Chapter 75: The Witness Is Not on the List

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At 5:09 in the morning, at Surveillance Retrieval Point 7 of the West City auto repair shop.

Raindrops from last night still dripped from the metal eaves, and the rusted rolling shutter hung half-closed, like a corpse unwilling to shut its eyes.

Inside, only an old desktop computer hummed, the bluish glow from the monitor casting an altar-like pallor upon the wall, as if some secret ritual were unfolding there.

Song Zhao crouched before the machine, fingertips tapping lightly on the keyboard, his gaze fixed on the seven surveillance feeds split across the screen—footage from civilian cameras around the back alley of the municipal bureau. Their skewed angles and grainy quality made them seem like fragments pried from the fissures of the city’s memory.

“Seventh intersection, exit ramp of the ring road overpass,” Dong Lan’s voice came through the headset, calm to the point of cruelty. “He’s out of the car.”

On the screen, Xiao Liu appeared at the corner at precisely 3:18 a.m.

He wore that faded blue work jacket, his shoulders slumped, stride hurried yet deliberately avoiding the illuminated areas of the main road.

Instead of heading for the bureau’s rear entrance, he hugged the walls, circling around until he stopped at the fire escape.

The camera shook, then captured him bending down—a kraft paper bag quickly stuffed into a crack in the concrete of the storm drain.

Three minutes.

Only three minutes.

A black, unmarked van glided silently into view, its tires slicing through puddles, no brake lights flaring.

The window rolled halfway down. A hand clad in a black tactical glove reached out, probing the drain with precision, retrieving the paper bag.

The action was too practiced to be spontaneous; it was more like a ritual, rehearsed countless times.

Holding his breath, Song Zhao enlarged the frames one by one.

A flash of metal gleamed at the edge of the glove.

He pulled up a screenshot from Chapter 72, “Lamp Slave” Guard Training Video—a recording leaked from an underground fight club, documenting Lin Haoyu’s private security team’s daily drills.

The image froze on a guard mid-turn, a tactical watch clear on his left wrist: black face, orange second hand, faint scratches along the strap.

It matched the watch on the hand that had just taken the paper bag—identical in every detail.

“They’re not here to catch him…” Song Zhao murmured, his voice hoarse as sand scraping rusted iron. “They’re here for the package.”

Dong Lan paused. “So Xiao Liu already knew he was being watched. He didn’t run—he was passing something on.”

“He split the evidence in two,” Song Zhao stared at the screen, a flicker of gold sparking deep in his pupils. “One part hidden in ‘the Ice Wall,’ one left at ‘the Old Place.’ He knew the moment he showed himself, he’d be tracked, so he used this method… to get the information out.”

“The question is, where is ‘the Old Place’?” Dong Lan asked.

Song Zhao didn’t answer.

His fingers slowly massaged his temple, where a dull ache was brewing—a sign that the “Eye of Truth” was about to trigger.

But he forced it down.

Now was not the time.

He needed clear logic, not senses torn by the violence of retrospection.

He pulled up the last location log from Xiao Liu’s phone, then simulated routes using car GPS data, only to find the trail abruptly cut off on the eastern segment of the ring road.

As if someone had deliberately erased it.

“The data’s been wiped,” he said.

“But there are still traces in the cloud.” Another voice slipped into the headset—Su Wan.

He hadn’t noticed her joining the remote link, her tone as serene as incense in an ancient archive.

“I recovered a 30-second audio file, cached from his phone’s auto-backup.”

The audio played.

A low engine rumble, mingled with the rush of wind at speed.

Xiao Liu’s breaths were rapid, his words tumbling out in a near-incoherent rush:

“…I hid two copies. One at the Ice Wall, one at ‘the Old Place.’ If something happens to me, find Officer Song. Only he can see those… traces.”

A metallic clang cut the recording short—perhaps handcuffs on iron bars, or a car door slammed shut with force.

Su Wan spoke again: “Voice spectrum analysis complete. Recording time: 10:14 last night, location: near the third exit on the east ring road. I’ve marked all surveillance points at that stretch and am cross-referencing with the dashcam database.”

Song Zhao closed his eyes, a timeline assembling swiftly in his mind: recording at 10:14, appearance in the west city at 3:18—a gap of nearly five hours.

Where had Xiao Liu gone in that time?

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Who was controlling him?

And why was he allowed to appear alive on the outskirts of the bureau?

Suddenly, Song Zhao’s eyes snapped back to the surveillance feed, to the obscured license plate on the black van.

Not to hide their identity.

But to buy time.

To make them believe Xiao Liu was under control, thus diverting attention from the “second piece of evidence.”

“They’re putting on a show,” Song Zhao whispered. “Using Xiao Liu as bait—they’re waiting for my next move.”

9:41 a.m., Bureau Hearing Room Preparation.

Director Wang stood by the window, his back to the light, his silhouette heavy as a tombstone.

He clutched the USB drive Song Zhao had given him, knuckles white.

“Xiao Liu isn’t on the summons list,” he said, “and according to personnel files, he’s signed a voluntary resignation. He’s not a willing witness. In this situation, anything he says carries no legal weight.”

Song Zhao sat at the table, hands folded, expression nearly indifferent.

“I can provide the original samples,” he replied. “The complete retrieval of the hiding process, and surveillance of them swapping the samples—including the 0.8-second physical disturbance when the iodine bottle fell.”

Director Wang frowned. “Where are you ‘retrieving’ this from? That’s not part of the evidence protocol.”

Song Zhao didn’t answer. He simply dragged another video file onto the USB and slid it across.

“Check the surveillance and you’ll see,” he said. “If that 0.8 seconds of shaking was faked, then it means… you already had a replacement ready.”

Director Wang stared at him for a long moment, finally slipping the USB into his briefcase. His voice was low: “The hearing starts at eleven. You’d better pray these ‘evidences’ withstand scrutiny.”

After the door closed, Song Zhao slowly raised his head, gazing out the window.

Sunlight slanted across the bureau’s glass curtain wall, reflecting a blinding scar across the sky, sharp as a blade.

He pulled out his phone and opened the data packet Su Wan had just sent: fuel payment records, ETC toll logs, receipt for surveillance access from a gas station.

His finger paused on one record—

East ring road, nighttime refueling, cash payment, time: 10:07 last night.

Seven minutes later, the audio recording began.

He closed his phone and stood.

Wind swept in from the window, stirring the copy of the resignation letter on the desk, its pages turning like the whispers of the dead.

The abandoned “Jiangcheng Petro West Station” was a steel skeleton forsaken for years, half its rusted roof collapsed, shards of glass scattered across the oil-stained ground like congealed black blood.

Vines poked through the cracked pipelines, winding around idle fuel pumps, as if time itself had been strangled and suffocated here.

Song Zhao stood in the shadows, phone screen glowing—the fuel record and ETC log flickered at his touch.

10:07 last night, cash payment, location confirmed.

Seven minutes later, Xiao Liu recorded his last, testament-like message.

The timeline matched, the route closed, but this city never yielded its secrets easily.

He stepped into the station, eyes sweeping over the three defunct surveillance cameras, their lenses dust-caked, wires snipped at the roots.

This was no natural decay—it was a deliberate purge.

The locker area lay behind the ruins of the convenience store, twenty steel lockers lined up like gravestones.

Most were rusted shut; only the back of locker number seven bore a fresh scratch, slashed diagonally into the paint—left in haste by a key or a blade.

Song Zhao crouched, fingers brushing the mark.

In that instant, golden veins shimmered at the edge of his pupils, molten gold flowing.

—The scene blurred.

Under the yellow emergency lamp, Xiao Liu crouched at the locker, hands shaking so badly he could barely open the lock.

He shoved in a black USB drive, snapped the door shut.

The next second, his head jerked up, pupils shrinking, lips parting in a silent gasp.

Off camera, footsteps approached—measured, steady, the oppressive tap of leather shoes on concrete.

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“…Officer Song… only he can see…” In the vision, Xiao Liu’s lips mouthed the words, echoing the last message.

0.8 seconds later, the vision shattered.

Song Zhao yanked his hand away, head pounding as though struck by a hammer, gray mist clouding his vision.

He steadied himself against the wall, taking three breaths before pulling a crowbar from his kit.

The locker door sprang open with a metallic thud; inside, the USB drive lay silent, unmarked except for a faint fingerprint scratch.

He plugged it into his portable reader, screen lighting up: an unencrypted surveillance backup, timestamped 4:17 a.m., December 3, 2021.

On screen, in a sterile lab zone, a man in a white coat stood with his back to the camera, deftly snipping open the lead-sealed bag of toxic samples.

His movements were practiced, almost ritualistic.

The camera trembled slightly—captured by Xiao Liu’s hidden vent camera.

As the man turned, his mask slipped off one side.

Song Zhao’s pupils contracted sharply.

It was the deputy chief of evidence, Chen Mo’s trusted aide, Zhou Mingyuan’s “cleaner”—Cheng Yuan.

He pocketed the USB, the silence around him uncanny.

Wind whistled through the broken roof, a mournful note.

He knew this video was enough to tear open the first breach in the chain of evidence, but it was too clean—far too clean for something left by a fugitive.

Xiao Liu hadn’t merely hidden evidence.

He was orchestrating a plan.

And “the Old Place”… had yet to reveal itself.

13:07, on the return journey.

The car’s radio switched on by itself, a melody spilling out—electronic beats mingling with folk drums, the rhythm hauntingly familiar.

Song Zhao’s fingers froze.

It was the “Lantern Dance” tune.

Three months ago, he’d come across it in the “Lamp Slave” case files: an underground fight club code, where Lin Haoyu’s security system transmitted orders with “lantern signals”—red flashes for kill, green for retreat, and this tune was the prelude for the “clean-up protocol.”

Yet this car had never stored that song.

Suddenly, he realized—Xiao Liu’s “Old Place” wasn’t a physical location.

It was a coordinate in memory.

Three years ago, on the night of the “Toxin-047” case, he’d been on night duty, and while in the lab lounge, he’d heard this very melody.

Back then, Xiao Liu had walked in with coffee and joked, “This song’s from the demolition department’s annual party—creepy, but the higher-ups like it.”

That lounge had long since vanished in the old building’s demolition, reduced to dust.

But if “the Old Place” was a mnemonic anchor…

He wrenched the steering wheel, tires shrieking against the road.

Just then, at the intersection ahead, a pure white funeral coach glided past, a gold-embossed emblem on the tail—

“Lin Haoyu Charity Foundation · Passage Home Escort Service.”

The windows were blacked out; nothing could be seen within. But Song Zhao knew: it wasn’t transporting the dead.

It was “burying the living.”

There was no need to kill Xiao Liu.

All they had to do was have him “voluntarily” sign a psychiatric assessment, dispatch him “legally” to a closed sanatorium, and he would vanish from the world.

His knuckles whitened on the wheel, cold sweat trickling down his temple.

Some evidence, alive, is far more dangerous than dead.