Chapter 16: Undercurrents Flow Like Rivers

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At 2:17 a.m., the overhead light in the Provincial Discipline Inspection Commission’s Policy Research Office glowed cold white through the rain and mist, the window glass beaded with condensation reflecting the hunched silhouette of Lu Yuan.

The low drone of the air conditioner was like the rasping breath of a dying man. He pushed up his slipping glasses, massaging his temple with a knuckle—after thirty consecutive hours of overtime, the aftereffects were setting in. The back of his neck felt as if nailed in place, every movement tugging at his nerves in pain, sweat trickling down his spine into his shirt collar, sticky and maddening.

The computer screen before him was painfully bright. The "Information Parasitic Network Analysis Report" sent by Song Zhao filled the entire interface, streams of data marked in red and blue entwined like venomous serpents, leaving searing afterimages on his retinas.

The cursor hovered over the login box for the "Internal Audit System." He stared at the reason he’d entered for the request: "Special Investigation into Abnormal Intranet Login Activity," his fingertip pressing the touchpad until a pale mark appeared, the rubber coating faintly tacky beneath his skin.

Why was he doing this?

He asked himself. The answer lay at the bottom of his drawer, in a photo frame—his university graduation photo, Song Zhao in a white shirt with an arm slung over his shoulder, police badge winking at the collar, the chill of metal seeming to linger on his fingertips.

Last month, when Song Zhao was hit and sent to the ICU, he’d listened in the hospital corridor as the attending physician said, "He might never wake up." That was when he clenched onto this plan, his nails digging crescents into his palm.

The instant he pressed enter, the system alert chimed, sharp as a needle in his eardrum, making his temple throb.

Lu Yuan snapped upright, the stabbing pain at his nape vanishing, as if a current had surged from his tailbone to his crown.

A dialog flashed on the screen: "Review Permissions Opened." He swiftly entered "Municipal Bureau Logistics Division," "Past Three Years," and "Electronic Logs." His knuckles tapped the desk for several seconds, a line of green progress bars crawling upward, silent and inexorable as a serpent’s tongue, closing in on the truth.

Three hours later, as the first birdsong pierced the rain, Lu Yuan’s pupils contracted sharply.

Outside, sparrows flapped on the wet branches of the plane trees, wings beating in time with the soft patter of raindrops. On the screen, twenty-seven flagged abnormal records formed a column, all operated under the account "LJY2003"—Lin Haoyu’s initials and 2003, the key code he’d seen in Song Zhao’s report.

All the records targeted the same subjects: compensation details for the Zhaoyang Lane demolition case, witness statements from the Li Xiaoyun disappearance case, even an "Internal Reference"-marked "Jiangcheng City Population Mobility Risk Assessment."

The hum of the printer shattered the silence, the rotation of the drum echoing through the empty office.

Lu Yuan pulled out three still warm sheets, the burned scent of ink mingling with the faint heat of the paper. Two went into an encrypted file bag, the seal pressed with the Commission’s steel stamp, its metallic edge biting into his palm.

As he carried the file bag toward the elevator, the clock at the end of the corridor clicked to 5:03. Sometime during the night, the rain had stopped, a line of gray-blue dawn leaking through the clouds, morning wind with the scent of damp earth seeping in under the door.

Meanwhile, in the Jiangcheng Municipal Bureau’s Logistics Division, the blinds were still tightly drawn, dust floating in the weak morning light.

Zhao Zhenbang’s phone vibrated in his pocket as he faced the mirror, tying his tie—today, he was accompanying Lin Haoyu to a charity ribbon-cutting. His custom blue-striped shirt was crisply pressed, but the fabric grazing his neck made him inexplicably tense.

"Your backup laptop needs to be wiped." The man’s voice was cold as ice water. Zhao’s hand jerked, the tie clip clattering onto the washbasin, metal striking porcelain with a sharp, jarring ring in the silence.

He tore off his tie and rushed into the back room. The black laptop was still at the bottom of the steel cabinet, but the power cable had been unplugged.

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The moment his fingertip touched the power button, a line of blood-red text flared on the screen: "Data Cleared." The characters glowed with an unnatural phosphorescence, like wounds seeping blood.

Cold sweat trickled down his spine, soaking the lining of his shirt.

Zhao snatched up the encrypted phone on the desk, his fingers trembling before he finished dialing—the dedicated line for contacting Lin Haoyu, with the SIM card changed thrice weekly, its plastic casing slippery with sweat.

"Song Zhao is backtracking us... He’s not alone." His own voice trembled, thin and strangled, Adam’s apple bobbing with a dry swallow.

There was a three-second silence on the other end, breathing clear and close, tinged with a faint electrical hum.

"Then let him disappear for good." Lin Haoyu’s voice was as gentle as ever, but the edge in his tone was like a blade scraping glass. Zhao could almost picture the cold curve of the other man’s lips.

He stared at his distorted reflection in the mirror, recalling last month at the Hidden Residence Club, when Lin Haoyu had crushed a wineglass in his hand with the same tone—glass shards embedded in his palm, blood blooming on the carpet like plum blossoms, the acrid scent of wine still lingering in his nose.

He fished out a USB drive from the deepest drawer, its metal shell icy to the touch, containing surveillance screenshots from Song Zhao’s apartment: at 3 a.m., Song Zhao stood by the attic window for seventeen minutes, his figure blurred by night mist; last Thursday, he and the library’s female administrator spent two hours in the old archives, the sound of pages turning almost audible through the screen.

The "fugitive from justice" scenario needed a ***. Zhao licked his dry lips, tasting rust, his fingertip hovering over the "Fabricate Transfer Records" document before finally clicking "Send." The mouse’s click rang out with stark clarity in the dead silence.

At precisely six, the fluorescence of the Provincial Criminal Technology Division’s monitors illuminated Dong Lan’s face in cold blue.

She peeled off her rubber gloves, straightening slowly with her knuckles at her back—she’d spent the entire night at the evidence table, reconstructing the activity trail of the "LJY2003" account, not even noticing when her coffee cup toppled, forming a dark pool on the desktop, bitter and acrid.

"Wait." She leaned in suddenly, her nose nearly touching the screen, breath fogging a small patch on the glass.

In the account access log, beyond the police case files, was a string of unfamiliar IP addresses, covert as an underground river.

A quick search brought up the Municipal Finance Bureau’s non-tax revenue system. A transfer of five million yuan in "demolition compensation special funds" had occurred on June 15, 2020, the note reading "Emergency Resettlement," its font coldly precise.

"Jiangcheng An Tai Labor Company..." Dong Lan’s fingers flew over the keyboard, corporate information quickly filling the screen—the registered address was a rented room, the legal representative a seventy-year-old retired teacher, and in the shareholder structure, the shadow of Lin Group loomed, tangled through every financial path like a spider’s web.

She overlaid the trajectory map of Li Xiaoyun sent by Song Zhao with the fund flow chart. Two red dots aligned perfectly at the "Hidden Residence Club," merging on the map like drops of blood.

"This isn’t a leak case." She pressed record on the voice memo, her tone unusually taut. "It’s a power-money murder network." The chime of encrypted mail sent made her glance at the clock: 6:27, just in time for the morning meeting, the roar of the first bus echoing from outside.

At that moment, Song Zhao was crouched in the attic of Su Wan’s apartment.

Morning mist seeped through the gauze window, beading on the iron box left by his father, water droplets tracing the lines of rust.

His fingertips traced the back of an old Zhaoyang Lane photograph. The words "June 17, 2003, Witnessed the Last Night" had faded, yet the sight of his father’s steel-pen script still made his eyes sting—he used to watch his father write this firm, angular script on case files, the scent of ink and tobacco lingering in memory.

Suddenly, the computer chimed, the clear alert shattering the silence.

Song Zhao looked up instinctively; the Municipal Bureau’s archive system flashed on the screen, the cursor blinking like a rapid pulse.

On a whim, he entered his father’s badge number, "J03217." The moment he pressed enter, the system exploded in a cascade of garbled code, characters twisting like nerves in spasm.

When the display settled, a file marked "Top Secret • Archived" lay on the desktop. The boldface on the cover struck him like a hammer: "Preliminary Investigation Report on the Zhaoyang Lane Homicide, June 17, 2003. Victim: Song Jianguo (Badge Number J03217). Killed by blunt force trauma to the head during investigation into forced demolition funds, obstructed with violence."

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The air in the attic grew suddenly thin. From below, the faint vibration of Su Wan’s footsteps traveled up the wooden floor.

Song Zhao pressed his fingers to the edge of the desk, his knuckles bloodless, under his nails the traces of the mold he’d scraped off rare books the night before.

He remembered that rainy night when he was thirteen—his father said he was going to check on "trouble at the construction site," and never returned.

The police had called it an "accidental fall," his mother cried herself unconscious, but he’d stared for three days at the autopsy report’s "comminuted fracture of the occipital bone"—how could someone who fell from a building shatter the back of their skull?

His phone vibrated in his palm, the cold metal making him shiver.

Dong Lan’s number appeared. He realized his own voice was trembling: "I want to reopen the J03217 case." There was a ten-second silence; he could hear Dong Lan flipping through files, like silkworms gnawing mulberry leaves.

"You know what that means?" Her voice was barely above a whisper, as if afraid to shatter something fragile.

Song Zhao glanced at the old photograph taped to his monitor—his father in uniform at the bureau entrance, police badge gleaming in the sun.

"It means," he looked down at the scalded mark on his hand, a red brand left from handing Su Wan hot milk that morning, the skin still warm, "I can’t just be a technician anymore."

As the morning light crept across the window frame, Lin Wan lifted the lid of the clay pot in the kitchen downstairs.

The sweet scent of rice porridge rose with the steam, the bubbling grains and swirling vapor brushing her face. She stirred with a ladle, the bandage on her right ring finger brushing the rim, making her wince.

Last night, helping Song Zhao restore old books, she’d slipped with the paper knife, a bead of blood falling onto the Republican-era map, blooming like a red plum blossom, the metallic taste still lingering on her tongue.

Footsteps sounded from the attic, the ladder creaking softly.

Lin Wan looked up toward the stairs, meeting Song Zhao’s reddened eyes.

He clutched a yellowed photograph, the police badge on it dazzling in the dawn light.

"Wanwan," his voice was hoarse, rough from a sleepless night, "I need your help finding something."

"What is it?" She ladled the porridge into a bowl, steam fogging her glasses, her eyes behind them bright as stars.

"The Jiangcheng Evening News from June 17, 2003," Song Zhao said, coming to her side, his fingertip gently touching her bandaged hand. At the contact, a faint sting passed between their skin. "Front page, local news—there might have been a report on the Zhaoyang Lane demolition conflict."

Lin Wan took off her glasses to wipe them, her eyes shining even brighter. "I remember the archives department has a bound volume of old newspapers," she said, turning to retrieve a thermos from the cupboard, the cool porcelain pressing into her palm. "I’ll check right after breakfast."

Morning sunlight fell through the gauze window onto their overlapping shadows, the kitchen clock reading 7:05.

Outside, sparrows chirped, mingling with the distant bustle of the morning market, like a fine needle gently pricking open the seal on that rainy night twenty years ago.