Chapter 21: Undercurrents Flow Like a River

When threads of rain wrapped in the morning light seeped through the glass doors of the Jiangcheng City Bureau Petition Office, Old Zhou took another half-step forward, holding aloft his sign that read, “Give me the truth.”

Droplets fell from the eaves, splashing rings across the threshold, filling the air with a damp scent of rust and the distant aroma of fried dough wafting from breakfast stalls. His hands, cracked and weathered, gripped the wooden handle tightly, his fingertips pale from soaking in the rain. Every movement sent a dull grinding through his knees—a protest from old injuries on a rainy day.

Behind him stood over twenty people: an elderly woman clutching a vegetable basket, droplets hanging from the leaves within, falling with her slight trembling; a young worker in construction garb, sleeves frayed, wrists smeared with drying cement; and at the front, a girl holding her phone, live-streaming the topic “Officer Song suppressed” as hundreds of comments flooded in each second. Static mixed with the crowd’s clamor spilled from the speaker, a low-frequency tide.

“Comrade, could we meet Song Zhao?” The old woman wiped rain from her face, the front of her blue blouse darkening with water, the damp fabric cold against her skin, making her shiver. “My husband fell from a building in the development zone ten years ago. Young Song was in charge, and his notebook recorded ‘contractor falsified safety records’...” Her voice was hoarse, the ending swept away by a gust, leaving a trembling echo in the corridor.

The petition office door creaked open a sliver. The duty officer poked his head out, sweat beading on his brow, a dark ring around his uniform collar from perspiration. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he spoke, voice low yet swallowed by the crowd’s hum: “Everyone, the provincial disciplinary inspection team has arrived, all complaints will be registered...” His words drowned in the chorus of “We want to speak face to face.” As he retreated, his phone vibrated in his pocket—the provincial office’s duty line had rung nonstop since three a.m., the ringtone piercing his eardrum like nails. Leadership had just messaged in the group: “Public opinion monitoring team is watching, don’t let any trending posts slip.”

The air conditioning in the Provincial Forensic Analysis Lab was set low, cold air brushing Dong Lan’s bare arms, raising a fine layer of goosebumps. Her lab coat rested on the chair back as her fingers tapped out a crisp rhythm on the keyboard, like hail striking a metal tray.

Before her, six screens pulsed with streams of data. Fluorescent light reflected off her glasses in a ghostly blue halo. The center screen played Chen Mo’s dispatch recordings from the past three years, static interwoven with the fading wail of sirens. As the timeline slid to June 18, 2020, 2:14 a.m., she abruptly hit pause—the IP address of the deleted surveillance logs flickered on the police intranet map, landing precisely at the Zhaoyang Bridge post where Song Zhao was on duty the night of his car accident.

The red dot throbbed like a heart, burning on the dark digital map.

“Found it,” she whispered, her voice nearly lost beneath the hum of the air conditioning. Right-clicking “Restore original log traces,” the encrypted package’s notification sounded like a sigh, as if someone exhaled beside her ear.

Footsteps sounded outside, approaching in steady rhythm. She quickly dragged the file to the jump node provided by Su Wan, and just as the transfer bar hit 100%, the door swung open: “Section Chief Dong, the director wants you to report on the technical support plan for public opinion.”

“I’m coming,” Dong Lan replied, pulling on her lab coat. The fabric whispered, her fingers tapping twice on the table’s edge—a secret signal confirming her task was done.

Curtains in Chen Mo’s home were tightly drawn, the floor lamp casting a blue-black shadow beneath his eyes, like an unhealed scar. The recording on his phone had played seventeen times, static crackling as the voice repeated, “I switched the backup hard drive for onsite surveillance,” each syllable piercing his eardrum like rusty nails.

His thumb pressed deep into his palm, leaving crescent-shaped marks. When he opened the drawer, the scrape of metal startled him—the old police badge still lay on red velvet, cold to the touch, its engraved motto “Investigate Together, Live Together” polished bright from years of handling, exchanged with Song Zhao when they passed the detective exam ten years ago.

“Old Song,” he spoke softly into the air, Adam’s apple shifting, voice rough as sandpaper, “You taught me to read the scene, said evidence never lies...” His phone vibrated. He stared at the caller ID “Office Zhou,” his finger trembling three times before answering.

“Leader Chen, good morning.” The voice on the other end was icy, each word hard and metallic. “I hear you sent something through the anonymous channel last night?”

Chen Mo pressed into the sofa, cold sweat sliding down his spine, soaking his shirt and sticking to his skin.

“Deputy Mayor Zhou, I’d like to request a transfer...”

“Transfer?” The other chuckled coldly, the sound brief and sharp. In the background, a teacup clinked against wood, the ceramic strike uncomfortably loud. “You think the police unit is a market? Once you’re in my bureau, you want to leave?”

“Chen Mo, your daughter’s middle school interview is tomorrow, right? The city’s top spots...”

“Enough!” Chen Mo shouted, his voice tearing through the air, nearly dropping his phone. He stared at the SIM card separator on the table, suddenly ripping off the phone’s back cover, the plastic edge scraping his finger, leaving a faint sting.

He shoved the card marked “Police Use Only” into the device.

With a soft click, the chip fractured into eight shards, cracking like ice.

He looked out at the brightening sky, finally tearing off his uniform and tossing it to the floor—the second button clattered under the sofa like muffled thunder.

The corridor tiles on the seventh floor of the city bureau gleamed coldly, the soles of his shoes echoing hollowly. Song Zhao held the note slipped to him by a logistics clerk, his fingers repeatedly tracing the words “Leader Chen on sick leave,” the paper rough, the ink slightly raised.

He looked up toward the party committee meeting room at the end. Snatches of “public opinion control,” “cooperate with investigation” drifted out, muffled by the heavy wooden door.

Turning, his shoulder struck a fire hydrant, the dull pain making him squint—an old injury from the car accident, reminding him he was still an outsider.

The iron door of the old archive room creaked open, dust dancing in the sunbeam like countless tiny stars.

Song Zhao crouched before the third row of cabinets, fingers brushing a folder marked “2003 Development Zone,” its surface rough, edges curled, exuding the musty scent of aged paper.

When the “Land Dispute Mediation Record” appeared, his breath caught. The red-inked “Zhou Mingyuan (Deputy Director, Urban Construction Bureau)” stabbed at his eyes, with an annotation “fierce argument with Song Jianguo” underlined thrice, the ink already blurred like dark red blood.

“Dad.” He whispered, knuckles pressed to the yellowed page, the paper cool, its fibers scraping his skin. “So you met him long ago.”

In the ancient books section of Jiangcheng City Library, the air conditioning hummed softly, like a lurking bee.

Su Wan handed the request for “Digital Anomalies in Republican Land Records” to the director, her heart pounding like a drum, fingertips tingling.

She carried the iron case containing the isolation terminal into the special collection room, locking the door behind her. Her phone vibrated—a single, swift beat from Dong Lan’s encrypted message, as brief as a heartbeat.

When the terminal’s green progress bar reached ninety percent, she dared touch the keyboard. A faint electric shock jolted her as her fingers met the keys, making her heart flutter.

The raw dashcam frame rate data and log recovery traces unfolded on the screen. When the timestamp 23:47:16 overlapped, her pupils contracted—a police intranet WIFI icon flashed in the dashcam data, while “equipment malfunction” in the duty log had clearly been rewritten over correction fluid.

“Found it,” she murmured, fingers moving swiftly, keystrokes soft as falling snow.

As the embedded program ran at the PDF footer, the digital scan of the “Jiangcheng Water Chronicle” showed a line of minute code winding along the water diagram, like a stealthy snake.

When “Upload Complete” appeared, she shut down the terminal, locked the iron case away, and on her way out bumped into an intern entering: “Sister Su, the director wants you to unseal the new ‘Jiangcheng County Chronicle.’”

“I’ll be right there.” Su Wan replied, as she turned, her sleeve brushed the windowsill, and a copy of “Selected Poems of Su Shi” flipped open to “Jiang Chengzi”—the ink of “Ten years, life and death are dim and distant” was gilded by sunlight, the page stirring as though wind breathed from the lines.

The desk lamp in the rented room cast a warm yellow glow deep into the night. On Song Zhao’s computer screen, two sets of voice spectrograms overlapped like twin strands of DNA.

The waveform for “Permanent Exit” matched almost perfectly with the vocal features from Zhou Ziheng’s overseas video, the 94.1% match flashing in the corner like a flickering flame.

“Sister Dong, the evidence is hidden in the public archives,” he said into his phone. Outside, the rain grew heavier, drumming on the tin roof in dense rhythms. “Anyone who checks the intranet access logs will see someone remotely wiped the data that night.”

Paper rustled on the other end: “I’ve sent a technical analysis memo to the supervision team. No matter how deep Zhou Mingyuan’s connections run, he can’t cover up traces left in the police intranet.”

“Now,” Song Zhao gazed at the wall covered in clues, lightning illuminating a photo of Song Jianguo before 72 Yong’an Lane, “we wait for someone to speak.”

At three a.m., the rain suddenly intensified, pounding the tin roof like drums overhead.

Closing his laptop, Song Zhao heard faint footsteps outside—not the stride of a passerby below, but deliberate, light steps on the cement stairs, each one measured.

He stood and peered through the fogged window. The stairwell’s voice-activated light snapped on, revealing a figure in a black hooded sweatshirt, staring up at his window.

The fabric, soaked by rain, clung to his shoulders, shining coldly.

As lightning struck again, the figure vanished, leaving only a puddle on the ground, gleaming and reflecting shattered neon.