The curtain of rain was torn apart. Lu Chenzhou shook off Shen Qinghuan's hand and pushed her into a corner of the secret passage. "Stay put." He didn't look back. The wound on his right arm throbbed violently in the cold water, the torn flesh a sickly white. He clenched his back teeth, gripped the iron grating he had torn from the ventilation duct, and moved toward the back wall of the abandoned archives room. Qin Wangshu's voice came intermittently through his earpiece: "...two minutes...the witness is still inside..." The signal was scrambled by the rain. He didn't answer. The louver of the ventilation duct was already rusted through. The smell of iron mixed with damp mold assaulted him. Deep within the duct, a faint yellow light glimmered—the archives room still had power. He squeezed in sideways, the sheet metal cutting his shoulder blade; blood droplets rolled down silently. At the end of the duct, his vision suddenly opened up. In the center of the archives room, Zhou Zhengping was tied to an iron chair, his mouth taped, his face smeared with blood. Two men in black held guns, their muzzles covering the doorway in a crossfire. A third man, with his back to the ventilation opening, was crouched in a corner fiddling with something—a timer, its red light blinking. "Two fire points, one bomb setter." Lu Chenzhou silently dismantled the iron grating in his hand, his knuckles white. He counted to three. The flashbang left his hand. White light exploded. A high-frequency whine tore through his eardrums, the smell of smoke choking his lungs. The men in black covered their eyes simultaneously. Lu Chenzhou kicked through the duct and leaped down, the iron grating sweeping across the first man's throat—the sound of shattering bone. The second man barely raised his gun; Lu Chenzhou sidestepped, seized the weapon, and smashed the butt into the man's cheekbone. Both men fell. Less than four seconds. The bomb setter tried to rise and run. Lu Chenzhou stomped on his wrist, picked up the timer—one minute and twelve seconds left. He pulled the detonator, kicked the man over, and locked his throat. "Who sent you?" The bomb setter's eyes widened, his lips moved, but his pupils looked past Lu Chenzhou. Not at him. At the person behind him. Leather shoes crunched over broken glass, a slow, crisp sound. Calm, precise, like pacing in one's own study. "Legally speaking, you are currently suspected of illegal trespass and intentional assault." The voice was mellow, the enunciation clear, each word like a scalpel slicing skin. Lu Chenzhou's spine stiffened. He turned slowly. Gu Zhixing stood at the doorway of the archives room, his gold-rimmed glasses reflecting cold light, his left thumb rubbing a cufflink. There were no more people behind him. Only him. A silenced pistol hung in his right hand, its muzzle still emitting a faint wisp of smoke. "Gu Zhixing." Lu Chenzhou's voice was pressed extremely low, as if squeezed from between his teeth. Gu Zhixing smiled and raised his hand—the muzzle pointed at Zhou Zhengping's forehead. "Drop the grating, Mr. Lu. Otherwise, the next thing signed will be this Mr. Zhou's autopsy report." The iron grating fell, a dull thud on the broken glass. Lu Chenzhou slowly raised his hands, palms facing out. "Let him go." Gu Zhixing didn't move. The muzzle still pressed against Zhou Zhengping's temple. The wrinkles on the old man's face looked like cracked riverbeds in the cold light, his pupils unfocused, his lips moving silently—*No, don't agree.* "Based on the available evidence," Gu Zhixing adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses, his tone as steady as reading a verdict, "you have no bargaining chips." A slight twitch pulled at the corner of Lu Chenzhou's left eye. He saw it. Three meters behind Gu Zhixing, inside the half-open safe—the forged source documents were there. The compartment, blue cover. He remembered every detail Zhou Zhengping had described in the workshop. "Chips." He repeated the word, his voice suddenly becoming very soft. Gu Zhixing tilted his head. Lu Chenzhou moved. Not toward Gu Zhixing—toward the safe. A gunshot exploded. The silencer only muffled half the blast. The bullet grazed the outer side of his right shoulder, flesh instantly torn, warm blood seeping out. Gritting his teeth, he didn't stop. His left hand yanked open the safe door. The blue cover was on the second shelf. A curtain of water poured down from the The same sound? No, it wasn't Gu Zhixing. But the gesture was identical. Exactly the same. The file slipped from his hand. His muscles instantly locked up, commands to his limbs severed. His knees went weak, his vision began to collapse, a blinding white light covering everything before his eyes. Water streamed over his face, a chill penetrating to the bone, yet it couldn't drag him back to reality. Gu Zhixing leaned close to his ear, his voice pressed so low it was almost swallowed by the water's roar: "The person who forced you to sign back then, did you really think it was Shen Moqing?" Then his hand let go. The crisp sound of leather shoes stepping on broken glass grew fainter and fainter, disappearing into the depths of the thick smoke. Lu Chenzhou still stood in place, the curtain of water drenching him completely, his right hand suspended in mid-air — maintaining the posture of gripping the file, yet his palm was empty. The blue cover lay in a puddle of water at his feet, the pages soaked through, ink beginning to bleed. His lips moved, but no sound came out. The pressure on the side of his neck was gone, but the suffocation continued. The water was still flowing. Lu Chenzhou stood at the center of the water curtain, his pupils unfocused, breathing shallow and rapid. On the skin of his neck, the fingerprints Gu Zhixing had left were beginning to turn purplish-blue. The interrogation room ten years ago. The light tubes buzzing. Someone stood behind him, a hand gripping the same spot, a thumb pressing down on the carotid sinus, a voice falling from above — "Sign it, and your sister can go onto the operating table." His hands began to tremble. Not from the cold, but from something deep in his spine collapsing. The edges of his vision darkened, the blinding white light covering the water curtain of the archives, covering the soaked blue cover at his feet, covering all present reality. The left corner of his eye began to twitch. "Lu Chenzhou!" Qin Wangshu's voice came from a faraway place, as if through a thick pane of glass. He heard it from the depths of the flashback, but couldn't respond. His body had stiffened into a rock, muscles no longer obeying his will, only his fingers spasming uncontrollably — as if grasping a pen that had long ceased to exist. A gunshot. Not aimed at him. From Qin Wangshu's direction. Then her cry of pain — short, suppressed, a muffled sound like breaking ribs. That sound pierced through the buzzing of the light tubes, pierced through the iron walls of the interrogation room, pierced through ten years of frozen soil. Lu Chenzhou's pupils contracted sharply. His tongue clamped down — the rusty taste of blood exploded in his mouth, sharp pain cleaving through the chaos of his consciousness. The smell of blood choked his nostrils, hot, real, pain belonging to this moment. Not the interrogation room. The archives. Water pouring down from above, a chill penetrating to the bone. Qin Wangshu was fifteen steps away, blood seeping from her shoulder, locked in a struggle with a Janitor — His body moved. Not a fluid tactical maneuver, but a spasmodic, will-dragged movement. The old injury in his right shoulder screamed, his fingers still trembling, but he lunged forward anyway. Picked up a piece of broken glass from the ground — no, too slow. What he found was the tactical knife at his waist. The sound of the blade leaving its sheath was almost inaudible within the water curtain. The Janitor sensed the anomaly behind him, turned and raised his gun. Too late. Lu Chenzhou's blade was already buried in the side of his neck, precisely slicing open the carotid artery — the same spot Gu Zhixing had locked onto. Blood sprayed out, scalding, splashing onto the back of Lu Chenzhou's hand. The Janitor fell. The gun slipped from his grip, sliding into the puddle. Lu Chenzhou didn't let go. The blade was still lodged in the wound, his whole body trembling like a string stretched to its limit. The left corner of his eye twitched violently, his lips parting, emitting broken, almost unintelligible sounds: "...sign... sign it..." Qin Wangshu, clutching her shoulder, leaned against a toppled iron cabinet, witnessing it all. She saw Lu Chenzhou kneeling beside the corpse, soaked through, his right hand gripping the knife handle with white knuckles; she saw the look in his eyes — not coldness, not anger, but something deeper, more primal, fear. "Jingyuan." Her voice was soft, yet exceptionally clear. Lu Chenzhou didn't react. His pupils were still trembling, his breathing so rapid it was almost hyperventilation. Qin Wangshu bit the inside of her lip, enduring The words never finished. His body finally gave out. He pitched forward, one hand landing in the broken glass, palm slashed open, blood mixing with water and spreading across the floor. The scene fell silent. Only the spray from the fire suppression system and the distant, residual wail of the fire alarm remained. The threat was neutralized. But Lu Chenzhou knelt amidst the wreckage, his entire body trembling, like a dam on the verge of collapse. The vending machine in the corner of the records room still emitted a faint blue glow. Qin Wangshu salvaged the last can of hot black tea from it. The paper cup was scalding, burning her palm through the thin wall. She crouched down and offered the cup to him. Lu Chenzhou didn't take it. He leaned against the base of the wall, the bullet wound in his right shoulder still oozing blood. He looked like a piece of deadwood washed over by a storm. The uncontrollable twitch at the corner of his left eye hadn't stopped, and his fingertips unconsciously turned a shard of glass over and over—disassembling, reassembling, disassembling. "Lu Chenzhou." Qin Wangshu's voice was hard. "Deal with the wound first." "How many times has Zhao Tieshan called?" "Three." She unscrewed the cap of the medical alcohol bottle. "I told him the scene is still sealed, evidence preservation takes time." The moment the alcohol-soaked cotton pressed against the edge of the bullet wound, his shoulder blade tensed violently. His Adam's apple bobbed once. No sound. The sting was like a red-hot needle piercing frozen earth, ice and fire clashing at the same point. "Just now—" Qin Wangshu bit the inside of her lower lip, pausing for two seconds before speaking, "When Gu Zhixing was choking you… you weren't there." Silence. Residual droplets from the water curtain seeped through cracks in the ceiling, landing on shredded paper scraps with soft, wet *pats*. "I saw." Her voice suddenly dropped low. "Your eyes—that wasn't pain, or fear. It was something else." Lu Chenzhou finally looked up. The paper cup was pushed into his hand. The scalding heat seeped through the paper wall into his cold knuckles, like an anchor chain, hauling him back from the edge of the abyss. "You planning to write that in the report?" he asked, his tone unnervingly flat. "Do you want me to?" "Zhao Tieshan wants a reconstruction of the scene." Lu Chenzhou repeated, "Scene reconstruction." The glass shard between his fingers finally stilled. "I lost control for nearly forty seconds. Gu Zhixing used that window to retreat. If that goes in—" "If that goes in, your mental state will be questioned," Qin Wangshu finished for him. "The Shen family will demand a change of investigator. You'll lose any chance to get near the core evidence." The vending machine's blue light cast wavering shadows on the water-stained floor. "I won't write it," she said. Lu Chenzhou's pupils contracted slightly. "Not to help you." Qin Wangshu screwed the alcohol bottle cap back on, twisting it with more force than necessary. "I used to look at you like you were a stone. Cold. Hard. Unbreakable." She gathered the used wrappers and waste from the first aid kit into a pile. Her back to him, her voice muffled in her throat: "Today I finally understood—you didn't not break. You shattered completely and glued yourself back together. It's just that the cracks are still there." Steam from the cup rose, blurring Lu Chenzhou's vision. He didn't speak, just gripped the cup tighter. It had been so long since he'd felt that kind of warmth—scalding, handed to him, requiring no exchange. "That incident back then," Qin Wangshu turned around. "You never talk about it. But I checked the case file—the day you signed the confession, your sister was on the operating table." The corner of his left eye twitched again. "I thought you chose silence because you were callous," she stared at him, for the first time not looking away. "Now I know. You're not callous. You were tied hand and foot, and still had to pretend you could walk." His phone vibrated again. Zhao Tieshan's name flashed on the screen. Qin Wangshu pressed 'decline' directly. "I'll write the report. Those forty seconds of yours—I'll fabricate a flashbang-induced disorientation aftereffect. He won't be able to check." "You're shielding me." "I'm choosing who I believe." When those words landed, the records room suddenly fell so quiet that only the dripping echo from the pipes remained. Lu Chen The topmost was a ten-year-old interrogation transfer form, the signature area blurred by water stains, with only half a seal legible. He flipped to the next page and his movements suddenly froze. From between the pages slid out a folded A4 sheet of paper, its surface yellowed, the fold line almost broken. Unfolding it, he saw handwriting he was all too familiar with—his own handwriting, signed on the final line of a confession statement. A false confession. The false confession from back then. He had thought the original had long been destroyed. But what truly turned his spine into an icicle was the back— A line of fountain pen script, the ink still fresh, the strokes sharp as a knife: **"When you signed this, you didn't even glance at the second page."** The paper cup slipped from his hand, hot tea splashing across the floor. Lu Chenzhou stared fixedly at that line of text, his pupils contracting violently—The second page? Back then, when he signed that confession statement, he had only seen the statement of charges on the first page. Because his sister's surgery couldn't wait any longer... What on earth was written on the second page?