The young nurse behind the counter glanced up at him, then quickly lowered her gaze, tapping a key on the keyboard. “To visit Sun Mingyuan.” His voice was steady, devoid of extra syllables. The nurse checked the records, her fingertip sliding across the tablet screen. “Third floor, room 307. Visiting time, thirty minutes.” The elevator ascended, steel cables humming. The car’s lights glowed with a sickly blue-green hue. Lu Chenzhou watched the changing floor numbers, the skin near the corner of his left eye beginning to twitch slightly. He raised his hand, pressing the spot hard with his cold fingertips. The muscle tremor stopped temporarily, leaving a faint, sore tightness. The third-floor corridor was long. The smell of medicine, the scent of decay, and cheap air freshener clung thickly to the nasal cavity. His footsteps were absorbed by the thick carpet, leaving only the rustle of fabric. Silence seemed to lurk behind every door. The door to 307 was slightly ajar. He stopped at the entrance. A sliver of blue light from a television leaked through the crack, along with the sound of indistinct dialogue. He listened closely—aside from the TV, there was no other movement. Breathing? None. The sound of turning pages? None. The evidence bag containing the button in his pocket pressed against his thigh, the metal cold and hard, like a miniature bomb ready to detonate at any moment. He pushed the door open. The room was narrow. On the bed by the window, a gaunt man leaned half against the pillows, staring at the television on the opposite wall. The screen’s light flickered on his face, outlining deep-set eye sockets and prominent cheekbones. The man was very old, his skin hanging loosely from his skeletal frame. But in the shifting light and shadow, his eyes occasionally flashed with a sharp glint—like a rusty blade accidentally polished in one spot, only to be swallowed again by rust. Lu Chenzhou closed the door behind him. The click of the latch was unusually clear in the silence. Sun Mingyuan on the bed slowly shifted his gaze from the television to the doorway. No surprise, no inquiry, no emotional fluctuation. He just looked, as if at a piece of furniture, an unpleasant piece of furniture whose appearance he had long anticipated. “Secretary Sun.” Lu Chenzhou walked to the foot of the bed. There was a solitary chair there. He didn’t sit. He stood, his gaze fixed on Sun Mingyuan’s face as if measuring the precise dimensions of a specimen. “Or perhaps I should address you… Master Sun?” The corner of Sun Mingyuan’s mouth twitched ever so slightly. A hoarse, rasping sound came from his throat, like air leaking from an old bellows. “Who… sent you?” The voice was dry and grating, each word seeming scraped from sandpaper, carrying the texture of bloody froth. “An old friend.” Lu Chenzhou took out the button, holding it between his fingertips, raising it into the thin daylight seeping through the gap in the curtains. Brass, its edges worn, the faint serial number engraved on its front reflecting the light slightly. “He said you would recognize this.” Sun Mingyuan’s gaze froze on the button. Something else finally appeared in those dead-water eyes—not surprise, but a deep, almost tangible weariness, and a trace of extremely well-concealed understanding. He looked for a long time. The television began playing commercials, the cheerful music forming a jarring contrast with the room’s deathly silence, like two incompatible worlds forcibly collaged together. “Zhou… Zhengping.” He finally uttered the name. Not a question, a statement. After saying it, he closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. His chest rose and fell with a sound like a bellows, his ribs clearly visible beneath the thin hospital gown. “He’s… still alive.” “Alive, and with a good memory.” Lu Chenzhou put the button back into his pocket. The metal pressed against the skin of his thigh, the coldness seeping through. He pulled the chair over and sat down, leaning forward slightly, his hands clasped together on his knees. He appeared relaxed, but the muscles of his shoulders and back were tensed, ready to spring into action at any moment. “He remembers many things. For example, the transfer and receipt documents for that batch of special ‘materials’ after the municipal archives fire nine years ago. For example, certain handwriting analysis commissions requiring ‘special handling.’” "For example..." He paused, his voice dropping even lower, like an ice pick precisely aimed at the most fragile seam between bones, "a critical 'letter of repentance' concerning that political assassination case from ten years ago." Sun Mingyuan's eyes snapped open. Gone was the exhaustion, replaced by a sudden, animalistic alertness, tensed to the breaking point. He stared at Lu Chenzhou, his gaze like a probe trying to pierce through the placid surface to the true intentions beneath. The air seemed to stop flowing; the sound of the TV commercial became distant and distorted, leaving only the silent contest of wills between the two men. "You..." Sun Mingyuan's voice was even hoarser now, ragged, as if his lungs were leaking air, "You're... that person." "Lu Chenzhou." He gave his name, his tone as flat as describing the weather, yet each word fell with the weight of a lead weight. "That 'letter of repentance' from back then bore my signature. Of course, it was your handiwork." Silence descended again, heavier than before, pressing on their eardrums. The muscles in Sun Mingyuan's face twitched minutely; a rapid succession of emotions flashed through his sunken eyes—fear, recollection, struggle—finally settling into a near-resigned, ashen defeat. He suddenly broke into a violent coughing fit, his thin shoulders shaking. He reached for the water cup on the bedside table, his hand trembling so badly some water spilled, leaving a dark stain on the surface. Lu Chenzhou didn't move, just watched. He observed the rhythm of the cough, the amplitude of the finger tremors, the difficulty of the Adam's apple's movement during swallowing. Every detail was information. After the coughing subsided, Sun Mingyuan leaned back against the pillow, panting, his face even grayer, as if coated in a layer of deathly ash. "I... have nothing to say." He closed his eyes, his refusal clean-cut and weary. "It's all in the past. I'm old, sick, dying. You people... leave me alone." "Things of the past often haven't truly passed." Lu Chenzhou said. He took the encrypted tablet from his old canvas bag, unlocked it. The screen lit up with a cold white light, like a small piece of ice cut out and placed in the dim room. He didn't show any content, just placed it on his lap, his fingers unconsciously rubbing the cool metal edge, feeling its subtle, industrial-grade angles. "They turn into ghosts, haunting the living. Like you, like Zhou Zhengping, like me." He paused, observing the subtle movement of Sun Mingyuan's eyeballs beneath his eyelids. It was an instinctive, uncontrollable physiological reaction. "Shen Moqing placed you here, covering all expenses, with excellent conditions." Lu Chenzhou continued, his pace steady, yet each word distinct, like reading an irrefutable verdict, "It's payment, a hush fee, and also... a hostage. You stay safe, he stays at ease. If you talk, many people will become uneasy. Including..." He deliberately slowed his speech, letting the weight of the next name fully release, "Gu Zhixing." Hearing the three syllables "Gu Zhixing," Sun Mingyuan's fingers, which were interlaced over his abdomen, curled almost imperceptibly. His knuckles turned white. "I'm not asking who instructed you back then." Lu Chenzhou's voice lowered, taking on a cold, coaxing quality, like a venomous snake hissing in one's ear. "I only want to know, the original draft of that 'letter of repentance,' or any trace that could prove it came from your hand, not my voluntary act... does it still exist? Even a discarded practice sheet, a mistaken stroke, anything... anything at all." Sun Mingyuan opened his eyes and looked at him. His gaze was as complex as a deep well silted with too much mud; stirring it would bring up the foul stench of years past. "Why?" he asked, his voice as light as a whisper yet sharp as a blade's edge, "To overturn the case? For revenge? It's useless... kid, you can't win against them. That thing, even if it existed, it would have long since..." "Gone to dust?" Lu Chenzhou completed his sentence, the corner of his mouth lifting in a temperatureless arc, like a crack appearing in a plaster mask. "Perhaps. But habits are hard to break, Master Sun. Especially for a craftsman like you... You pursue perfection, imitate to the utmost, but true perfection doesn't exist. Before achieving 'indistinguishable from the real thing,' there must inevitably be drafts, practice pieces, unsatisfactory attempts. To you, these are flaws, traces that must be erased. But to someone accustomed to keeping all 'potentially useful' materials...?" Sun Mingyuan's breathing hitched. The rise and fall of his chest paused, like a machine suddenly powered down. "Gu Zhixing." Lu Chenzhou uttered the name softly, as if placing the final weight on a scale about to tip. "He's a lawyer. He believes in chains of evidence. He's used to controlling every variable. The finished product you delivered was flawless, but those imperfect processes... Would he truly feel comfortable entrusting their complete disposal to you? Or rather, would he truly feel comfortable letting you, the sole living piece of evidence, completely slip from his grasp, relying solely on Shen Moqing's 'mercy' and the walls of this sanatorium for safety?" The temperature in the room seemed to plummet several degrees. Sun Mingyuan's fingers began to tremble uncontrollably, not a pathological tremor, but the most primal physiological reaction as fear pierced through layers of numbness. He stared at Lu Chenzhou, his lips moving soundlessly. Canned laughter blared from the TV, sharp and hollow, forming an absurd counterpoint to the lethal tension now hanging in the air. "Do you think, between his son and an old secretary who has outlived his usefulness and might even bring trouble, which one would he choose?" The color drained completely from Sun Mingyuan's face. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out, only rapid, panting breaths. "Tell me where the backup might be." Lu Chenzhou leaned forward, his gaze locking onto him. "Not a specific location. A direction. A clue. Then, I will leave. After tonight, no matter what happens, you can pin it on me — a resentful ex-con from an old case came to press for answers, got nothing, and left in frustration. This is your only possible chance to survive, Master Sun. Grab it." A long, suffocating ten-plus seconds passed. On the TV, the commercials ended, and an old war movie began playing, the faint sounds of artillery fire drifting in. Amidst this phantom cacophony of guns and cannons, Sun Mingyuan, with agonizing slowness, almost imperceptibly, nodded. His lips moved, his voice so low Lu Chenzhou had to lean his ear close to hear. "...In his early years... he liked antique clocks. Especially... the old mantle clocks with complex mechanisms... secret compartments." Sun Mingyuan's breath brushed against Lu Chenzhou's ear, carrying the sour, stale odor particular to the elderly. "He said... the most dangerous place... is the decoration most easily overlooked." Lu Chenzhou straightened up, placing the tablet back into his bag. All emotion drained from his face, leaving only a task-execution-like indifference. "Thank you." He stood and walked toward the door, his hand on the handle. "Wait." Sun Mingyuan suddenly called out to him, a last vestige of struggling strength in his voice. "You... do you really think getting that thing... can change anything?" Lu Chenzhou didn't turn around. "I don't know," he said. "But I have to try. Otherwise, what difference is there between us and being dead?" He pulled the door open and walked out, closing the door behind him, sealing away the room filled with fear and past shadows, along with the old man burning down to his last flicker inside. The corridor remained quiet, the carpet absorbing all footsteps. The elevator descended, numbers flickering. Lu Chenzhou leaned against the cab wall and closed his eyes. His temples throbbed. His instinct for analytical deconstruction during thought made him subconsciously reconstruct Sun Mingyuan’s words in his mind—antique clock, hidden compartment, decoration. Gu Zhixing’s office? Home? Or some unknown collection point? The information was too vague, but he had a direction. The bait had been cast. Next was to observe the prey’s reaction, and… deal with potentially alerted, more dangerous predators. In the first-floor lobby, the nurse was still bent over, writing. He walked straight to the main doors. The glass doors slid open automatically, and the slightly cool night air rushed in, carrying a mix of vegetation and the distant clamor of the city. His car was parked by the driveway. Just as he reached out to pull the door handle, his movement halted. On the passenger-side window glass, near the frame, illuminated by the light from the lobby, he saw a tiny, extremely subtle glint, different from dust. He leaned closer, took a miniature high-intensity flashlight from his pocket, and pressed the switch. A beam of light as thin as a hair struck the glass. There, wedged in the edge seam of the window’s rubber seal, was an almost invisible, crystalline particle. Not dust, not a water stain. He carefully pried it out with the tip of his fingernail. It fell into his palm. The size of a grain of rice, an irregular polyhedron, refracting a cold, hard, inorganic luster under the strong light. A fragment of electronic components. Debris from some kind of miniature listening or tracking device. He pinched the fragment between his fingers. His fingertip registered its icy coldness. Someone had tampered with his car. Within the less-than-half-hour he was upstairs. Professional work, leaving almost no trace, except for this fragment, possibly dislodged due to haste or accident. Lu Chenzhou pulled open the car door and sat in the driver’s seat. He didn’t start the engine immediately. First, he checked the interior—the storage compartment, the crevices of the seats, under the steering wheel. No other foreign objects found. But that didn’t prove anything. The other party was highly skilled. He started the car and slowly drove away from the sanatorium. In the rearview mirror, the building’s lights, obscured by trees, rapidly receded, merging into the night. After driving two blocks, he turned into a quiet side street and pulled over. Killed the engine, turned off the lights. The interior plunged into darkness and silence. Only the sound of his own breathing. He took out the fragment again and placed it on the dashboard. In the faint night light, it resembled a cold, lifeless eye. The sanatorium had surveillance, but if the other party dared to act there, they could either avoid or control the cameras, or simply didn’t care about exposing their tracks—this was a warning, or a declaration. Gu Zhixing’s people? Shen Moqing’s people? Or… a third party? Sun Mingyuan’s words echoed in his ears: “Lei Hu… or, some other unfamiliar face.” Lu Chenzhou’s fingers tapped lightly on the steering wheel. Once, twice. A steady rhythm, as if calculating something. The bait had been scattered. Now, the fishing line had twitched. But the one biting the hook might not be the fish he wanted to catch. He started the car again and drove back onto the main road. This time, he drove slowly, glancing frequently in the rearview mirror. The night traffic was sparse. A few cars followed behind, then turned off one by one. No obvious tail. But this didn’t relax him. Since the other party could tamper with his car, their tracking methods wouldn’t be too rudimentary. He needed a next move. He needed to let the people in the shadows see what he wanted them to see. *** The next morning at nine o’clock, Lu Chenzhou stepped into the Legal Affairs Department building once more. The air was thick with the stale smell of disinfectant mixed with old paper. The fluorescent tubes emitted a steady, warmth-deficient white light, making everyone’s complexion appear slightly pale. Manager Li was already waiting for him at the entrance to the archives room, a professional smile on his face, but no warmth in his eyes. “Mr. Lu, good morning.” Manager Li stepped aside to clear the way. “Which section would you like to review today?” “The same as last time. The files regarding the preliminary compliance review for the old city renovation project.” Lu Chenzhou’s tone was flat. He held a tablet and a notebook. “There are a few timeline points I need to…” It wasn’t placed by Gu Zhixing’ He took a deep breath, turned the key, and the engine emitted a low rumble. The car slowly drove out of the sanatorium’s main gate. The iron gate let out another heavy grating sound as it closed behind him, cutting off that domain shrouded by white buildings and layers of secrets. He didn’t take the route he had come by, but instead turned onto a more remote road leading to the outskirts of the city. The car maintained a steady speed, but his gaze was like a probe, constantly sweeping across the rearview mirror and both sides. The night was as dark as ink, streetlights sparse. Occasionally, a cargo truck roared past, its lights blinding. After driving for about twenty minutes, in the rearview mirror, that black SUV was still maintaining a stable distance, neither too close nor too far. Gu Zhixing’s people were professional and patient. At a fork in the road, Lu Chenzhou suddenly slowed down, flicked on the right turn signal, making as if to turn into a small side road. The black SUV also slowed down. At the very last moment, he sharply straightened the wheel, slammed the accelerator, and the car shot through the intersection like an arrow breaking free of its restraints. At the same time, his left hand quickly fished out a palm-sized black box from the storage compartment, and his thumb forcefully pressed the switch. The green indicator light on the box flashed urgently three times, then went out. Behind him, the black SUV clearly hadn’t anticipated this maneuver. It braked hard, tires screeching briefly against the pavement. The front end wobbled before it accelerated to give chase. But just after it sped through the intersection, its speed noticeably slowed, and it began to linger near the crossroads, like a hunting dog that had lost the scent. Lu Chenzhou watched in the rearview mirror as the SUV circled twice, eventually pulling over to the side of the road. He withdrew his gaze, his expression not relaxing in the slightest. That small box was a portable signal jammer Fang Mu had given him, designed to briefly disrupt tracking signals on specific frequency bands. It was effective against opponents like Gu Zhixing who relied on conventional surveillance methods, but… What if there was another group, using different methods? He turned off the jammer and drove the car into a dimly lit alley flanked by old factory buildings. He found a corner thick with shadow and parked there. Killed the engine, turned off the lights. The interior of the car was instantly swallowed by darkness and silence. Only a few faint red indicator lights on the dashboard remained, like eyes peering in the dark. He sat in the driver’s seat, motionless, like a sculpture submerged in deep water. His ears captured every sound from outside the car—the faint murmur of distant highway traffic, the mournful howl of wind blowing over the sheet-metal roofs of the factories, the intermittent barking of stray dogs further away. And… his own heartbeat. Steady, powerful, amplified in the absolute silence, pounding against his eardrums. Five minutes. Ten minutes. No unusual vehicles followed him in. No footsteps. No sudden headlights flaring to life. It seemed, for now, he had shaken them off. But he didn’t dare let his guard down. The figure in the gray jacket, the electronic debris in the car window crack, and that fleeting glimpse of taillights outside the sanatorium… these fragments pieced together a vague but dangerous outline: a third party, alerted by his actions. Their purpose unknown, their methods unknown, but clearly, they were interested in him. Lu Chenzhou started the car again and drove towards the city center, taking an even more cautious route. He didn’t return to the previous temporary safe house that had already been searched by Qin Wangshu, nor did he go anywhere that might be connected to Zhou Zhengping. He needed a new, absolutely clean base to process tonight’s information and plan the next step. At one in the morning, he parked the car in the lot of a 24-hour supermarket, blending in among the vehicles of numerous night-shift employees. Then he walked across two streets and entered an open, old residential complex built in the 90s, without any property management. The building exteriors were mottled, stairwells cluttered with junk. Motion-sensor lights flickered on and off, casting shifting, fleeting shadows at his feet. He stopped on the fourth floor of one building, took out a key, and unlocked a rusted security door. This was another backup location he had rented using a fake identity and cash. Only he knew about it. The room was small, one bedroom and a living room, with simple furniture covered in a thin layer of dust. The air was stale, carrying the musty smell of being unventilated for a long time. He locked the door from the inside, didn’t turn on the lights. Using the faint light filtering in from Here, before he last left, he had used one of his own hairs, placed at an extremely clever angle, horizontally adhered to the paint surface where the door frame met the wall. The hair was extremely fine, its color close to the old white paint, impossible to detect without leaning in for a close look. Now, that hair was gone. Not fallen off. The traces of the adhesive were still there, a tiny, almost invisible transparent residue, but the hair itself had vanished. About a centimeter below the original location of the hair, in the angle between the door frame and the wall, he used a sliver of faint light filtering through the curtain gap to see some extremely fine, light-colored particles that were different from the surrounding dust. Holding his breath, he took a miniature high-intensity flashlight from his pocket, clamped it between his teeth to free both hands. Then, extremely slowly, using a transparent evidence bag sealing strip he carried with him, he carefully picked up those particles. Moving it before his eyes, he shone the flashlight from the side. Not dust. The particles were finer, grayish-white, with a faint… plaster-like texture? Not entirely. There seemed to be mixed within a tiny bit of brighter, metallic grinding residue, reflecting a faint glimmer under the light. Someone had been inside. They had used professional means to remove the hair marker he had set, but at this extremely tricky angle, during the cleaning process, they might have accidentally scraped off an extremely minute amount of… building material residue from their tool or the wall? Lu Chenzhou gently set down the adhesive strip, turned off the flashlight. The room plunged back into darkness, but his pupils contracted sharply, adapting to this ink-black gloom. His heart hammered heavily against his ribs inside his chest, once, then again. It wasn’t Gu Zhixing. If Gu Zhixing’s people had discovered this hideout, they would have either taken direct control or set up more covert surveillance. They wouldn’t have so meticulously removed an amateurish marker and left behind new traces. This was more like a… reconnaissance? Assessment? Or, confirmation? A third party. The gray jacket. The method was professional, but the purpose was unclear. They weren’t just tailing him; they had infiltrated his backup safe house. What did this mean? Was his false identity exposed? Was the rental channel monitored? Or did the other party possess a more powerful information network and operational capability than he had estimated, capable of precisely locating this backup lair right at the start of his own, self-perceived covert “lure the snake out of its hole” plan? Whichever it was, it meant he was not only the bait laid by the hunter, but might also have become the prey simultaneously targeted in another unknown hunt. The net he had cast might be falling over his own head. The room was deathly silent. From afar, the faint whistle of a night train passing sounded, drawn-out, desolate, piercing through the night, more like a sigh. Lu Chenzhou stood in the darkness for a long time, until his eyes fully adjusted, barely able to distinguish the outlines of the furniture in the room. Then, he walked to the hard plank bed and sat down. The bed frame emitted a groan of protest under the weight, particularly jarring in the silence. He took out the encrypted tablet from the canvas bag again, didn’t power it on, just placed it on his lap. His fingers unconsciously, over and over, rubbed against its cold, hard edge. The twitch in the corner of his left eye had stopped, but a deeper fatigue and tension, emanating from the marrow of his bones, began to spread along his spine. The plan had to be adjusted. The risk level had far exceeded expectations. He had thought he was designing a trap from the shadows. Now it seemed, at the very least, another pair of eyes was also in the shadows, examining the trap he had designed. He needed information. Needed to know who this third party was. Needed to judge whether they were friend or foe, or, just another flock of vultures waiting to swoop down when he, Gu Zhixing, and Shen Moqing had wounded each other. Outside the window, the city’s neon lights outlined a hazy halo against the distant sky. The night was at its deepest, and what lurked in the darkness seemed to be more than just the eyes he had originally anticipated. The bait was cast, the hook concealed. But now, even the angler himself clearly heard behind him the subtle yet chilling sound of another fishing rod being cast into the water.