Lu Chenzhou set down his cup. The coffee inside had already gone cold. The sound of the base meeting the tabletop was soft, like a sigh uttered prematurely. He lifted his eyes to look at the man sitting across from him. Gu Zhixing wore a well-pressed dark gray suit, his gaze steady behind gold-rimmed glasses, a hint of perfectly measured professional smile at the corner of his mouth. An open folder lay before him, the edges of the paper neatly aligned. "Mr. Lu," Gu Zhixing began, his voice neither high nor low, like he was reciting the opening of a standard contract. "Mr. Shen places great importance on this peripheral verification. Have you reviewed the plan?" "I have," Lu Chenzhou said. He picked up the printed copy of the *On-Site Verification Plan for Associated Clues in the Zhao Mingcheng Case* from the table, his fingertips unconsciously rubbing the edge of the paper. The smell of printer ink mixed with the faint sourness of coffee drifted into his nostrils. A slight twitch flickered at the corner of his left eye. Only he knew it was there. "That's good," Gu Zhixing said, smoothly closing his own folder. "The car is outside. We'll follow the planned route, first heading to Guanghua Printing Factory in the west of the city. That's the first preliminary inspection point." "Preliminary inspection point," Lu Chenzhou repeated the term, his tone flat, like he was reciting a weather report. He stood up, the chair legs scraping a short, sharp sound against the floor tiles. 9:17 a.m. Sunlight streamed through the coffee shop's floor-to-ceiling window, casting the shadows of the two men obliquely onto the ground. One in front, one behind, separated by an arm's length. Gu Zhixing's car was a black Audi, its interior so clean it held not a trace of any extraneous odor. Lu Chenzhou sat in the passenger seat, his gaze fixed on the street scenes flying past outside the window. The city was waking in the morning light, the traffic flow like a slowly moving river of metal. "Did you often go to the west of the city before, Mr. Lu?" Gu Zhixing asked casually, hands on the steering wheel. "Not often," Lu Chenzhou replied. His eyes swept over the rearview mirror. In its reflection, he saw a partial profile of Gu Zhixing's face. The man's smile hadn't changed, but his eyes behind the lenses were observing him through the mirror. Silence spread through the car's interior. Only the low hum of the engine and the faint sound of air from the vents. Lu Chenzhou's fingers tapped lightly on his knee in a steady rhythm. He counted silently in his mind: turn right at the third intersection, enter the service road, construction barriers five hundred meters ahead. Gu Zhixing didn't look at the navigation, his familiarity with the route suggesting he had traveled it many times. The car stopped at the end of a quiet side road. Ahead was a severely rusted iron gate, the sign above it long faded and peeling, only the faint ghost of the characters for "Guanghua Printing" barely discernible. The gate was slightly ajar, a thick layer of reddish-brown rust caked around its hinges. Lu Chenzhou pushed open the car door and got out. The early autumn wind swept over him, carrying the scent of dust and withered leaves, mixed with a faint, elusive, stale sourness of aged printing ink. He took a deep breath, letting that smell circle once in his lungs. Gu Zhixing also got out, now holding a black briefcase. He walked to Lu Chenzhou's side, looking up at the mottled exterior wall of the factory building. "According to the records, this place has been abandoned for over five years. Ownership has changed hands several times, currently registered under a shell company," he said, pausing. "Mr. Shen's intention is that any location potentially connected to the Zhao Mingcheng case in terms of physical space needs on-site assessment." "Understood," Lu Chenzhou said. He walked toward the iron gate and pushed. A screeching metallic friction tore through the morning silence. The hinges groaned under the strain, rust flaking off. A stronger wave of dust and moldy smell surged from inside the gate, hitting his face with a damp, cold chill. Lu Chenzhou didn't enter immediately. He stopped at the entrance, his gaze sweeping over the door frame edges, the ground, and the space inside swallowed by shadow. His eyes were like a ruler, measuring inch by inch. "Mr. Lu?" Gu Zhixing stood half a step behind him, a questioning tone in his voice. "Wait a moment," Lu Chenzhou said. He took a high-powered flashlight from his tool bag and switched it on. The beam pierced the darkness, illuminating a small area inside. The floor was p The soles of his shoes crunched softly on the accumulated dust. The interior of the factory building was even more cavernous and lofty than it appeared from outside. The steel roof trusses were exposed, and a few broken windows cast several slanted pillars of light, within which dust motes danced even more violently. The air was stagnant, carrying a complex odor of decaying old paper mixed with machine oil, which felt oppressive when drawn into the lungs. Lu Chenzhou walked slowly. He swept the flashlight beam carefully across the walls on either side, the floor, and the abandoned machinery. He was looking for traces—recent footprints, signs of moved objects, any fresh residue that didn't belong in this derelict space. Simultaneously, he kept Gu Zhixing in his peripheral vision. Gu Zhixing followed a few steps behind and to his right, maintaining a perfect distance. He was also observing, but his gaze lingered more on Lu Chenzhou himself, and on the areas Lu Chenzhou was examining. He occasionally stopped to take a photo of a corner with his phone, or looked down to record something on the screen. His movements were professional, like a dutiful scene recorder. But Lu Chenzhou noticed that the angles Gu Zhixing chose for his photos weren't always aimed at obvious "clues" or "anomalies," but sometimes at seemingly irrelevant wider scenes. Moreover, Gu Zhixing hardly touched anything, appearing cautious even when approaching piled-up debris. Was he documenting the environment? Or was he documenting "Lu Chenzhou's behavior within the environment"? Lu Chenzhou stopped before a massive old printing press. The dust covering it showed signs of having been partially brushed away, recently. He crouched down, bringing the flashlight close to the ground. On the dust layer, there were several faint drag marks leading deeper into the factory. "Please go ahead, Mr. Lu." Gu Zhixing's voice came from behind him. "The proposal mentioned the need to assess 'potential ambush points' and 'surveillance blind spots'," Lu Chenzhou said, standing up and dusting off his hands. "In your opinion, which spot here would be most suitable for setting up an observation post?" The question was thrown out suddenly, couched in a tone of professional discussion, yet it felt like a fine needle. Gu Zhixing was silent for two seconds. Lu Chenzhou could hear his soft breathing and the faint sound of his fingers unconsciously rubbing against the leather of his briefcase. "From a security perspective," Gu Zhixing began, his pace steady, "the high ground near the entrance, like that broken second-floor stairway platform over there, offers an overview of the entire main workshop. But the sightlines have obstructions." He paused. "For a long-term, concealed observation post, one would likely need to utilize the visual cover provided by existing debris to construct a semi-enclosed observation position deep within the workshop. Of course, that would require prior setup." The answer was comprehensive, even carrying a hint of technical analysis. Lu Chenzhou nodded slightly but said nothing more. He turned and continued walking deeper into the factory. The flashlight beam swept over mountains of discarded cardboard boxes, tangled abandoned cables, and some long-faded safety slogans on the walls. The further in they went, the darker it became. Only a few strands of daylight seeping through the high windows faintly outlined the shapes of objects. The musty smell in the air grew stronger, now mixed with a faint, indescribable scent reminiscent of the weak ozone smell emitted by electronic equipment on standby. Lu Chenzhou's breathing grew even lighter. His ears captured every subtle sound: the faint murmur of distant traffic, the moan of wind through broken windows, the echo of his own footsteps... and Gu Zhixing's footsteps, always maintained a pace behind, almost perfectly synchronized. They reached the main workshop. It was even more cavernous here. In the center of the floor lay scattered giant paper roll cores, like the discarded skeletons of colossal beasts. In the northwest corner of the workshop, stacks of cardboard boxes, half-covered with tarpaulins, were piled up taller than a person, forming a corner dense with shadow. Lu Chenzhou's flashlight beam swept across that pile of boxes. The beam settled on the base of the pile. There, the placement of several boxes was slightly off—they weren't haphazardly stacked. Instead, they formed an angled, deliberately adjusted curve, cleverly obscuring an area behind them. Moreover, the dust near this line of obstruction was thinner compared to elsewhere, as if recently disturbed by airflow, or... as if someone had passed by. "Assistant Gu." Lu Chenzhou's voice was lowered, sounding especially clear in the empty workshop. Gu Zhixing immediately stepped forward half a pace, almost standing shoulder-to-shoulder with him. "Find something?" Lu Chenzhou didn't answer. He slowly moved the flashlight beam along that anomalous line of obstruction. The light spot glided over the edges of the boxes, And just as Lu Chenzhou was intently observing, he caught it. From that crack in the door, extremely faintly, came a low, rhythmic electronic buzzing sound. The sound was very soft, like the standby tone of some device, but in the deathly silence of the abandoned factory building, it was clear enough to make one's scalp tingle. Gu Zhixing obviously heard it too. Lu Chenzhou felt the man beside him tense up instantly, his breath catching for a split second. "What is this?" Gu Zhixing asked, his voice for the first time shedding that professional steadiness, carrying a trace of barely perceptible tension. "The plan didn't mention this." Lu Chenzhou did not answer immediately. His gaze was locked onto that door crack, the flashlight beam cutting through the darkness before the door like a solid blade. The buzzing sound kept coming, as regular as a heartbeat, or like a countdown. He slowly raised his left hand and made a clear gesture — halt, retreat. Lu Chenzhou took another item from his tool bag — a retractable alloy probe rod. He extended it, his movements slow and steady, avoiding any unnecessary sound. Then, with the tip of the probe rod, extremely carefully, he pressed against the edge of the metal door. The sound of the door hinge turning was even more muffled and grating than the outer iron door, as if it hadn't been opened for a long time. The door was pushed open a palm's width. A wave of cold air, carrying a heavier musty smell and a sharp, clear ozone odor, rushed out. The airflow brushed past Lu Chenzhou's face, and the fine hairs on the back of his neck instantly stood on end. The beam of light, like a sharp sword, cleaved through the darkness, illuminating the space behind the door — A small room, about twenty square meters. In the center of the room, a solitary old-style wooden chair stood, its seat covered in dust. On the wall directly facing the chair, hung a white curtain with slightly curled edges, like a projection screen. On the floor in the corner sat a small projector and a black speaker, their power indicator lights flashing a faint red — the source of the buzzing. And on the chair, something seemed to be placed. A dark-colored folder. What made Lu Chenzhou's heart constrict the most, however, was the light in the room. Not from his flashlight, but from the room itself — in the corners of the ceiling, several recessed light tubes were emitting a cold, uniform bluish-white glow. The color temperature of that light, the texture that enveloped everything... Was exactly the same as the auxiliary lighting in that interrogation room from seven years ago in his memory. "Situation," Lu Chenzhou spoke up, his voice pressed very low but carrying an undeniable tone of command. "Fall back. Give me the light. There might be an independent circuit inside; beware of electric shock or gas hazards." As he spoke, he transferred the flashlight to his left hand, his right hand still holding the probe rod, his body slightly turned to avoid facing the doorway directly. Gu Zhixing quickly retreated to a safer position, taking out a small flashlight from his briefcase as well. He turned it on, its beam assisting in illuminating the doorway area. His face looked somewhat pale under the cold white light, but his eyes were sharp, fixed intently on the interior. "Do we need to go in?" he asked, his voice having regained its composure, though his speech was a bit faster. Lu Chenzhou did not answer immediately. His gaze, like the most precise scanner, swept quickly over every detail inside the room: the condition of the wall plaster, the distribution of dust on the floor, the model and age of the projector and speaker, the wiring traces of the lighting system... And, the optimal "viewing" position at the room's entrance — the spot that offered a complete view of the entire "stage": the chair, the screen, the lights. The cold, uniform bluish-white light enveloped that meticulously arranged little space. Lu Chenzhou's Adam's apple bobbed. He released the probe rod, letting it rest lightly against the doorframe. Then, he turned to Gu Zhixing, his face devoid of any expression, showing only a nearly cold, professional focus. Lu Chenzhou's fingers paused on the metal door handle for half a second. The door was ajar. The cold air seeping from the crack carried the musty smell and a faint ozone odor, like the residue from some industrial refrigerant leak. The rhythmic electronic buzzing was clearer now, not loud, but incessant, like a fine needle pricking deep into the eardrum. Gu Zhixing took two steps back, the light from his phone screen illuminating his tense jawline. "Mr. Lu?" "Fall back." Lu Chenzhou's voice was very low, almost swallowed by the buzzing. He pulled the retractable probe rod from the side pocket of his A small projector, black casing, indicator light glowing with an eerie blue light. Next to it was the accompanying audio equipment—the buzzing was coming from there. Standby mode. The equipment was new, cables neatly laid along the baseboard and secured with tape. It wasn't the scene itself, but the light—when his flashlight beam swept across the ceiling, he saw several rows of LED light tubes embedded in it. The lights were off, but the material of the lampshades and their arrangement... he was all too familiar with it. That interrogation room back then used exactly this kind of uniform, cold, blue-white auxiliary lighting that left no shadows to hide in. "Something's off." He repeated it, this time to Gu Zhixing. "Fall back. Give me the light. Risk of electric shock or gas." Gu Zhixing didn't speak, just turned his phone's flashlight function to maximum brightness. The beam passed over Lu Chenzhou's shoulder, supplementing the illumination on the other side of the room. His breathing was very close behind Lu Chenzhou's ear, steady, but too steady, like a deliberately controlled rhythm. Lu Chenzhou didn't turn around. He maintained the posture of the probe rod against the door, using his other hand to fish out a small gas detector from his bag. He pressed the switch. A green light lit up, readings normal. He waited five seconds, then tested again. "Preliminarily safe." He put away the detector and finally pushed the door open completely. The two entered the room one after the other. The door behind them automatically swung shut partway, not fully closed, leaving a gap—Lu Chenzhou had kicked the doorframe with his foot. He needed this escape route, and he also needed the light from the real world filtering in through the broken windows of the factory outside. The room wasn't large, about twenty square meters. Aside from the chair, the projection equipment, and the white cloth, there was almost no other furniture. But the air circulation system was humming at a low noise level. The room temperature was noticeably a few degrees cooler than outside, dry, with a deliberate, artificially regulated feel. Gu Zhixing looked around, his voice lowered. "What is this? It wasn't mentioned in the plan." "Many things weren't mentioned in the plan." Lu Chenzhou walked to the chair. He didn't touch the chair itself, instead carefully illuminating the seat with his flashlight. The dust was thin, but there were indentations from someone sitting—recently. On the seat was a manila file folder. He put on disposable latex gloves, his movements slow and steady. When his fingertips touched the surface of the folder, he could feel the thickness of the paper and the sharpness of its edges. He opened it. Black and white tones, coarse grain, clearly a re-photograph from old film. The image showed an office, documents spread on a desk, a man's back facing the window. In the bottom right corner of the photo was a handwritten date: 2007.11.23. That date was one week before the incident that had implicated him back then. The office in the photo was his office at the Municipal Bureau's Criminal Investigation Division back then. And that back... though blurry, the line of the shoulders and neck, the direction of the hairline at the back of the head... Second page, third page. All were similar photocopies of photos. Some captured his profile, some captured him in meetings with certain people—meetings that had been described as "conspiratorial" evidence in the case files from back then. But all these photos had one thing in common: the shooting angles were extremely concealed, as if taken from ventilation ducts, gaps in bookshelves, or pinhole cameras disguised as other objects. It was a printed document, titled *Fragments of Psychological Pressure Self-Statement Regarding Lu Chenzhou's Suspected Leaking of Case Details*. The content was written in the first person, describing how "I," under the pressure of my sister's illness and the enormous medical expenses, gradually wavered, and was eventually approached and tempted by "certain forces." The writing was logically rigorous, the emotional progression natural, even mimicking some of Lu Chenzhou's subconscious speech habits from the interrogations back then. But what sent the deepest chill down Lu Chenzhou's spine were the concluding remarks at the end of the document, deliberately imitating Shen Moqing's speaking style: **"Jing Yuan, you and I both know that some choices, seemingly made under duress, are actually paths one's heart has already acknowledged. When you signed that confession back then, was it truly for your sister, or... had you long wanted to escape that system that was destined never to give you justice?"** Not anger, but something colder—a chill of being completely seen through, precisely replicated, and dissected like a specimen. The other party not only knew what he had gone through back "Professional enough to deceive you?" Gu Zhixing asked. He stood near the entrance, not approaching, but his gaze remained fixed on Lu Chenzhou's face. "It couldn't deceive me," Lu Chenzhou said. "But its purpose might not be to deceive me." He walked back to the center of the room. This time, he didn't look at the chair, but instead raised his head to examine the four corners of the ceiling. The flashlight beam swept carefully over each corner. At the right corner near the ventilation duct, he stopped. There was an extremely small, inconspicuous protrusion, its color almost identical to the wall, but the reflective material was different. He stood on tiptoe and gently tapped it with the end of his probe rod—hard, like plastic or a metal casing. He took a few steps back again, viewing the entire space from the angle of the room's entrance. This position... offered a complete view of the projection screen, the "actor" on the chair, and the effects of the ceiling lights. If the projector started playing, if the speakers started emitting sound, if the lights changed in coordination— This was an observation room. A "test stage" prepared for a specific observer. All the clues connected in that instant: the overly perfect replication, the forged documents deliberately pointing to Shen Moqing, the concealed monitoring point, the optimal "viewing" angle... and that buzzing sound—not a malfunction, but standby, waiting for someone to press play. The real culprit was building a stage, then waiting to see: when Shen Moqing (or Shen Moqing's representative, such as Gu Zhixing) entered this room and saw this scene replicating the old case's methods and clearly pointing to Shen Moqing himself, what would their reaction be? Would it be shock, anger, denial, or... reveal some subtle tell that only a person "in the know" would have? And he, Lu Chenzhou, was the "probe" used to trigger this test. The real culprit didn't care at all whether he could find "Old K," didn't care whether he could overturn the case. What the real culprit wanted was to use his investigation to lure Shen Moqing (or a core person around Shen Moqing) into this room and then observe their reactions. His every step, from accepting Shen Moqing's "contract," to formulating the "verification plan," to coming here today—was all within the real culprit's calculations. He had become a pawn on someone else's chessboard. A pawn used to probe another pawn.