In the hotel room, Jiang Hansheng sat in rigid silence, the fingers of his right hand trembling faintly, unable for the moment to pull himself free from the fog clouding his mind.

Bai Yang from the Major Crimes Unit’s technical division sat hugging his laptop, half-hiding in the corner with barely concealed anxiety.

The night before, Bai Yang had been wrestling with the Heng Yun Logistics case when Zhou Jin called. She told him that a significant breakthrough had emerged on the Huaisha end — the evidence wasn’t yet secured, and she needed him to come over and provide technical support.

After hearing her out, Bai Yang had joked: “That’s off-the-books work, isn’t it?”

Zhou Jin said: “Can you help me?”

He had never heard Zhou Jin ask him anything in quite that tone before. Sensing this was no small matter, he immediately dropped the lightness from his expression and answered: “Say the word. I’ll do it.”

What the discovery actually was, Zhou Jin hadn’t gone into over the phone — but Bai Yang had always trusted her without question, so he didn’t press for details. He packed up his gear and flew straight to Huaisha.

Disheveled and hollow-eyed with exhaustion, he arrived at the hotel, knocked on the door, and found only Jiang Hansheng inside.

Following Zhou Jin’s prior instructions, Bai Yang relayed her message: “Zhou Jin sent me to help. She said to follow your lead on everything.”

He stepped into the room and, out of curiosity, pressed on: “So what’s this big discovery? Have you found the Old Scorpion?”

Then he saw the color drain from Jiang Hansheng’s face in an instant — the man went completely still, as though every drop of blood in his body had frozen solid.

Back when they had worked together in the Major Crimes Unit, Bai Yang had never once seen Jiang Hansheng’s emotions surface with any visible force. He seemed constitutionally calm and composed — able to maintain his bearing before others, never once losing his composure.

Watching someone like that suddenly go still and cold sent a genuine chill through Bai Yang.

Jiang Hansheng had been silent for three or four minutes now.

Every last trace of sleepiness had left him. Countless thoughts wound through each other in his mind — and because there was too much to consider, his thinking ground to a halt entirely.

What he kept coming back to was how affectionate Zhou Jin had been yesterday. Affectionate to the point of being unusual — almost as though she was genuinely afraid something might happen to him, watching him the whole time, holding onto him.

He should have noticed.

How could he have missed it?

He knew, better than anyone, exactly what kind of person Zhou Jin was.

The first time he had spoken to her about the hidden dangers lurking behind the “8·17” case, she had said: “I know what dangers I’ll be facing. But the greater the danger, the greater the opportunity.”

Even later, when Qi Yan had called to taunt her — when the threat of death had its hands around her throat — Zhou Jin’s first instinct had not been fear. It had not been retreat.

She had stepped forward and put her arms around him, saying quietly: “No matter who comes looking for trouble, I promise I won’t let them hurt you.”

Zhou Jin had never placed herself in the role of victim, waiting for someone else to come to her rescue. For as long as she could remember, she had always hoped to be, like her parents and her brother, someone who stood guard over others.

Should he be angry right now?

Angry that Zhou Jin always had to push forward with such reckless bravery? That she always acted on her own judgment? That she never gave a thought to her own safety, never spared a thought for the worry she caused everyone around her, always throwing herself to the front of whatever danger awaited?

But why should he be angry?

There had been a time when she, without weighing any balance of power, had shoved aside the woman who was hurting him — had pulled him out of the abyss without a second thought…

The same as always: the same pure, unflinching courage. The same steady, unwavering tenderness.

Zhou Jin knew that Qi Yan posed a threat to Jiang Hansheng — a threat to everyone around him. If there was no retreating, no avoiding it, then Zhou Jin would rather be the next one in the line of fire.

Not only for her brother Zhou Chuan’s case. But for Jiang Hansheng.

For the Jiang Hansheng who had thrown himself in front of a runaway vehicle at Kuang Mountain, nearly plunging over the cliff. For the Jiang Hansheng who, five years ago, had put himself in harm’s way and fought for his life for six grueling days on the edge of death. For the Jiang Hansheng she loved…

Jiang Hansheng wrapped his hand around his own trembling right hand to still it. This was not the time for self-reproach and regret. He had to stay calm.

The moment he laid eyes on Bai Yang, Jiang Hansheng understood — Zhou Jin must have caught wind of some lead connected to Qi Yan. What exactly, he couldn’t yet piece together.

Bai Yang watched Jiang Hansheng sit there without a word. He hesitated for a moment, then slid the basket of steamed soup dumplings and the cup of soy milk on the table a little closer toward him.

“Professor Jiang — Zhou Jin also asked me to bring you breakfast.”

Jiang Hansheng looked back at the food on the table. He thought of Zhou Jin’s eyes, the way they so often carried the hint of a smile, and the corner of his mouth pressed into a faint, quiet curve.

Even on the brink of doing something dangerous, she had still found it in herself to think about whether he had eaten.

How could anyone be like her?

The simmering, near-boiling turmoil in his chest went suddenly cold. Jiang Hansheng handed Bai Yang his phone, his voice quiet and edged with something sharp.

“Get to work.”

On the computer screen, the map zoomed in square by square, a red coordinate point pulsing faintly.

Two other detectives from the Major Crimes Unit were driving slowly in circles near Zhou Jin’s location, guided by Bai Yang’s positioning data.

They didn’t dare get too close.

Whoever they were dealing with had a sharp instinct for counter-surveillance. If anything seemed off, they would disappear without a trace — and everything would be undone.

Jiang Hansheng reached out to the precinct handling the investigation into Wang Pengzhe’s assault, and talked them into holding a portion of their officers in reserve as backup.

He did everything he could do from where he stood. After that, all that remained was to wait.

The road ahead of their plan was a stretch of the unknown — unknown dangers, unknown outcomes.

Unknown, but still present. Still coming, no matter what.

Waiting, in one way or another, has a way of wearing on a person.

Bai Yang stared at the computer screen without letting his attention slip for even a moment.

Right now, they didn’t have sufficient evidence to directly mobilize Huaisha’s police forces. It was possible that in the end, it would all come to nothing — that the fish would never take the bait.

The minutes ticked by one after another. Word came from the two Major Crimes colleagues tailing Zhou Jin: she had gotten into a car with a man on the side of the street, and the two of them appeared to know each other.

Bai Yang watched the red dot on the screen begin to move. “Stay on them. Don’t ride too close.”

The two detectives followed the vehicle Zhou Jin was in. Twice during the pursuit, they nearly lost their target — but with Bai Yang feeding them real-time coordinates, they managed to hold on.

Getting onto the ring road meant passing through a tunnel. Not far past the exit, traffic officers were set up at the roadside running drunk-driving checks, and they flagged down the detectives’ vehicle.

The two men were impatient. At first they simply flashed their credentials, explained they were in the middle of an operation, and asked not to be delayed.

The traffic officer took one look at the out-of-province Haizhou police badges and, out of a sense of professional responsibility, refused to wave them through without going through proper procedure.

Back and forth they argued — which only wasted more time.

They stopped bickering and got out of the car to submit to the breathalyzer test as required, and once they were cleared, they jumped back in and floored it.

En route, they checked in with Bai Yang once more to confirm Zhou Jin’s position. Hearing she was just ahead on the ring road, both men exhaled with relief.

A short time later, the detective behind the wheel slowly brought the car to a stop.

“Why are you stopping?”

“Traffic.”

“…”

Ahead of them, a long queue of vehicles stretched out without end, gridlocked and going nowhere. Horns blared in a loud, ragged chorus along the road — impatient, insistent.

Bai Yang pulled up the real-time traffic conditions for Huaisha and saw that a stretch of the ring road had already turned red on the map — right near where Zhou Jin was located.

Jiang Hansheng sensed something was wrong. He tried calling Zhou Jin while at the same time telling Bai Yang to contact the Huaisha traffic authority and find out what was happening.

The traffic authority’s response: according to reports called in by the public, there had been a car accident on the ring road. Emergency services and police units were already on their way.

Bai Yang was startled. “A car accident?”

At that very moment, the phone rang — the Major Crimes colleague up ahead, his voice unmistakably unsteady: “There’s been a crash — it looks like… like it’s the car Zhou Jin got into…”

Bai Yang’s mind went blank for an instant. He pulled up the tracking screen again — and found that Zhou Jin’s signal was still moving, and moving quickly.

Out of his daze, a thread of confusion surfaced. He heard himself ask: “What’s going on?”

An ambulance, perhaps?

But Zhou Jin’s direction was clearly away from the city. If she were being taken to a hospital, this was absolutely not the right route.

The alarm bells in Bai Yang’s head were deafening. He pressed his earpiece and shouted: “Don’t stop — keep following!”

“Copy!”

He snapped to high alert. Had the fish taken the bait?

But if so — wasn’t this far too easy? Bai Yang didn’t dare commit to any judgment at this moment. He turned to look at Jiang Hansheng behind him, a plea for direction in his eyes.

Jiang Hansheng’s face was dark and composed, his voice extraordinarily calm. “Go to the hotel manager and requisition a vehicle.”

He wanted to go himself? Bai Yang glanced down at his leg. “But your injury—”

“It’s fine.”

Bai Yang didn’t waste another word. He sprinted for the stairs.

Jiang Hansheng fixed his gaze on the red dot on the screen. His eyes were very dark — cold all the way through, with nothing warm in them at all.

Police cars with red and blue lights flashing streamed out one after another, tearing through the streets.

The wail of sirens stretched long and continuous, screaming in the ears like an unbroken thread — until, all at once, it was cut through by the sound of a piano.

The dull ache that had been pressed dormant in her chest suddenly burst open. Zhou Jin jolted into a violent cough and woke to the sound of piano music.

Everywhere around her was black. Pitch black. Darkness with no bottom.

Her hands were bound behind her back to the chair. She struggled a few times. It was no use.

Zhou Jin looked around. She couldn’t see a thing — only the sound of a beautiful piano melody drifting in from somewhere ahead.

Sometime while she was unconscious, her jacket had been taken from her. Her dress was a vivid scarlet — the only point of color in all that darkness.

Her legs, her knees, her arms — scraped raw all over. The wound on her forehead had stopped bleeding, but it throbbed with a persistent, dull sting.

Where was this?

Who was playing the piano?

The piece was not beautiful, not bright, not stirring. On the contrary — the music was gentle and unhurried, flowing like water, its notes pressing down on the chest in a continuous, unrelenting weight that grew heavier with every bar.

Zhou Jin knew nothing about music theory, but she felt within it a sorrow that bordered on despair.

Faintly, she could make out a hazy shape in the dim light ahead.

On the road, Jiang Hansheng drove at speed, cutting through the city streets on the route Bai Yang directed — weaving sharply, overtaking car after car.

Bai Yang clutched his laptop and fought back the nausea of motion sickness, calling out locations without pause.

Zhou Jin’s position kept shifting — out through the city’s outskirts, one full loop of the ring road, and back into the urban center. After more than two hours of winding and circling, the coordinate point finally came to rest inside a high-end apartment complex in Huaisha.

Bai Yang led the way. They took the elevator straight up to the eleventh floor. Due to the limitations of the tracking equipment, pinpointing the exact unit was difficult.

Meanwhile, the Major Crimes detectives and a small contingent of uniformed officers had already arrived as backup.

Bai Yang urged caution. “They may be armed. We should wait for support.”

Jiang Hansheng’s face had gone completely pale. He scanned the surrounding hallway with cold, controlled focus.

From the moment Zhou Jin’s signal stopped here, unease had been building quietly in him — because he knew this place. He knew it well. When he had worked at the provincial department, he had lived in this very apartment building.

Bai Yang noticed the muscles across his shoulders and back go visibly taut. “Professor Jiang… are you alright?”

Jiang Hansheng moved off without a word toward the right side of the corridor.

Bai Yang panicked. “Professor Jiang, wait—!”

In the next instant, he watched Jiang Hansheng reach out and push open a door. It wasn’t locked. From inside came the sound of a piano.

Bai Yang followed him in.

The living room was empty. Gray. The light inside was dim and cold, and a fine layer of dust had settled over everything.

Directly facing the entrance, there was a glass table. On it sat a very small toy bear, cradling a small, elegantly wrapped gift box in its arms.

The toy bear was charming enough — but inside this empty, hollowed-out apartment, its charm became the most unsettling thing in the room.

Bai Yang looked at the toy bear’s black eyes. His heart was hammering its way up into his throat.

Jiang Hansheng seemed to sense something before he even reached it. He walked over, picked up the gift box, and opened it —

A ring, smeared with blood. And a small photograph — a young woman, smiling brilliantly at the camera.

Without warning, the toy bear let out a sharp, distorted sound.

“Surprise!”

The right hand holding the gift box began to shake violently. Intense pain and overwhelming terror twisted together and tore through Jiang Hansheng in a single instant, shattering him from within.

In this hollow, emptied apartment, he seemed to catch a smell — fetid, metallic, suffocating — identical to the smell that had filled that abandoned warehouse five years ago.

Suffocating. Nauseating.