The blue glow on the reader screen, numbers flickering. Twenty-one percent. Lu Chenzhou leaned against the cold metal filing cabinet, his right shoulder pressed against the protruding lock bolt on the cabinet door. The dull ache had long since numbed into background noise. In his left palm, he held the magazine Old Wu had tossed to him; the sharp edges of the metal dug deep into his flesh, bringing a sobering sting. Outside the door, that heavy, thudding impact continued. *Thud. Thud. Thud.* Like a trapped beast gnawing at an iron cage. But the frequency of the sound… seemed to have slowed. He lifted his gaze. It wasn’t an illusion. The intervals between impacts were lengthening, and their force was diminishing. In their place was another, subtler, more regular scraping sound—a slow, precise friction between metal and metal. Not a door-breaking tool. A key. Someone was using a key to open this theoretically sealed gate. Gu Zhixing? No. If it were Gu Zhixing, there should have been shouting, threats, that cat-and-mouse-style broadcast from outside long ago. This silent, almost ritualistic method of opening the door belonged to a different kind of person. The corner of Lu Chenzhou’s left eye began to twitch. Very faintly, like a broken string buried beneath the skin. He released the magazine, letting it slide deep into the thigh pocket of his pants. The fabric rustled softly. Pressing his right hand against the floor, he endured the sharp, stabbing pain from his broken ribs and stood up, moving as lightly and slowly as possible. The soles of his boots stepped on scattered rust flakes on the ground, emitting a faint crunch. His gaze swept the surroundings: the core archive area was smaller than he’d imagined, more like a forgotten equipment transfer station. Besides the row of old-fashioned metal filing cabinets behind him, there were only exposed, damp concrete walls and the sickly, pallid light from several emergency lamps overhead. The air carried the musty smell of aged, damp paper, mixed with a fainter, formaldehyde-like odor that pricked at his nasal passages. No windows. The only exit was that gate currently being opened. He retreated to the edge of the shadow cast by the filing cabinets, his body turned sideways, weight shifted onto his left foot. His right hand hung naturally at his side, fingers slightly curled, knuckles white from tension. His left hand rested lightly against his waist; besides the magazine, there was something else there—a thick, sealed bag containing the viscous sample scraped from the inner wall of the pipe. The bag’s opening was sealed tight, but that faint, ammonia-like pungent odor still seeped out in wisps, mingling with the musty archive smell to form a nauseating blend. The scraping sound stopped. Then came a distinct, sharp *click*. The sound of a deadbolt retracting. The heavy metal gate swung inward a crack. No anticipated flood of light poured in, only deeper darkness. Then, the metal tip of a cane poked in first, tapping lightly on the ground. *Tap.* The sound echoed through the empty archive, cold and layered, reverberating against his eardrums. Lu Chenzhou’s breathing deepened. His feet were planted firmly on the ground; he could feel an extremely faint vibration transmitted through the floor. The gap widened. A figure stepped in unhurriedly. He wore a dark gray Chinese-style mandarin collar shirt, with a matching cashmere cardigan over it. His silver-white hair was meticulously combed. It was Shen Moqing. He was alone. The ebony cane in his hand tapped lightly with each step. *Tap. Tap. Tap.* Each step landed precisely in the gap between heartbeats, creating a suffocating rhythm. Shen Moqing didn’t immediately look at Lu Chenzhou. After entering, he even turned slightly, tapping his cane head against a rusted valve beside him. The hollow, strange *clang, clang* of metal on metal bounced, refracted, and collided repeatedly in the narrow space filled with pipes and cabinets before finally dissipating into the darkness of the corners. He seemed to be here merely to inspect a piece of long-neglected equipment. Into the air, amidst the smell of aged machine oil and the metallic scent of rust, another aroma quietly mixed in—the crisp scent of cedarwood cologne. Very faint, yet intensely invasive. It instantly overpowered all the stale odors and drilled deep into his nasal passages. Lu Chenzhou stepped out of the shadows. He didn’t fully expose himself under the emergency light. Instead, he stopped at the boundary between light and dark, half his face illuminated, the other half hidden in shadow. His left hand moved away from his waist, hanging at his side. His right hand remained Shen Moqing's tapping on the valve stopped. He slowly turned around, his gaze finally settling on Lu Chenzhou. In the dim light, his eyes appeared very deep, devoid of emotion, only a kind of heavy calmness accumulated over years. The corner of his mouth even lifted into an extremely faint arc—not a smile, more like a confirmation—confirming that the man before him, disheveled, bloodstained, yet with frighteningly bright eyes, was indeed the person he was looking for. Lu Chenzhou didn't wait for him to speak and continued. Each word seemed chiseled from an icehouse, sharp-edged, crashing into the silent air. "2012. July 14th. Jinxiu Garden, Building Seven, Unit Two." He paused for a second, his Adam's apple moving as he swallowed the dry, cracking sting in his throat and the metallic taste rising within. "You signed it." Shen Moqing listened quietly. His cane remained planted on the ground, supporting part of his weight. He tilted his head slightly, as if recalling an insignificant date. A few seconds later, he let out a soft "ah," his breath drawn long. "The date is remembered very accurately," his voice was gentle, mellow, carrying the slightly drawn-out cadence particular to the elderly, creating a faint echo in the pipe chamber. "Jinxiu Garden... that's an old residential complex. It seems it's been demolished now?" He was evading. Lu Chenzhou took a step forward. The sole of his shoe scraped against the cement floor, grinding over fine gravel, producing a distinct rustling sound. This step brought him completely out of the shadows and also into the theoretical range easily reachable by the cane. He could feel the cedarwood scent emanating from the other man pressing more heavily upon him. He stared into Shen Moqing's eyes, trying to find a ripple in those deep pools. "You signed it," he repeated, his pace steady, yet enunciating each syllable with unusual clarity, as if reading a verdict. "That endorsement affirming the on-site investigation report was 'procedurally compliant, conclusion correct.' The signature that nailed my sister's surgery consent form and my confession to the same case file." Shen Moqing finally set aside that semblance of sentiment. He met Lu Chenzhou's gaze, his eyes showing neither evasion nor anger, only a near-pitying... understanding. "A signature," he said slowly, his phrasing elegant, like explaining an ancient philosophical proposition in a classroom, his fingers unconsciously rubbing the thumb ring again, "is a necessary procedure to keep the machine running, Officer Lu. At that time, you were the stuck gear. When a gear gets stuck, the entire machine will stall, overheat, damage more... delicate components." He slightly raised his cane and gently set it down again. *Tap.* The sound of the metal tip striking the ground was particularly jarring in the silence. "Necessary procedure," Lu Chenzhou repeated the phrase, the twitch at the corner of his left eye becoming more pronounced, feeling the involuntary muscle twitch beneath his skin. "Whose machine?" "The machine has no name," Shen Moqing shook his head, as if lamenting Lu Chenzhou's stubbornness, the cedarwood scent drifting with his slight movement. "It is called order. Or, called cost. Some people pay the cost so that more people don't have to. It's a very ancient principle, don't you understand?" "Whose order?" Lu Chenzhou pressed forward with a second step. The distance between them was now less than three meters. He could smell the more specific layers of the cedarwood scent on the other man—the cold top notes, the spicy woody middle notes—and could also see the increasingly warm, lustrous glow of the jade thumb ring on the other's left thumb, polished almost to an oily sheen. "Zhao Mingcheng's order? Or... the order Gu Zhixing is currently executing?" Upon hearing these two names, Shen Moqing's expression did not change in the slightest. He only let out a soft sigh, the breath long and drawn, carrying a weary "as expected" feeling, condensing into a faint white mist in the cold air before quickly dissipating. "Specific individuals are not important, Jingyuan." He even used Lu Chenzhou's courtesy name, his tone like admonishing a misguided nephew, yet each word carried a cold weight. "What's important is that the machine cannot stop. It couldn't stop back then, and now... it still cannot." He slightly raised his head, his gaze sweeping past Lu Chenzhou, looking toward the row of silent filing cabinets behind him, toward the corners further away immersed in darkness. The emergency light's pale glow outlined a cold, hard edge along his silver temples, making the lines of his profile appear exceptionally clear and exceptionally ruthless. "You broke in here, found some things, didn't you?" Shen Mo He paused, his thumb resting on the smooth, curved surface of the thumb ring. "...They are too dirty. So dirty that even touching them would stain you with a stench that can't be washed away." Lu Chenzhou's fist clenched at his side. His fingernails dug deeply into the old scars on his palm, bringing a sharp, familiar pain. He listened as Shen Moqing effortlessly dissolved his blood-soaked, concrete accusations with such fateful, power-laden metaphors, whitewashing a meticulously planned frame-up into a necessary "lubrication" within some grand narrative. Anger coiled like icy steel wire in his chest, tightening until he could barely breathe. But he forced himself to inhale, gulping down the cold air tainted with oil and perfume, once, then again. Don't fall into his rhythm. "Dirty?" Lu Chenzhou's voice grew even hoarser, yet oddly took on a tone almost like mockery, like a blade scraping glass. "Dirtier than those things in the pipes... waiting to dissolve people into corpse slurry?" Shen Moqing's fingers, caressing the thumb ring, suddenly stopped. The warm luster on the jadeite surface seemed to freeze for an instant. Then, from his inner pocket, he pulled out the transparent sealed bag. The movement was swift and abrupt, the plastic edge scraping against the suit's lining with a faint tearing sound. Inside the bag, the dark green mucus shimmered with an eerie iridescence under the pale emergency light. It wasn't moving, but its surface undulated slowly, like some deep-sea creature breathing in its sleep. Lu Chenzhou could smell the faint ammonia odor seeping through the two layers of plastic, pungent, carrying a sweet, putrid stench. He held it up between them, arm extended, letting the bag hang half an arm's length from Shen Moqing's chest. "And this?" His voice was pressed low, almost swallowed by the continuous dripping from deep within the pipes, but each syllable was like a stone forced from his throat. "Is this also part of your order? Waiting in the ventilation shaft to dissolve me into another puddle of... cost?" Shen Moqing slowly turned around. His gaze fell on the sealed bag, first on the white tie securing the opening, then sliding to the contents inside. In that instant, Lu Chenzhou caught the change—not in expression; Shen Moqing's face was like a wax mask. It was the pupils. Those deep brown pupils contracted slightly, as if pricked by a needle. And the Adam's apple, rolling once, extremely faintly, as if swallowing some nonexistent bitterness. Lu Chenzhou even heard that faint swallowing sound, piercingly clear in the silent archive room. Shen Moqing's gaze lingered on the mucus for two seconds. Three. Then he took half a step back. His heel scraped against the cement floor with a short, sharp sound. Not a retreat of fear, but one of disgust, of maintaining distance. He pulled a handkerchief from his suit pocket—pure white silk, with delicate embroidered patterns along the edge—and lightly covered his nose and mouth. The sound of silk sliding over skin was soft, but Lu Chenzhou heard it. "An unpleasant residue." Shen Moqing said, his voice lower than before, as if muffled by a wet cloth. "Where did you find it?" "The pipe your son crawled through before he died." Lu Chenzhou stared intently into his eyes, arm steady, the plastic bag trembling slightly at his fingertips. "It was right there, Shen Moqing. Waiting. Who do you think it was waiting for?" Shen Moqing lowered the handkerchief, the silk hanging from his fingers. The speed at which he rubbed the thumb ring increased. The jadeite spun almost wildly on his fingertip, its warm, jade surface reflecting the cold points of emergency light, once, then again. "Twenty years ago." He finally spoke, each word seeming forced through gritted teeth, with a metallic grinding quality. "In the underground drainage system of the old textile mill. I also saw something similar... a thing." Lu Chenzhou's breath hitched. He felt his chest tighten, as if an invisible hand had seized his lungs. "What thing?" he pressed, taking a step forward, his shoe sole thudding heavily on the floor. "What is it?" "A cleaning tool." Shen Moqing said, his gaze turning icy again, like a frozen lake. "That time, it helped clean up the scene. Very efficient. It left no... residue that required explanation." Cleaning tool. Lu Chenzhou's stomach convulsed, as if punched from the inside. He remembered the traces of the dissolved exploration team members in the pipes, the biological tissue degradation fluid the glasses had detected. So it wasn't an accident, not a natural phenomenon. It was "cleaning." "Who controls it?" His voice was taut as steel wire, It can only be guided. Like guiding a flood to wash away filth. You just need to open the right gate at the right time." He paused, his cane tapping lightly on the ground, the tip making a crisp, rhythmic sound against the concrete. "As for now..." His gaze swept over the sealed bag in Lu Chenzhou's hand, as if assessing a dangerous object. "It seems some old pipes haven't been sealed shut yet. Some gates are still open." The smell of ammonia in the air suddenly became pungent, mixing with the aged dust and moldy paper odor from the archive room, invading Lu Chenzhou's nostrils. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, goosebumps forming in a fine layer on his skin. Not fear—something more primal. Like an animal's instinctive shiver upon smelling a predator. He clenched the sealed bag tighter, the plastic crumpling in his palm with a faint creak. "Shen Yan saw it, didn't he?" He stared at Shen Moqing, not blinking. "He saw what was in the pipes, or... saw how you 'guided' it. That's why he had to die?" Shen Moqing didn't answer. But his fingers, which had been rubbing the thumb ring, stopped. Stopped completely. The jade thumb ring sat still at the base of his thumb, like a suddenly congealed clot of green blood. "My son." He said slowly, each word falling like a lead weight, heavy and muffled. "His cause of death was clearly stated in the coroner's report. Cardiac arrest. Sudden." "Because he saw something he shouldn't have?" Lu Chenzhou didn't relent, pressing forward another half-step. The distance between them shrank to less than a meter. He could smell the base notes of Shen Moqing's cedarwood cologne; that steady woody scent now smelled like embalming fluid. "Because he stood in the wrong place." Shen Moqing's voice suddenly became weary—a genuine, bone-deep weariness that made his shoulder blades sag slightly. "He stood in the middle of the riverbed when the flood was about to rush through." He raised his cane, its tip tracing an arc in the air, precisely pointing at the sealed bag in Lu Chenzhou's hand. "You're standing in the middle of the riverbed now too, Officer Lu." He said, his voice steady again, but beneath that steadiness was the brittle sound of ice cracking. "You can continue to investigate where this slime came from, how it works, who's guiding it. The Shen family can even provide you with... limited access." Lu Chenzhou's pupils contracted. He felt the blood vessels at his temples throbbing, the rhythm fast enough to burst. "What's the condition?" He asked, his voice hoarse. Shen Moqing took a step forward. The cedarwood scent overpowered the ammonia, surging like a tide. That aura of power and years pressed forward like an invisible wall. Lu Chenzhou felt the floor beneath his feet tilt slightly—not an actual tilt, but the illusion of pressure, his knees instinctively tensing to maintain balance. "The condition is simple." Shen Moqing's voice was soft, yet it scraped across the eardrum like a razor blade, leaving a fine, stinging sensation. "When you find the source, find the method to guide it... you will use it to help me clean up another target." Lu Chenzhou's blood ran cold. Starting from his fingertips, the chill crawled upward, freezing his wrists, locking his elbow joints. "What target?" "You'll be told when the time comes." Shen Moqing said, his gaze like nails driving into Lu Chenzhou's eyes, nailing them until they ached. "An obstacle that must be removed. Using this... method that leaves no residue." He paused, his cane tapping the ground again, the rhythm of the tip half a beat faster than a heartbeat. "If you refuse." He said, each word as if taken from an ice cellar. "Then all clues about the old case from back then—the people who signed, the hands that turned the gears, even the truth about your partner's death—will sink into darkness forever. I promise, every shovelful of dirt you dig up for the rest of your life will only be deeper nothingness." The sealed bag became scalding hot in Lu Chenzhou's hand. Not temperature, but sensation—the plastic surface felt like red-hot sheet metal, burning his palm with a stinging pain. Lu Chenzhou could hear the sound of his own temple blood vessels pulsing. *Thump, thump, thump*, overlapping with the distant sound of water dripping deep in the pipes, each drop like a knock on an empty tin can. He felt his throat go dry, swallowing felt like swallowing broken glass, his Adam's apple bobbing with difficulty. "I need time." He finally He stopped at the doorway, not turning around. The shadows swallowed most of his figure, leaving only the silver head of his cane reflecting a faint glimmer. "By the way." His voice drifted from the darkness, mingling with the faint hiss of air flowing through the pipes. "When you collected the sample from the pipe... did it try to touch you? Even if just... a slight brush?" Lu Chenzhou's back stiffened. He remembered in the pipe, at the edge of the flashlight's circle of light, the edge of that gelatinous substance had writhed like something alive, extending a centimeter toward his rubber glove. Just one centimeter, a movement so gentle it was almost probing, then it retracted, leaving behind an almost invisible, ammonia-smelling dampness on the glove's surface. He didn't answer. The sensation of broken glass stinging his throat grew more pronounced. Shen Moqing didn't seem to need an answer either. From the darkness came a very soft, almost sigh-like exhalation. "Be careful." He said, each word soaked like cotton wool in aged machine oil, heavy as it pressed into the air. "Some tools... recognize their masters." The iron door opened, the rusty hinges emitting a sharp groan. The stark white LED light from the corridor sliced in like a blade, casting a glaring patch of light on the floor. Fine dust particles floated within the light. The door closed again. The sound of the lock clicking shut was light, a soft *click*, but in the sudden return of silence, it was as clear and crisp as the snap of a spine being twisted. The scent of cedarwood gradually dissipated, completely replaced by the odors of aged machine oil, rust, and that pungent ammonia. The emergency light buzzed, its blue-white glow casting deep and shallow shadows across Lu Chenzhou's face. With the fluctuating current in the light tube, those shadows trembled slightly. He lowered his head, looking at the sealed bag in his hand. The plastic edge pressed into his palm, leaving a distinct, whitish imprint. The gelatinous mass inside the bag was still undulating, slowly, rhythmically, as if breathing. Faint light filtered through the bag, forming an oily, unsettling sheen on its surface. Or perhaps, it was waiting. *** Shen Moqing stood at the edge of the shadow cast by the iron door, his cane planted on the ground like a flagpole marking a boundary. He stood ramrod straight, but Lu Chenzhou noticed the veins on the back of his right hand, the one gripping the cane handle, were more prominent than before. He didn't hurry. He just waited. The cedarwood scent in the air now felt thick and oppressive, mixed with the smells of aged machine oil and rust, like an invisible film coating the nasal passages. Lu Chenzhou looked down at his own palm. The plastic edge of the sealed bag pressed against his skin, leaving a pale imprint; the skin around the edges was already starting to redden. The mass inside the bag slowly shifted its contours under the faint light, its edges sometimes blurry, sometimes sharp, like an incomplete heart pulsating in the dark. Eight years. Memory scraped across his nerves like a rusty blade: the monotonous beeps of the monitor by his sister's operating table, each one drawn out; the lawyer's rapidly blinking eyelids as he avoided eye contact; the unfamiliar signature on the confession statement—"Lu Chenzhou, admits to all charges." The scratch of the pen nib tearing the paper, each stroke like a red-hot iron brand seared into the depths of his retinas, carrying the smell of scorching. And now, this ammonia-smelling slime from the depths of darkness, along with a note bearing a name and address, had become a new counterweight. The plastic sealed bag slipped slightly in his sweaty palm. "The blueprint." Lu Chenzhou repeated, his voice terrifyingly steady, like frozen soil. "And access. I need to verify it first." He didn't look up. His gaze remained locked on the sealed bag, as if the writhing gelatinous mass inside held the answers to all questions, and also the abyss that would utterly consume him. Shen Moqing's thumb rubbed against the jade thumb ring. The pace was faster than before. One stroke, two, three. The friction between jade and skin produced an extremely faint rustling sound, clearly audible in the silent equipment room. "Agreed." He said. Two words, light as air, yet they abruptly changed the pressure in the room. From deep within the distant pipes came the faint rustling sound of slime moving. Very soft, but continuous, like a tide slowly rising, lapping at the edges of hearing. Lu Chenzhou finally lifted his gaze. The twitch in the corner of his left eye had stopped. That profound, bottomless calm now resembled a shell of ice, sealing away all emotion, leaving only a frozen, "You are cautious," he said, his tone impossible to decipher as praise or mockery—it sounded more like an objective statement. "That's good. On the road ahead, caution will be your only friend." He paused, his cane tapping lightly on the ground. *Tap.* The sound was short, like a ritualistic beat. "But I must warn you, Officer Lu." Shen Moqing's gaze sharpened, like two polished steel needles. "What you are about to see is not an ordinary file. The original blueprints for the underground drainage system of the old textile mill... Some of the passages they mark do not exist in official records. Certain rooms were never approved for construction. And some... annotations." He took half a step forward. The scent of cedarwood pressed in, mingled with a faint trace of something like old paper and insect-repelling herbs on his person. "Those annotations use an old engineering cipher. A system of symbols passed down from Soviet experts in the 1960s, later modified." Shen Moqing's voice lowered, almost to a whisper, yet each word pierced the air like an ice pick. "Master Du will teach you the basic rules. But how much you can understand depends on your... insight." Lu Chenzhou's breathing grew heavier. He could feel his chest rising and falling slowly. Each inhalation carried the mixed odor of machine oil and ammonia, stinging his windpipe. He understood the subtext: the blueprint itself was both a trap and a test. If he couldn't read it, dying inside was his own fault. Only by understanding it would he earn the right to continue this game. The price was becoming a part of the game. "Why me?" he asked. It was a stupid question. He knew it. But he needed to hear the other man state the reason out loud—the reason that went beyond being a "suitable screw," the cold, precise criterion that had fished him out from countless potential candidates. Shen Moqing was silent for a few seconds. In the equipment room, only the low-frequency hum of the emergency light remained, like a bee trapped in an iron shell. From deep within the distant pipes, the squelching sound of mucus moving grew slightly louder, very faint yet persistent, carrying a damp, teeth-grating texture. "Because," Shen Moqing finally spoke, each word uttered slowly, as if weighing their significance, "you have seen it." He raised his hand, his index finger pointing at the sealed bag in Lu Chenzhou's grasp. His fingers were slender, his nails trimmed neatly and clean. "Not only have you seen it, you survived being near it. You are standing here with its sample, breathing steadily, your pupils unfazed." A hint of near-scientific observer's detachment seeped into Shen Moqing's tone, stripped of all emotion, leaving only measurement and record. "Most people, upon their first close contact with this 'thing,' suffer irreversible mental damage. Hallucinations, delirium, tendencies toward self-harm. But you... you only had a few spasms at the corner of your left eye." He paused, his gaze dissecting Lu Chenzhou's face like a scalpel, as if trying to look past skin and bone to directly examine the neural circuits beneath. "Your neural structure, or your willpower—whatever it is—has made you a rare 'tolerant receptor.' And we need a tolerant receptor to get close to the source, to find out... what it has become over these years." A chill crept up Lu Chenzhou's spine. Not the shiver of fear, but something closer to an absurd, icy realization, like a bucket of ice water poured over his head, flowing down the groove of his spine. He had become a test subject. A lab rat chosen because he was "less likely to go mad." The criteria were simple, cruel, and irrefutable. "What if I go mad at the source?" he asked, his voice still steady, but his Adam's apple bobbed once. Shen Moqing smiled. The smile was faint, only tugging at a few shallow lines at the corners of his mouth, yet it was icy and piercing, like frost forming on glass on a winter night. "Then we will record the data," he said, his tone as flat as if stating an experimental procedure. "And then, initiate the contingency plan." Contingency plan. Lu Chenzhou could almost imagine what that meant—another "screw," another "tolerant receptor," another guided operation in the name of cleanup. The machine always needed new gears; when the old ones jammed, they were replaced. The lubricant was threat, the fuel was secrets, and the product was a clean, silent outcome. He tightened his grip on the sealed bag. His sweaty palm rubbed against the rough plastic, producing a faint, grating squeak. "The person on the sticky note," he shifted direction, his gaze nailing Shen Moqing's face. "What did "He took a list," he said, his voice so low it was almost inaudible, blending with the hum of the emergency light as if drifting from somewhere far away. "A list of all personnel who participated in the 'Special Environmental Disposal Project' from the 1960s to the 1980s. Including their real names, codenames, and... their final dispositions." For a moment, Lu Chenzhou's blood seemed to freeze. The amplified thump of his own heartbeat echoed in his eardrums, overlapping once more with the distant drip of water. "Final dispositions?" he repeated, each word feeling as if it had been dug out of frozen soil. Shen Moqing didn't answer. He just looked at Lu Chenzhou, his gaze complex and inscrutable—there was warning, a heavy, almost crushing burden, and perhaps a trace of something so faint, even he might not have been aware of it—a flicker of guilt, like a shadow passing deep in a pool. The smell of engine oil in the air seemed to grow stronger, mixed with the pungent sting of ammonia, stinging the eyes. The drip, drip, drip of water from the distant pipes, steady as the pendulum of a countdown clock, striking against the skeleton of silence. "That list," Shen Moqing finally continued, his Adam's apple bobbing once, the swallowing motion seeming difficult, "was supposed to turn to ash in Incinerator No. 3. But it didn't. Someone switched it, replaced it with a fake. The real list got out, and ended up in this person's hands." He paused, his fingers unconsciously rubbing the silver head of his cane, the metal surface now warmed by his skin. "He didn't just take it. He started contacting the people on that list... the ones still alive. Asking them about what happened back then, asking what was really buried under the old textile factory, asking what exactly that 'special environmental disposal' was." Shen Moqing's voice grew colder, like a chill seeping from the ground. "He thought he was doing the right thing. Exposing history, seeking justice for the victims." The cane tapped the floor. *Tap. Tap.* Two precise beats, spaced like some kind of Morse code. "But he doesn't know," Shen Moqing said, each word like an ice pick, slowly and firmly chiseling into the air, "some histories are buried not because they are unjust, but because... they are too dangerous. So dangerous that once uncovered, the dust they stir up would choke everyone—including those 'victims' he thinks he's helping." Lu Chenzhou understood. It wasn't a conspiracy. It was quarantine. The most primitive, most thorough instinctive response when faced with a "contamination" that couldn't be handled by law, morality, or any existing framework—isolation, concealment, and if necessary, destruction. The logic was cold, efficient, and brooked no doubt. And now, he was being asked to be the one to carry out that "destruction." With this glob of slime in his hand. With this monster, born of the "special environment," that devoured specific emotional frequencies. The tool had been placed in his hands, carrying the smell of ammonia and unknown risks. "What if I refuse to carry it out?" Lu Chenzhou asked, his voice dry, like a rough concrete wall. "What if I look at the blueprint, find the source, and then... make it public?" Shen Moqing watched him. That gaze was like sizing up a naive child trying to light an iceberg with a match, carrying a hint of almost pitying scrutiny. "You can try," he said, his tone as flat as discussing tomorrow's precipitation probability. "But first, you have to be able to walk out of the source alive. Second, you have to find any evidence that can be understood by the 'public.' And finally..." He leaned forward. The scent of cedarwood, old paper, and insect-repelling herbs nearly overwhelmed Lu Chenzhou, like an invisible shroud. "Finally, you have to make sure your sister, Lu Chenxing, doesn't end up a vegetable from an 'unfortunate traffic accident' before she sees your so-called 'truth'." Shen Moqing's voice was as light as a whisper, his breath almost brushing past Lu Chenzhou's ear, yet each word struck at the heart, carrying the weight of rust and engine oil. "I told you, Officer Lu. This is a machine. And machines hate disobedient screws the most." Silence. The rustling of the slime moving at the bottom of the bag was now piercingly clear, like countless tiny feet scratching at the plastic inner wall. Lu Chenzhou felt his palms sweating. The warm sweat mixed with the long-dried bloodstains, making the sealed bag slippery and sticky. He looked down at the gelatinous mass. It was slowly, “Deadline,” he spoke, his voice rasping like sandpaper on tin. “How long are you giving me?” “Starting from the moment you obtain the blueprint.” Shen Moqing straightened up, resuming that composed, almost rigid posture, only the knuckles of his fingers gripping the cane handle turning slightly white. “Seventy-two hours. Find the source, determine its current state, and then… guide it to where it needs to go.” Seventy-two hours. Three days. To crack an old-style engineering cipher. To infiltrate a labyrinth that doesn’t exist in official records. To confront a mass of unknown biology that may have mutated for two decades. And finally, to use it to kill a person. A person whose name was written on a sticky note, judged by the “Machine” as needing “cleaning.” Lu Chenzhou almost wanted to laugh. The muscles at the corner of his mouth twitched, but ultimately failed to form a smile, leaving only a cold, twisted curve. But he couldn’t laugh. His left