Chapter 31: Hidden Accounts and Floating Papers

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At five in the morning, the city library’s digital center was awash in cold, white light. Su Wan’s fingers drummed a rapid rhythm on the keyboard. On the surveillance screen, the system’s backend log wound across the display like a crimson serpent, flicking its tongue—after the query for “Lin’s Umbrella Shop,” came a batch export request for seven files, including “Yongan Orphanage Ledger” and “West Street Cadastral Map,” with a timestamp accurate to 3:17:02.

She swallowed, feeling the fine hairs at the nape of her neck rise. The USB drive that Teacher Shen had slipped into her pocket on his deathbed three months ago was burning against her leg; only now did she finally understand why the “Shadow Track Program” inside it had been disguised as an automatic archival tool.

Her finger hovered above the “Confirm” key for two seconds, and suddenly she recalled what Teacher Shen once said as he taught her to restore ancient texts: “True protection is letting the hidden things remember their way home by themselves.”

The moment she pressed Enter, the hum of the server room’s air conditioner surged. Su Wan stared at the server’s indicator lights, watching as the once-stable green dots began to flash at a furious rate—a signal that the invisible watermark had been successfully embedded.

She pulled out a pen and jotted “LJ-097 triggered” on a sticky note, the tip breaking through the paper just as she heard the rumble of a janitor’s cart in the hallway.

“Purging the archives?” she murmured to the empty air, her voice torn to pieces by the echo in the server room. “Then let every page become a needle that can speak.”

At nine in the morning, in a shipping container at the abandoned wharf, Song Zhao pressed his knuckles against the projection screen.

Photos of three account books had been sliced into grids by Dong Lan’s analysis software. On the backs of two, a pale gray stain seeped through, resembling old tea marks left by warm water.

“Reverse ink seepage,” Dong Lan explained in the video, pushing up her glasses. The white lab coat of the provincial tech department glowed with a greenish hue under the cold light. “The acid-free paper used in the 1998 development zone had a high fiber density; ink would only seep through on the front. This kind of imprinting technique… you’d need a heat press above eighty degrees.”

Song Zhao unconsciously rubbed the rust on the table, next to the character “Bureau” he’d carved with a knife that morning. “They left fake records on purpose,” he said suddenly, his voice rough as if sanded down. “If we take this to the authorities, the prosecutor’s office will reject it as ‘illegally sourced evidence’—and we’ll be accused of forgery.”

On the projection screen, the red seal of the “Lin Foundation” on the account book’s title page shimmered. Dong Lan’s mouse hovered over the record for “March 15, 2003—Demolition Compensation.” “What’s even more clever is that three genuine transactions are mixed in with the fake ones—just enough to prove partial compliance. Once we expose it, they’ll claim it was ‘clerical error’ and pin the blame on the low-level accountants.”

Song Zhao’s molars ached from clenching. Three months ago, when he’d been rammed into the ICU, the bedside monitor had shown someone in a lab coat pulling out his IV; last week, digging through old files at the evidence center, he found that the vital photos in the supposedly sealed 2001 forced demolition case had been replaced with photocopies.

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All the clues were weaving a net, and only now did he see it—the center of the net wasn’t to silence, but to lure.

“Thanks.” He shut off the projection. His phone buzzed in his palm—a location from Su Wan: “Secret compartment on the third shelf in the old house’s study. Found something.”

At noon, sunlight slashed golden scars across Song Zhao’s face as it filtered through the cracked window of the old house.

He crouched before a bag of police gear that had belonged to his father; the scent of leather mixed with mold filled his nose. He’d rifled through this very bag at thirteen, finding only half a box of spent shells and a family photo.

Now, at the very bottom of the bag, an aged library card lay nestled among the shells.

October 23, 1998. Borrower: “Song Jianguo.” Item borrowed: “Jiangcheng Cadastral Register of the Republic (Volume Three).” Handler’s signature: “Shen Lanxin,” the ink so thick it looked ready to drip.

With the phone pressed to his ear, Song Zhao heard his own heartbeat drown out the dial tone. “Su Wan, your advisor was involved in this case thirty years ago.” He stared at an old photo of his father in uniform, the man’s gaze as sharp as when he’d investigated the scene all those years ago.

He heard the rustle of paper on the other end. “Teacher Shen’s index book is here,” Su Wan’s breathing suddenly deepened. “LJ-097… marked as ‘Property anomaly—Umbrella Ribs.’ Note says, ‘The umbrella is not a physical object, the ribs form the account chain, three lines return to the gate, fire cannot destroy.’”

Song Zhao’s fingers dug into the brickwork of the windowsill, grit biting into his skin.

Umbrella ribs—he remembered Dong Lan’s words that morning: “reverse seepage.” He recalled Su Wan mentioning the “Shadow Track Program,” and Lin Acheng’s Morse code tapped out on the cruise ship the night before.

So all the clues were umbrella ribs—holding up the umbrella that covered the sky.

“Song Zhao?” Su Wan’s voice quivered. “Are the umbrella ribs what they call the ‘account chain’?”

“Yes.” He stared at the police badge pinned on his father’s chest in the photo. “And this umbrella cannot be burned.”

At four in the afternoon, in the foundation’s underground archive, the roar of the shredder sounded like a trapped beast.

Lin Acheng stood before the surveillance screen, watching his men feed stacks of documents into the machine. The way the pages were ground into strips reminded him of those property deeds crushed beneath bulldozers at demolition sites twenty years ago.

“Stop.” He raised his hand suddenly, the cuff of his black suit revealing a glimpse of gold watch.

His subordinates hesitated, the shredder’s drone cutting off abruptly.

Lin Acheng pulled the bottommost reimbursement slip from the pile. “LJ-097 title change completed” gleamed coldly under the lamp.

“Keep an original,” he said, lifting the sheet with the tip of his pen. “Send it to the bonded warehouse.”

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His subordinate hesitated, wanting to speak. “But Mr. Lin, the higher-ups said everything must be—”

“They’ll only feel safe investigating if they think we’ve destroyed it.” Lin Acheng tapped the shredder with his knuckles, the metallic sound like a coded signal. “When those two cops are running around the world with fake ledgers… the ones stepping into the trap will be them.”

He turned and dialed a number, his voice gentle. “Tell Deputy Mayor Zhou the prey has bitten. The Paper Purge… can begin.”

At seven in the evening, the river wind was thick with moisture. Song Zhao’s police jacket lay draped across Su Wan’s shoulders.

She stared at the appraisal report he handed her. The word “Forgery” was circled three times in red, twin flames ready to ignite.

“They want us to use the fake ledgers as leverage.” Song Zhao kicked a stone, sending up a splash that startled a night heron into flight. “But there’s a real clue hidden in the fake—acid-free paper from 1998.”

Suddenly, Su Wan rummaged through her bag. From a hidden pocket, she withdrew a scan of a brass plaque, its patterns shining blue beneath the streetlight. “In Teacher Shen’s ‘Southern Branch Line Decoding Table,’ the ‘Three Houses, Seven Lines’ correspond to the land title inheritance key.” Her finger traced the pattern on the scan. “The real ledger… isn’t on paper. It’s at the place where the umbrella ribs were first created.”

Song Zhao gazed at the light in her eyes, suddenly recalling that stormy night twenty years ago, when he’d carried a little girl out of a traffickers’ den.

Back then she’d cowered in a corner, the camellia-shaped scar on her nape glowing green under the flashlight. That scar must have faded by now, but as he watched the wind lift the hair at the back of Su Wan’s neck, he was suddenly sure—it was her.

“The old archives office at the Bureau of Urban Construction.” Su Wan looked up, her eyes sharp as quenched steel. “The original registry of the 1998 acid-free paper should still be there.”

The night wind lifted her sleeve, revealing the tip of a fountain pen.

The words “Shen School Calligraphy” engraved on the cap matched, down to the last mark, the evidence pen in the Chen Dehai case.

Just then, Song Zhao’s phone vibrated. The screen lit up—it was a location from Dong Lan: “Old Archives Office, Urban Construction Bureau. Opens at 6:30 a.m. tomorrow.”

Across the river, all the neon lights went out at once. In the darkness, Su Wan’s brass plaque flashed—a star yet to fall.