Qinghuan, and you can leave via Emergency Exit Three. I'll count to ten. Ten..." In the corner of the screen, a countdown number flashed bright red: 07:34. The next second, it changed to 06:59. Not seconds. Minutes. The incineration sequence had been initiated He abruptly raised his head, cutting off the steady countdown, his voice raspy like rusted iron grinding, yet decisive as a blade: “We never make deals with Death.” With that, he averted his gaze from the screen, his eyes sweeping over the four walls of the chamber like a knife. No door, no window. Only in a corner of the ceiling, a square protrusion nearly fused with the wall under years of paint—a ventilation duct inspection hatch. Rust seeped from beneath the paint at the edges of the cover plate. He released Shen Qinghuan, letting her slide down to sit against the wall, then pulled the rusted fire axe he’d picked up in the passage from the small of his back. Gripping the handle with both hands, he took a half-step back, his core muscles tensing, and swung with all his might at the corner of the inspection hatch! *Bang—!* The deafening crash of metal on metal reverberated violently within the confined space. Rust flakes and peeling paint rained down like a storm. The cover plate dented inward under the blow, a twisted crack splitting across it. *Bang! Bang!* Two more full-force strikes. The skin at the base of his thumbs split, blood seeping into the wooden grain of the axe handle. The cover plate finally groaned under the strain, its edge bolts shearing off, the entire piece clattering inward onto the floor, kicking up a cloud of dust. Behind the opening lay a pitch-black, vertically descending duct. Its diameter was barely enough for one person to squeeze through. A stale smell of rust and an indescribable damp chill wafted out, but at the same time, an extremely faint, upward draft brushed across Lu Chenzhou’s sweat-soaked forehead. A ventilation shaft. Not horizontal, but vertical. Going down. Countdown: 03:12. Waves of heat, tangible as a physical force, were already rushing in from the doorway. The air in the chamber began to crackle, the sound of dust particles bursting under intense heat. On the screen, Gu Zhixing gave a slight shake of his head, as if regretting an inefficient waste of resources. He reached out, adjusted his glasses, then pressed a button on the console. From deep within the passage they had come from, came a heavy, muffled thud—the sound of a metal gate slamming shut. The last route of retreat was sealed. Lu Chenzhou threw aside the axe, turned, and scooped up Shen Qinghuan. Her body was limp as a worn-out ragdoll, frighteningly light, making his heart sink. Cradling her back and knees, he strained to lift her towards the narrow square opening. Shen Qinghuan groaned unconsciously, her arm scraping against the rough, rusted edge as she passed through, leaving a bloody gash, but her fingers instinctively grabbed onto a protruding rivet on the duct’s inner wall. “Hold on!” Lu Chenzhou growled, grabbing the edge of the opening himself. Muscles bulging, he forced his way in. The inner wall of the duct was cold, slick, coated with a thick layer of greasy rust and an unknown black sediment. The diameter was cramped; he could only hunch his shoulders, bracing himself with his feet and knees against protrusions on the inner wall. Looking down, there was only all-consuming darkness, bottomless. Above, outside the opening, the flames had dyed the red mist orange-yellow, and scorching air currents, laced with toxic fumes, roared upward in a steaming torrent. One hand gripping Shen Qinghuan’s upper arm fiercely, his other hand groped across the slick inner wall, searching for any protrusion to leverage. Move. An inch. Another inch. Rust flakes and grime pattered down, falling into the dark abyss below without a single echo. Darkness closed in completely. Only the opening above remained, the firelight growing brighter, yet also more distant. Climbing became a mechanical, oxygen-depleting torment. Shen Qinghuan had completely lost consciousness, her entire weight hanging from his one arm, dragging him downward. His wounds burned, his lungs felt stuffed with sandpaper, every breath carrying the taste of blood and the metallic tang of rust. Far, far below, deep in the depths, a vague, orange-red halo of light began to flicker faintly. Along with it came a dull, continuous, low rumbling, like the breathing of a great beast at the bottom of the abyss. The core of the incinerator? Or another exit leading to the unknown? He didn’t know. He only knew he couldn’t let go. Clutching Shen Qinghuan, clutching the memory card traded for a life and hidden in his collar lining, he descended, inch by inch, into the cold, slick, rust-scented darkness, sinking towards the rumbling and A new hunt, in the abyss unseen by any, the gears had already meshed and begun to turn.