Chapter 86: They Can't Even Be Bothered to Find Someone Else to Write the Pseudonyms

The red glow of the alarm slashed through Lin Shuyue’s vision, leaving behind fragmented shadows. The water management system of Jiangcheng, awakened like a slumbering beast, was ready to open its gaping maw and devour everything in its path.

Without a moment’s hesitation, she seized the phone, her voice cold as ice: “Connect me to the city emergency command center. Activate the Level One flood prevention protocol. This is Lin Shuyue, authorization code 9527. Also, cut all remote access permissions to the primary water stations and dispatch personnel for physical lockdown. Now!” There was a brief moment of stunned silence on the other end before urgent commands began to relay.

In the early hours, while Jiangcheng still slept, no one knew that a tidal wave capable of submerging half the city was racing against a cascade of time-critical orders.

5:12 a.m., Underground Data Recovery Room, City Archives.

The air here was thick and stagnant, amber-like, broken only by the low hum of server fans marking the passage of time. Su Wan was undistracted by the storm raging outside; her battlefield was this small screen before her.

Seven scanned “letters of voluntary resignation” lined up on the screen, each like a silent gravestone. She imported them into the pressure analysis module and called up the original stylus handwriting database assigned to the city police forty years ago for comparison.

Each signature on the screen was magnified to the pixel level—the angle of the stroke, the mid-turns, the final hesitations—all transformed into undulating, colorful peaks and valleys.

Her fingertips slid across the touchpad, precisely selecting the ending stroke of each signature. The data stream scrolled rapidly beneath, and in the end, the pressure peak readings for all signatures clustered astonishingly together in a narrow range.

She zoomed in again, scrutinizing the arcs at the turning points—perfect, mechanical fluidity, utterly unlike the minute tremors a human wrist would show under tension or fatigue.

“This wasn’t written by seven people,” she said to Song Zhao beside her, her voice carrying a cold, mocking edge. “It’s the same old typewriter, with handwritten touch-ups, template reused.” To verify, she switched to dynamic simulation mode.

A virtual handwriting trajectory appeared on screen, like an invisible hand writing in the air. It smoothly completed the first signature, then with only slight tweaks to ink density and a few trivial connecting points, generated the second, third… up to the seventh.

All seven signatures were essentially generated from the same motion path; the forger only adjusted ink and speed to create the illusion of individual differences.

Su Wan let out a cold chuckle, echoing sharply in the silent recovery room. “They couldn’t even be bothered to change handwriting for the fake.” It was an extreme arrogance—a certainty that the truth would never come to light.

9:34 a.m., Forensic Center Isolation Lab.

Amid the pungent scent of disinfectant, Tang Yurou received Lin Shuyue’s urgent encrypted message.

The note was brief: Wei Chengyuan admitted for “sudden dizziness,” currently in the special care ward at Central Hospital.

Tang Yurou’s gaze sharpened instantly. Citing “routine pre-op health assessment for personnel involved in the ‘Renxu Incident,’” and using Lin Shuyue’s just-obtained temporary authorization, she requested a full-brain CT scan and neural conduction test for Wei Chengyuan.

Two hours later, the scan results arrived, hand-delivered.

Tang Yurou donned sterile gloves, hanging each film on the viewer. The light penetrated the film, illuminating every gyrus of Wei Chengyuan’s brain.

Her eyes locked onto the temporal lobe, where an inconspicuous shadow revealed the classic signs of an old contusion.

She immediately retrieved Lu Chen Zhou’s autopsy report from years ago, flipping to the page on brain injury. The trauma site, shape, even the density of the scar tissue post-healing—all matched with astounding precision.

A chilling thought took shape in her mind.

She pulled up the health records for all known members of the “Rust Chain.” Amid the vast data, she found four others who, for various reasons in different years, had undergone brain scans. Without exception, each had abnormal records in similar locations.

She took a deep breath and wrote in red at the end of her report: “Traumatic neurodegenerative patterns show high homology—suspected physiological synchrony caused by prolonged high-pressure psychological control.” She encrypted and sent the data package to Lin Shuyue, adding her own conclusion: “This is not an organization, but a lesion.” A lesion, fueled by violence and fear, had been festering in Jiangcheng for over forty years.

11:07 a.m., Provincial Discipline Inspection Command Post.

The atmosphere in the meeting room was heavy; ashtrays brimmed with cigarette ends.

Lin Shuyue placed three printed reports in the center of the table: Su Wan’s handwriting analysis, Tang Yurou’s pathology, and her own preliminary report on Wei Chengyuan’s emergency flood discharge order—a suspected attempt to destroy the evidence chain.

She straightened her back and spoke, crisp and clear: “I request the immediate formation of a Special Tribunal for the ‘Renxu Incident.’” The leader at the head of the table frowned, tapping his fingers: “Comrade Lin Shuzhu, we understand your feelings. But these are historical issues, complex and far-reaching. It’s not wise to reopen them lightly.” Lin Shuyue made no rebuttal. Instead, she played an audio recording from her device.

It was thirty-seven seconds of chaotic static, like noise from a poor radio.

She opened the waveform analysis, pointing to the sharp peaks on the screen. “This isn’t static. Technicians extracted these frequencies from the rescue channel records of the time—these are the last recorded communications from the seven emergency team members. Trapped in the culvert, their radios failed. This is them, desperately pounding metal pipes with their tools, signaling for help. According to Article 22 of the Archives Law, no unit or individual may conceal, alter, or destroy archives. Any major public safety incident causing significant loss to the nation or society is subject to investigation, regardless of time elapsed.”

A dreadful silence fell; only the muffled tapping echoed, as if it had traveled from forty years in the past.

At last, someone broke the silence, their voice hoarse: “You’ve won.”

2:56 p.m., Abandoned Water Management Dispatch Station.

The air was thick with rust and dust.

Song Zhao, with young Lin in tow, returned to the entrance of the tunnel where his father, Song Zhigang, vanished years ago.

The concrete-sealed mouth was an ugly scar carved into the gray wall.

He pulled from his pocket a burned police badge replica, created with a 3D printer, and gently placed it into a crack in the concrete, as if completing a memorial four decades overdue.

Little Lin, who had been silent, suddenly pointed to a barely noticeable corner inside the wall. “Brother, there are numbers here.” Song Zhao leaned closer. Deep within the cement, before it had set, someone had carved a blurred string of numbers: “071977.”

They were the last four digits of his father’s badge, combined with his birth year.

Song Zhao closed his eyes, fingertips trembling as he touched the cold, rough concrete. In that instant, a chill surged through him, and the vision of the “Eye of Truth” exploded in his mind: torrential rain, a figure in an old-fashioned raincoat standing at the roaring gate control console, clutching a rain-soaked document, its header reading “Water Injection Order” in bold, alarming script.

From the radio on his chest, Wei Chengyuan’s youthful voice crackled in, cold and resolute: “Do it. Orders from above.”

Song Zhao snapped his eyes open, bloodshot. He quickly pulled out his notebook, sketching the scene that had flashed through his mind, but he told no one, not even Lin.

The truth was too monstrous, too elusive. He needed ironclad proof to anchor it in reality.

6:18 p.m., City Power Hub Monitoring Room.

Su Wan had already remotely accessed Jiangcheng’s highest-level main control system logs.

While Lin Shuyue’s team drew all of Wei Chengyuan’s group’s attention, Su Wan moved like a phantom, infiltrating the city’s neural core.

She swiftly tracked all of Wei Chengyuan’s recent activity. Soon, an encrypted program named “Gemini Project” caught her eye.

The logs showed that in the past seventy-two hours, Wei Chengyuan had attempted to access the program’s final detonation sequence three times, with the last scheduled password input set for 8:00 p.m. that night.

Su Wan’s heart sank. She immediately called Lin Shuyue’s emergency line: “They’re going to destroy the main control room! A large-scale explosion to wipe all operation logs, including the original data from forty years ago!” The alarm sounded once again, and everyone hurried to evacuate key equipment and records.

Amid the chaos, Song Zhao moved against the tide, staying alone in the soon-to-be-cleared control room.

He embedded the seven police badge replicas one by one into the cooling slots beneath the console. Then he activated a recording pen, hiding it in the most secret wiring channel. The pen played only a single phrase on loop, mimicking his father’s raspy, resolute voice from the archive: “Song, reporting for duty.” The control room lights went out one by one. Distant sirens drew nearer, deep and lingering, as if responding to a roll call forty years overdue, unheard by anyone.

Night deepened; Jiangcheng returned to a brief calm, but the undercurrents never ceased.

The establishment of the Special Tribunal hung like a sword over everyone’s heads.

In the darkest hour before dawn, Lin Shuyue’s phone vibrated—a message from Su Wan, encrypted and unexpected:

“Put the tribunal on hold. Lin and I have discovered something more intriguing. It’s hidden in a place no one would imagine—a terminus, and also a beginning.”