Chapter 57: Before the Salute

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At 4:07 a.m., the air inside the safe house was as dense as solid matter.

Song Zhao slipped off his coat and sat down at the table. The police badge, lost for twenty years, lay quietly on a swath of black velvet.

It was cold, aged, its corners worn by time, yet the national emblem at its center remained sharp, like an unblinking eye.

He put on gloves as thin as cicada wings, and each approach of his fingertips felt like nearing the epicenter of a thunderstorm that had gathered strength for twenty years.

When his fingertip finally brushed the frigid metal, the anticipated current didn’t come. Instead, a violent explosion burst from within his skull.

Agony, like a red-hot steel needle, pierced his temple in an instant. The world before his eyes twisted, shattered, then reassembled into a searing crimson blaze.

This time, he was no longer a bystander behind Old Zhang, but was dragged into the deepest recesses of memory—to a moment he had forgotten, his father’s final hour.

“Reversal upon reversal”… activated.

The winter night of 1998: a biting wind sliced through West Street.

At number 37, outside an abandoned old building, his father, Song Jianguo, stood in the crisp police uniform he always remembered—yet in the wind, his figure seemed frail.

He clutched a manila folder tightly. Opposite him, two tall men in black blocked his way, their faces lost in shadow.

“Song Jianguo, Secretary Zhou wants you to walk away. Don’t be unwise,” one of them rasped, his voice like sandpaper scraping rusty iron.

Song Zhao saw his father shake his head—slow, yet resolute.

“I have the evidence. You can’t burn it,” he said, his voice low but ringing clear above the howling wind, each word carrying weight.

The next moment, violence descended.

His father was roughly dragged by the two men, stumbling as they forced him into the building.

The stench of gasoline quickly filled the air. Flames erupted, lighting the night sky a hopeless orange.

The blaze devoured everything, and Song Zhao felt the searing sting on his own skin—the pain his father endured, crossing twenty years and branding his nerves.

Within the inferno, his father didn’t scream, didn’t struggle; he drew himself into a tight ball, shielding the badge against his chest, using his body and flesh to protect it from the flames.

His lips moved faintly in the midst of agony, making no sound, yet Song Zhao could clearly “hear” the two words—

Hold on.

Song Zhao’s eyes flew open. His chest heaved, breath coming in harsh gasps, as if he had just surfaced from deep water.

The safe house was still quiet, the world outside still shrouded in night, but hot tears traced silent tracks down his cheeks.

Finally, he understood.

His father hadn’t died in an accidental fire, nor through negligence.

He had knowingly walked into the tiger’s den.

He hadn’t gone to die—he had gone to fulfill an oath, to keep alive the last spark for the evidence he could not deliver.

At 11:56 a.m., inside the technical support van parked in a hidden garage, the mood was grave and efficient.

Su Wan’s fingers flew over the keyboard. Using Song Zhao’s account of the memory, along with the original fire investigation diagrams and structural models, she recreated the tragedy at West Street No. 37 on screen.

In the 3D simulation, a red dot representing Song Jianguo traced a path: he hadn’t been passively dragged into the heart of the fire, but once inside, he moved toward the supporting pillar—the building’s strongest point, least likely to collapse first.

“He wasn’t trying to escape,” Su Wan murmured, awe and respect shining in her eyes, “He was trying to buy himself time.”

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“That’s right.” Beside her, Dong Lan pulled up a long-buried fire report from the city archives, pointing to a line of data, her voice low and grave. “The report shows that while the blaze’s core temperature was high, it didn’t reach lethal levels immediately. Based on his position and the fabric of his uniform, it’s highly likely he survived at least ten minutes in the fire before losing consciousness.”

Ten minutes. Ten minutes in a burning hell, long enough to turn a man’s will to ash.

The air inside the van seemed to freeze.

Song Zhao stared at the lonely red dot on the screen, his heart gripped by an invisible hand.

What was he trying to do?

What did he hope to leave behind?

“He wanted to leave testimony…” Dong Lan’s voice trembled, “He thought someone would come, that firefighters would hear his words… But he didn’t know the dispatch record for that fire was delayed by fifteen minutes. No one heard him.”

Song Zhao was silent for a long time. Then he looked up, all confusion gone from his eyes, replaced by cold resolve.

He imported Su Wan’s reconstructed footage into an editing program, deleting all sound, keeping only the close-up of his father curled around the badge, and the two words lip-read by an expert.

He slowed the video to its lowest speed—the silent lip movement, illuminated by fire, was stark and heavy.

He named the file: “Silent Testimony.”

At 3:14 p.m., in the city bureau’s internal affairs office.

A black, unmarked USB drive sat on Li Guodong’s desk—a freshly received anonymous delivery from the front desk.

Plugged in, it contained several heavily encrypted files.

With the help of a technician, he opened them one by one: dashcam footage from the days before Zhao Zhenbang’s disappearance, photos of returned whistleblower letters, and a scan… identical in handwriting to the original statement from the fire twenty years ago.

Li Guodong’s breath stopped.

He nearly leapt to his feet, grabbing the office phone. “Get me an emergency warrant for a raid on ‘Mingyuan Property’ in the west district! Reason—suspected illegal possession and modification of government surveillance equipment!”

It was the perfect entry point—enough to bypass cumbersome procedures and strike at the heart.

Half an hour later, the operation was approved.

A dozen internal affairs officers assembled downstairs.

Before leaving, Li Guodong dialed Song Zhao’s encrypted number.

It connected after a single ring.

“We received it,” Li Guodong said succinctly. “Don’t change the press conference schedule. Don’t delete that video. Every one of us in uniform owes him a salute.”

At 6:22 p.m., in Zhao Zhenbang’s home.

Mrs. Zhao was on the verge of collapse.

Her husband had been missing for over twenty-four hours, and after reporting it, no news had come.

Desperately, she searched every corner of the house, looking for any clue.

At last, hidden in a compartment of the master bedroom closet, she found a hard folder.

Inside was a transcript she couldn’t understand—but she recognized the name “Song Jianguo.”

It was the evidence her husband had secretly backed up for years, the kind that could cost him his life.

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She didn’t know what it all meant, but she knew what her husband’s disappearance meant.

She grabbed the folder, wrapped it in a cloth bag, and rushed out—determined to take it to the police.

But as soon as she turned out of the residential complex, she caught sight of a black sedan tailing her in the rearview mirror.

A wave of panic seized her heart.

She wrenched the steering wheel, swerving into a side street and parking at the curb, then darted in a panic into a 24-hour convenience store.

“Ma’am? Are you okay? You’re so pale.” The young store clerk recognized her—she was a teacher at the nearby school and an occasional customer.

Mrs. Zhao’s lips trembled, unable to speak. She clutched the cloth bag to her chest, eyes wide with terror as she stared at the black sedan idling outside.

The clerk understood at once.

He said nothing, but slipped behind the register, quietly pulling out his phone and dialing 110 in a hushed voice: “Hello, I need to report something. Someone’s being followed. It’s dangerous…”

Ten minutes later, two plainclothes officers, disguised as food delivery riders, entered the store. One approached Mrs. Zhao and said quietly, “Mrs. Zhao, Captain Li sent us. Give us the item. You’re safe now.”

A tense relay unfolded quietly in the dusk of the city.

At 9:03 p.m., in the safe house.

Song Zhao’s phone lit up with a message from Li Guodong: “Evidence is in the vault. The press conference is on as scheduled. Tomorrow, let everyone see who really started the fire twenty years ago.”

Song Zhao exhaled slowly, opened his laptop, and queued “Silent Testimony” as the first video to play at the press conference.

Everything was ready, awaiting dawn.

“Are you afraid?” Su Wan approached, carrying a cup of hot water, her voice gentle.

Her eyes were full of concern and worry.

Song Zhao took the cup and shook his head.

The warmth in his palm soothed his tangled thoughts.

He looked out the window. The night rain had stopped without his noticing. A waning moon peeked from behind the clouds, its cool light spilling in, landing on the police badge.

The metal gleamed softly, resolutely, like a flag-raising ceremony twenty years too late.

“What I fear isn’t them denying it in public, or even using dirtier tricks against me,” Song Zhao said quietly, his voice crystalline, “What I fear is that twenty years on, people have truly forgotten what he died for.”

He turned his gaze back to the badge.

Just then, a strange sensation washed over him.

The badge resting on the table seemed to hum faintly in his perception.

It wasn’t a physical movement, but a resonance on the spiritual level—a call deeper and more direct than any memory before.

He had a strong premonition: before sunrise, he would return again to that moment.

But this time, it would not be an echo of the past—it would be an invitation toward the future, a choice both cold and searing.