Chapter 15: A Stone Cast into Still Water

At six in the morning, the ceiling light in the municipal disciplinary interview room crackled with electric current, its cold white glare stabbing like shards of glass into the nape of Sun Lihua’s neck, spreading a fine, prickling pain. The air was thick with the mingled scent of metal and disinfectant, so dry it tightened the throat.

She curled in a plastic chair, knees drawn to her chest, clutching a faded Mickey Mouse backpack—the one her son Xiaoyu had used in grade school. Its corners were worn pale, the fabric rough as sandpaper, a half-chipped eraser dangling from the zipper, leaving a faint rubber scent as her fingers brushed it.

When Song Zhao pushed open the door, her shoulders jerked involuntarily; the strap dug into her wrist, leaving a red mark that burned as if cut again and again by invisible thread. He recognized that old scar—it was visible last week in the logistics department: Sun Lihua emerged from the pantry carrying files, her cuff slipped down, and a purple bruise wrapped her wrist like a little snake, glinting with pooled blood under the warm yellow light.

He’d asked about it then, and she’d replied softly, “The laundry rope slipped,” her voice as faint as a breeze against paper screens.

“Sun, sister.” Song Zhao didn’t take the main chair opposite her; instead, he pulled one closer, sitting at her diagonal, near enough to catch the faint scent of Lysol on her—a hospital dialysis room smell, mixed with stale laundry powder and a trace of iron, like the residue of dried tears on skin.

He slid an envelope toward her. The cover, stamped “Provincial Children’s Hospital Medical Assistance Green Channel Confirmation,” gleamed under the lamp, the edges of the ink reflecting as if just pulled from a printer.

“Xiaoyu can transfer hospitals next Monday. The dialysis machine and specialist appointment are reserved.”

Sun Lihua’s fingers dug into the backpack, knuckles whitening as the coarse fabric scraped her fingertips, sending a subtle itch.

“Don’t you… worry I might deceive you?” Her voice trembled, the ending as fragile as crumpled paper quivering in silence.

Song Zhao didn’t rush to answer. His gaze swept the blue-black shadows under her eyes—he’d checked all her traces these past two weeks: encrypted data sent at two a.m., precisely when Xiaoyu’s dialysis ended; three delays in the IP address path, matching the fifteen-minute gap when she fetched meds from the nurse’s station; even the message she posted in the “Logistics Data Group” about “Song Zhao reviewing old case files,” sent seven and a half minutes late—the exact walking time from the archives to the pediatric ward. He’d counted her steps in surveillance, each one heavy with exhaustion.

“I’ve reviewed your son’s medical records three times.” He softened his voice, coaxing like one would a frightened cat, his breath warm at her ear. “The dialysis schedule, blood reports, nurse shift logs—they all match the data transmission times.” He tapped the replay button on the table—the footage showing her fingers mechanically clicking download, a tear suspended at the corner of her eye, glinting faintly under the cold light.

“If you were really setting me up, you wouldn’t choose two a.m.—Xiaoyu had just finished dialysis then, you barely had strength to hold the mouse.”

Sun Lihua suddenly bowed her head, tears splashing onto the confirmation letter, smearing blue ink across the paper, which quickly warped, blooming like a slow flower.

“Deputy Chief Zhao said… as long as I stay quiet, no one would know it was me.” Her broken sobs rasped her throat like sand, “But they set the fire…” The last words were swallowed, burning her airway like a glowing coal.

Song Zhao’s pupils tightened.

This was the “they” he’d been waiting for.

Last Wednesday before dawn, the Old Town Demolition Office warehouse caught fire; the surveillance showed the ignition point was precisely the cabinet storing the 2003 compensation agreements for Zhaoyang Lane.

He’d crouched in the charred ruins, sifting through ashes until he found a half-burnt transfer slip—its crisped edges crumbled at a touch, the payee “Lin Foundation” still legible despite the flames.

His phone vibrated in his pocket—an encrypted message from Dong Lan.

Song Zhao glanced at the screen, pinching his palm under the table, his nails digging in, briefly stinging—a way to confirm his own alertness.

The provincial tech department just cracked the last transmission path from Sun Lihua’s phone: the signal looped through three proxies, landing on a city bureau intranet account named “LJY2003”—registered to a file clerk who transferred out ten years ago, but the login device’s MAC address matched perfectly with the dusty spare laptop in Zhao Zhenbang’s office.

“They didn’t make you leak secrets.” Song Zhao placed his phone facedown, locking eyes with Sun Lihua’s trembling lashes, his voice low as a whisper. “They made you a living target. Every piece of data you sent was automatically caught by their system and transferred via a dead account to the real buyer.” He pulled a tissue from his pocket, sliding it over with half a recording pen exposed, its metal shell cold beneath the light.

Sun Lihua suddenly looked up, the veins in her eyes webbed, tears sliding down her cheeks, chilling her hand like rain.

“Zhao Zhenbang said Xiaoyu’s dialysis meds…” She clamped her hand over her mouth, nails digging into her lips, tears dripping through her fingers, soaking her sleeves.

—

The interview room door creaked open. Dong Lan’s voice carried from the threshold: “Song Zhao, the provincial encrypted channel is live.” She wore a navy suit, carrying a black briefcase, heels clicking crisply on the floor.

Her gaze lingered on Sun Lihua, then shifted to Song Zhao. “I need you to confirm several IP traces.”

As Song Zhao rose, Sun Lihua suddenly grabbed his hem.

Her hand was icy, nails nearly gouging his skin, fingertips trembling with the desperation of someone on the brink.

“Please… don’t let Xiaoyu know.”

“He’ll only know his mother saved many people.” Song Zhao drew a tissue, gently wiping her face, his touch so light as if afraid to shatter something. As he brushed her eyes, he took away a trace of salty tears. “When Xiaoyu recovers, I’ll take him to Riverside Park to see the pigeons—just like in the photo you secretly took last week.”

Sun Lihua froze.

The picture she’d snapped last Tuesday by the ward window of Xiaoyu watching pigeons, captioned “When he’s well, we’ll go,” was now lying in Song Zhao’s photo album.

She released him, nodding heavily, her throat moving as she tried to speak—but Dong Lan’s phone ringtone cut her off.

“Technical Department, Dong Lan.” She answered, fingers tapping rapidly. “What? Sun Lihua’s workstation computer just turned on by itself?” She looked at Song Zhao, eyes brightening. “Surveillance shows, after her suspension, her computer remotely accessed the ‘2003 Zhaoyang Lane Compensation Details’—the same file you reviewed this afternoon.”

Song Zhao snorted, pulling out his recorder and pressing pause.

He’d expected this—his public review of classified documents in the archives was bait.

They believed controlling Sun Lihua’s account let them monitor all inquiries, but hadn’t counted on him tampering with the file: the real compensation details were swapped for twenty pages of blank paper, the watermark on which was developed from his father’s old negatives—“If technology is used to erase memory, justice will die in silence.”

“They’re not monitoring the system,” Song Zhao said to Dong Lan’s phone, his voice edged with ice. “They’re raising the system as a parasite.” He turned to Sun Lihua, who was gently tracing the red stamp on the confirmation letter, her fingertips touched with cinnabar.

“Sun, sister, now you can say it—what exactly did Zhao Zhenbang have you transmit?”

At three in the afternoon, Song Zhao stood at the Technical Squad archives, the registration book still fragrant with fresh ink.

He deliberately pronounced “classified” with emphasis, prompting Officer Zhang to peer in: “Checking old cases again, Song?”

“Sorting my father’s belongings,” he replied, tugging at his faded jacket collar, the fabric itching his neck. “He helped with the Zhaoyang Lane demolition years ago, said there’s an agreement missing from the archive.”

Zhang nodded, carrying his file box away.

Song Zhao watched him round the corner before locking the archive door.

The surveillance camera blinked red—he knew, at this moment, Zhao Zhenbang’s office screen was displaying his search.

But all they saw was blank paper deliberately spread out. The real compensation details had been shredded, hidden in layers: between city construction maps, in the evidence center’s label coding, and the library’s rare book facial database—Su Wan mentioned this morning that, when Li Xiaoyun’s photo was embedded in the borrowing system, the restoration lamp revealed a cinnabar mark behind her ear, matching the police report from the child trafficking den twenty years ago.

On the third evening, the library’s rare book alarm sliced through dusk like a knife, shrill and piercing.

Su Wan stared at her screen, fingers flying as someone mass-exported “scholar project borrowing records,” the IP leaping towards the city bureau intranet.

She finished her screenshot just as her phone vibrated—a message from Song Zhao: “Compare the traces.”

Twenty-seven borrowing points lined up on the map, forming a crooked worm from the southern orphanage to the eastern training center, ending in the backyard of the Hidden Lodge club.

—

Su Wan leaned closer to the screen, her hair brushing her hand—the faint sweet scent of the hot milk Song Zhao brought her that morning still lingered, mingling with the plastic aroma of the keyboard.

“It matches your section,” she said into the phone, pressing send.

Six hours later, Song Zhao’s computer pinged with the tracker’s location.

The Hidden Lodge club’s third-floor private room showed Zhao Zhenbang toasting a man in a baseball cap with red wine.

On the table, an A4 sheet displayed Song Zhao’s apartment floorplan, three spots marked in red: bedroom window seat, study safe, attic skylight.

“It’s time to close the net.” Song Zhao shut down the surveillance, loaded all evidence onto a USB drive.

Outside, thunder rolled; he retrieved his father’s old tin box, the negative inside flickering in the lightning—“If technology is used to erase memory, justice will die in silence.”

He laid the negative over the USB, as if sealing justice.

At ten p.m., three anonymous emails slipped simultaneously into the encrypted inboxes of the central inspection team, the provincial disciplinary committee, and the Ministry of Public Security cybersecurity bureau.

The attachments were titled “Jiang City Information Parasite Network Analysis Report,” with only one line in the body: “You are investigating people; I am giving you the network.”

The moment he pressed send, his phone lit up with a message—no signature, words sharp as a blade: “Your father reached this point years ago—then, he chose silence.” The sender’s location: the old site of Jiang City funeral home.

Song Zhao stared at the screen, his throat tight.

He pulled out his father’s old phone, finding an unsent text dated July 15, 2003—the exact date of the Zhaoyang Lane compensation agreement.

The message contained just three words: “Help me.”

He slowly typed his reply: “He was silent because no one could hear. Now, I am here.”

Outside, torrential rain battered the attic screens, sounding like hands slapping.

Song Zhao slipped the USB into the tin box, locking it as a car horn sounded from below.

He leaned out the window—at the alley entrance, a black sedan idled, headlights casting over the wall, revealing a fresh line of red paint: “Meddlers die.”

At two in the morning, the provincial disciplinary committee’s lights still burned.

Lu Yuan sat in a corner of the policy research room, the newly received “Information Parasite Network Analysis Report” spread before him.

He removed his glasses, rubbing his brow. His phone vibrated—a message from his secretary: “The central inspection team arrives in Jiang City tomorrow, focus is ‘parasite network.’”

He looked up at the rain-soaked city, where the neon blurred into a smear of blood.