Chapter 10: Ashes Whisper

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At three in the morning, River City was still steeped in cold mist. Song Zhao stood at the charred doorway of the apartment, where the fire hoses lay frozen on the steps like winding ice serpents, cracking faintly beneath his boots—like shattering the bones of a winter night. His sole crushed a piece of scorched, curled ash—the remnants of his father’s diary. The edges were carbonized, brittle as dried butterfly wings, crumbling to dust at the lightest touch.

Yet half a line of handwriting stubbornly arched from the ashes, the ink glimmering faintly: "...the ledger has been sent, don't return to the origin."

He pressed his knuckles to the wall and crouched down. The rubber gloves rasped quietly over the remains, a sound like dry leaves shattering in the wind. A faint heat pulsed through his fingertips—the lingering warmth of an extinguished fire, seeping into his skin, as if the ashes themselves still carried the memory of the past.

Song Zhao’s throat bobbed. The heat that had surged in him last night, when he saw Li Wenbin’s photograph in the safe house, now condensed on this single scrap of paper.

He closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them, fine golden patterns flickered in his pupils—the moment the "Eye of Truth" activated, a searing pain shot up the back of his neck, sharp as a brand, racing along his spine. A sudden buzzing filled his ears, electric currents coursing through his skull.

The vision exploded across his retinas.

At 1:17 a.m., a figure crouched outside his apartment window, hood pulled low over their face. Gloved hands stuffed a gasoline bottle through the door crack. A gust of wind lifted the hood’s edge, and as the figure turned, a glint caught on the shoulder epaulet—a custom non-slip badge issued by the city bureau a decade ago, marked by a Y-shaped flaw on the right shoulder, a defect from a damaged mold, worn only by internal staff on duty.

The cold gleam of metal pierced his gaze. Even the tiniest scratch was etched in clarity.

With a snap, Song Zhao crushed the ashen scrap inside his glove.

The ashes fell onto the back of his bluish hand, stinging and burning like embers landing on hot iron.

"One of our own." He let the words tremble into the wind, his voice unsteady. "It’s someone in the police force."

The morning mist crept into his collar, damp and cold against his skin, slithering like countless tiny insects beneath his clothes.

He pulled out his phone and messaged Dong Lan: "Check the duty roster for the past three months. Focus on the old model epaulets with the Y-shaped flaw." The blue glow of the screen cast shadows under his eyes. In the distance, the last fire truck’s siren faded at the alley’s mouth, abruptly cut off, leaving only hollow silence.

By ten the next morning, the metal cabinet in the evidence center’s temporary review room creaked open, the scent of rust mingling with the mustiness of old paper.

Song Zhao stood before the file racks, his lab coat pocket holding the access code Dong Lan had sent remotely. He’d applied to enter under the pretext of "sorting personal property evidence," a flawless excuse: the burned apartment still held the bloodstained clothes from his accident, evidence in an unresolved case.

His fingertips slid over the edge of a file box, catching a sticky trace of charred grease—residue from the fire.

"Sun Lihua." He opened the Evidence Review Log, the steel pen’s trail raised slightly on the paper, the ink a tactile resistance beneath his thumb.

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Every time he handled a key piece of evidence, there was an encrypted transmission record.

His finger slid down the date column—three abnormal transmissions, each time recorded to the minute.

"After night shift handover..." He drew out the duty log to compare, his pupils narrowing sharply—on all three nights, the secondary duty officer was Sun Lihua, the technical team’s internal clerk.

The metal pen tip hesitated over the register, then he wrote a new line: "Retrieve original cadastral map of No. 7 Zhaoyang Lane tomorrow." The ink trailed off at the end like a hidden fuse, snaking across the paper.

At six in the evening, the technical team office buzzed with fluorescent light, the electric hum scratching lightly at his eardrums.

Song Zhao hunched behind the archive room door, peering through the crack at Sun Lihua’s short hair bobbing over her desk.

When she flipped to his new log entry, her lashes fluttered—a habitually sleepless clerk, her fingers twisted the fabric of her coat unconsciously, the whisper of cloth unnaturally loud in the silence, even drowning out the boil of the hot water kettle in the tea room.

Ding—the kettle’s auto shutoff clicked softly. Sun Lihua rose and walked toward the tea room.

Song Zhao edged along the wall behind her, watching as she, back to the window, used the glass’s reflection to shield her phone as she typed.

He could almost feel the glide of her fingertips on the touchscreen, the faint tap-tap nearly lost beneath the pounding of his heart.

The call lasted just twelve seconds. When she hung up, her throat bobbed as if swallowing something, the muscles of her neck twitching.

As she returned to her seat, Song Zhao reached for the doorknob she always touched.

When the golden lines reappeared in his eyes, his temples throbbed with pain—this time, the vision included sound.

Sun Lihua, head bowed, scribbled on a note. After the scratch of her pen, a man’s low, metallic voice followed: "...Don’t leave fingerprints. Use tweezers." His tone was as cold as a blade scraping at the ear.

Bang! Song Zhao struck the doorframe, his forehead pressed to the icy surface, the chill seeping through his skin into his bones.

The headache was like a blunt instrument pounding his skull, but he grinned—so, the "Eye of Truth" could hear as well as see.

On the third evening, Song Zhao handed a sealed evidence bag to Sun Lihua. "Coordinates for Li Xiaoyun’s hiding place. Enter them into the system." He deliberately leaned in, watching her lashes tremble again and her fingers quiver, like withered leaves in the wind.

When she turned away, he pulled out a miniature spray bottle and misted the bag’s seal with fluorescent powder—formulated by Su Wan from book restoration materials, it would glow blue under ultraviolet light.

The mist was as fine as smoke, with a faint sandalwood scent, settling silently on the plastic.

That evening at eight, the monitors in the surveillance room glowed coldly, the light reflected in Dong Lan’s glasses.

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Her grip on her coffee mug tightened. "The cleaning lady in the file room—her gloves have fluorescent traces." On screen, the woman in blue uniform slipped into the fire exit, a faint glimmer at her cuff gliding through the darkness like a moving star.

"Follow her," Song Zhao said, his voice edged with ice, the white mist of his breath vanishing instantly in the cold air.

As they crept down the corridor, he heard his own heartbeat drowning out the hum of the monitors, the soft scuff of his shoes echoing in the emptiness.

The tracking signal stopped at "Hidden Lodge," a private club in the city’s east. Dong Lan’s phone vibrated—plainclothes officers from the provincial office were already in position.

"The mole isn’t the one who acts, but the silent key," Song Zhao said over the encrypted channel. As he looked up, the second-floor window of the club lit up. Behind the curtain, Zhao Zhenbang’s silhouette moved, dark and massive as a mountain.

The next day outside the interrogation room, Zhao Zhenbang was taken away by the disciplinary committee, his shoes striking the floor with a harsh, nerve-jangling rhythm.

He glanced at Song Zhao, tugging at his tie. "Dig as deep as you like, you’re still just a—"

With a creak, Song Zhao pushed open the door and slapped a recorder onto the table.

Sun Lihua’s sobs burst out, choked with gasps. "I only said I needed money for my child’s surgery... I didn’t know he’d set the fire..."

Zhao Zhenbang’s sneer froze on his face, his Adam’s apple working.

Song Zhao leaned against the wall, his gaze sharp as a blade. "What you gave her wasn’t money—it was a noose."

His phone vibrated in his pocket: a message from Su Wan. "In the past three months at Lin’s Training Center, the girl in the blue dress was still there last Wednesday, registered as Zhang Xiaoyun." Song Zhao gripped his phone, walking to the window. The clouds hung low, pressing the city into the mud, damp wind sneaking in through the cracks and raising goosebumps on his skin.

"She never changed her name." He breathed onto the glass, the vapor spreading. "They’re the ones lying."

Hurried footsteps sounded in the hallway. Two disciplinary officers knocked on the interrogation room door. "Sun Lihua is here." As Song Zhao turned, he saw her brought in—hair disheveled, dark circles heavier than ever. She opened her mouth to speak when she saw him, but said nothing in the end.

Outside, the wind whipped fallen leaves against the glass—a soft, persistent tapping, like an unfinished confession.

Song Zhao took out his cigarette case, then put it away—remembering suddenly how Su Wan said she disliked the smell of smoke, and now even the faint scent on his fingertips seemed acrid.

His phone screen lit up with a message from Dong Lan: "All of Sun Lihua’s calls trace back to Zhao Zhenbang."

As dusk crept into the corridor, someone whispered behind him, "Officer Song, the team needs you in the office—about Sun Lihua’s suspension notice..."