Volume One: First Scroll
Betrayal
Betraying your ideals and me.
The man’s voice, originally gentle and clear, emerged from the voice changer deep, hoarse, and unsettling enough to raise goosebumps.
“First mission: get the USB drive with the audio file. Oh, right, remember not to tell anyone.”
“I know you’re a police captain with vast resources, but…” He paused, his voice dropping to a low whisper, the end of his sentence curling upwards.
“If you call the police, you’ll never see your lovely family again.”
Song Yuhang stood in the corridor outside the restroom, gasping for breath, her eyes burning with a rage so intense it felt like they would split.
“What the hell do you want?”
“Nothing much,” the man sighed theatrically. “I just want to play a little game with Captain Song.”
“So that we won’t be disturbed, I want you to walk ten steps forward. There’s a green trash can in the corridor. Throw your phone in it. I’ll contact you again after you’ve retrieved the USB drive.”
“Oh, and one more thing.” The man glanced at his watch. “You have less than half an hour. After that, I’ll start the electrocution again.”
“I’m also very curious just how many shocks such a small child can withstand. Did I forget to mention? The voltage will gradually increase.”
“Of course, you can choose not to play. It’s just that such a cute child will have her household registration canceled1. Tsk tsk, what a pity.”
Song Yuhang exploded with fury. “You stop it!!!”
Hearing her roar and heavy panting, the man hung up the phone with a sense of glee and signaled for the driver to start the car.
A cold, empty wind swept through the airport. Not far from where she stood, a green trash can sat silently.
Song Yuhang felt as if she were trapped in a transparent glass dome, with nowhere to hide. The surveillance cameras overhead, the CCTV in the corridor—they were all like pairs of pitch-black, vicious eyes, watching her every move.
She was shocked, terrified, and afraid. She stood frozen, her hand trembling as she clutched her phone. Her usually calm eyes were filled with panic.
For countless moments, she wanted to call the Municipal Bureau for help, to let the whole team pitch in and search. There was strength in numbers.
For countless moments, she wanted to turn back and find Lin Yan, to tell her she was being threatened.
But the kidnapper had said: “Anyone.”
Anyone.
Her throat bobbed as she forced herself to swallow this bitter pill alone.
She couldn’t gamble with the lives of Xiao Wei and Ji Jingxing.
And her mother. The thought made her heart, already suspended by a thread, clench even tighter.
Having disappeared with Xiao Wei, she had more than likely met with a terrible fate.
Just then, a child somewhere in the airport began to wail. The piercing cry stabbed through her eardrums and straight into her heart.
Song Yuhang hesitated no longer. Wiping the corners of her eyes with her sleeve, she strode forward, quickly typed a line of text, and hit send before tossing her phone into the trash can.
As she ran through the airport’s central hall, she glanced back at where they had been sitting. It was empty.
The boarding announcement had already played. They must have left, she thought. A stone dropped in her stomach, yet it was followed by a strange sense of relief. Her eyes, however, grew moist.
Lin Yan, I’m sorry.
She repeated the words in her mind as she ran straight for the parking lot.
Three minutes before boarding.
Song Yuhang still hadn’t shown up. Lin Yan knew something was wrong.
“You all go. Someone will be there to pick you up. I’ve already arranged a local guide2.”
Duan Cheng kept looking back. “Lin-jie…”
Lin Yan’s voice was a sharp hiss. “Scram! That’s an order!”
Without another word, she turned and disappeared into the surging crowd.
The three of them lined up for the security check.
“Sir, your ID, please.”
“Sir? Sir?” the staff member called out several times. Duan Cheng numbly pulled his ID from his wallet.
Just as the security officer reached for it, he snapped out of his daze, snatching it back. He looked back at his two companions, who nodded in return, the same determined glint in their eyes.
He shoved his backpack into the officer’s hands and bolted. “Sorry about this! Just hold onto my stuff for a bit!”
Lin Yan had searched the coffee shop and knocked on every stall in the women’s restroom, but she found nothing.
She opened her phone. A single sentence glowed on the screen: I’m sorry.
It was signed, Song Yuhang.
Lin Yan bit her lower lip so hard it hurt, her eyes stinging. Sorry? Sorry my ass!
She spun around and slammed her fist into the wall, startling the passersby.
Fang Xin ran over, out of breath. “Lin… Lin-jie, Old Zheng… Old Zheng said he can check the surveillance footage.”
A cold smirk touched Lin Yan’s lips. “No need to waste the effort. Grab your police IDs and head straight for the airport’s central control room.”
“Police.”
Lin Yan said the word “police,” but her actions were those of a full-blown gangster. She kicked the door open and shoved her police ID right into the face of an airport employee. When he didn’t move, she roughly pushed him aside.
The others behind her flashed their own IDs to back her up, their faces stern and righteous, their hearts pounding in their chests.
“Jiangcheng Municipal Public Security Bureau, Criminal Investigation Detachment. Official business. Move aside, we need to review the surveillance footage.”
The junior manager Lin Yan had shoved aside scrambled back up, trying to get a closer look at their credentials.
They all had police ID numbers and ranks on them.
Duan Cheng coughed heavily, and the group simultaneously pulled their IDs back.
Lin Yan, at the front, walked straight to the large monitor. Seeing that the operator hadn’t moved, she grabbed him by the back of his collar and hauled him to his feet.
A man standing 1.7 meters tall was tossed aside like a chick.
“Old Zheng, your turn.”
Zheng Chengrui nodded, sat down, and began rewinding the footage.
The control room staff exchanged glances, scared silent.
No one could figure out who these people were. After all, they’d invoked the name of the Municipal Public Security Bureau. The woman leading them was incredibly skilled and had a striking appearance, radiating a genuinely chilling aura. For a moment, no one dared to stop them.
Duan Cheng leaned on the back of his chair and whispered, “Old Zheng, hurry up. You guys all have real IDs, but mine is fake. If security gets here, we won’t be able to escape even if we had wings.”
A thin sheen of sweat broke out on Zheng Chengrui’s forehead as his fingers flew across the keyboard, reviewing the footage frame by frame.
A woman in a black jacket ran out of the restroom corridor.
“Stop,” Lin Yan called out. The image froze on the exact moment she threw her phone away.
The video quality was poor, and her expression was unclear, but just from that single action, Lin Yan sensed something was terribly wrong.
Alarm bells screamed in her head. “Check the parking lot cameras.”
Sure enough, the feed switched to the parking lot. A white Audi was slowly pulling out.
“F#ck,” Lin Yan spat, turning to leave while dialing a number.
“Hello? Is Song Yuhang back at the villa?”
Just as Song Yuhang retrieved the item from the safe and dashed downstairs, she ran right into Lin Yan’s bodyguards at the entrance.
Their eyes met.
Lin Yan’s voice was a snarl. “Stop her!”
Fists and feet flew at her. Song Yuhang dodged, grabbed one man by the collar, and threw him into the flowerbed.
The other bodyguards on duty saw the fight break out and swarmed forward.
She had seen most of these men around, which was why they hadn’t stopped her when she first entered.
Song Yuhang’s eyes were bloodshot. “Sorry about this,” she muttered.
She kicked away a man blocking her path, sprinted to her car, and threw open the door.
A bodyguard lunged, clawing at the car window. Her eyes crimson, she slammed her foot on the accelerator and shot away.
The car took a sharp turn on the mountain road, and the bodyguard tumbled onto the roadside.
Song Yuhang glanced back. The Green Mountain Villa was receding further and further into the distance.
Listening to the sounds of the fight and the screech of tires on the other end, Lin Yan nearly ground her teeth to dust.
“F#ck it, chase them!”
The moment they ran out, patrol officers wielding electric batons began to surround them from a distance.
On any other day, being questioned would be a minor inconvenience; with Lin Yan’s background, there was nothing she couldn’t handle.
But now, of all times, she couldn’t afford to waste a single minute.
Her group exchanged a look.
Lin Yan barked, “Run!”
The four of them scattered in different directions, melting into the crowd.
“Stop! Don’t run!” security guards yelled in hot pursuit.
One of the men in uniform, panting as he ran, leaned on his knees and wiped the sweat from his brow. His eyes were sharp. He felt that woman looked incredibly familiar.
Wasn’t that Lin Yan, the forensic examiner from the Jiangcheng Municipal Public Security Bureau?
He pulled out his phone and made a call straight to the bureau.
When Feng Jianguo received the report, he was drinking tea and reading the newspaper. He sprayed a mouthful of tea all over his desk.
“What?!”
Everything was in f#cking chaos.
“Master, this is bad.” Butler Lin hurried into the bedroom and whispered a few words in his ear.
“The men we sent out last time are also dead. Their bodies have been found.”
Lin Youyuan’s pupils contracted. He set down his bowl of medicine and began to cough violently. “Stop… stop her! Don’t… don’t let her go!”
As an outsider—or rather, as the one who had set up the board—he maintained a sufficient level of clarity and rationality. He was not as easily provoked as Lin Yan, not one to let a rush of blood to the head make him act recklessly.
The moment he heard the news, he knew, almost instinctively, who this scheme was targeting.
“Yes, I understand. I’ll make the arrangements now.”
The butler hurried out.
Lin Youyuan rubbed his temples, his mind racing. Could it be that another power has gotten involved?
Who?
Or… could it be that he has really returned?
The old man wheeled his chair to the bedside, fumbled under the pillow for his phone, and dialed a familiar number.
“Miss.” The driver had just opened the car door when Lin Yan yanked him out, got in herself, and picked up the three who came sprinting toward her at the next intersection. She wrenched the steering wheel, pulling off the airport ramp.
Lin Yan glanced back. Police sirens wailed in pursuit. She gritted her teeth. “You didn’t show your faces, did you?”
The three in the back had obediently worn masks and hats.
Duan Cheng shook his head. “Lin-jie, where are we going to find Captain Song now?”
Lin Yan floored it on the highway, driving the sports car like a race car. She weaved through the congested traffic, putting a significant distance between them and the police.
She didn’t look back, her expression grim. “I’ll drop you off somewhere after we get off the highway. Go home to your families.”
Song Yuhang drove down the mountain, a file folder on the passenger seat beside her. It was what she had taken from Lin Yan’s house—the culmination of all their hard work on the case.
She glanced at it, forced her gaze away, then checked her watch. A minute had passed since the agreed-upon time. She slammed a fist on the steering wheel, her breath coming in ragged gasps.
A mother and daughter were crossing at the crosswalk ahead. She pulled over to the side of the road. Her open window was next to a public payphone on the sidewalk.
A shrill ring cut through the air, like a summons from death itself. But this was the suburbs, vast and sparsely populated.
Besides her car and the mother and daughter who had just passed, the road was empty.
Song Yuhang stared at the public phone booth, her eyes threaded with blood. She threw her door open, ran over, and snatched the receiver.
“Hello?” Her voice was a desperate gasp, filled with a hatred so intense she wanted to tear the kidnapper limb from limb.
“First, congratulations on completing the first stage. However, you were a minute late, so I still have to punish her.”
“Why don’t you guess who gets it this time? The big one, or the little one, or…”
He paused, his tone laden with meaning.
Song Yuhang gripped the receiver, roaring, “Don’t touch my mother! Don’t touch them! If you want something, come at me! Come at me!”
The man laughed. “Don’t be so hasty, Captain Song. It’ll be your turn soon enough.”
“Alright, let’s head to the next location. I’ll only say this once. If you’re late, their lives are forfeit.”
After exiting the airport expressway, Lin Yan raced through a yellow light just as it turned red, ducking into a side road. She twisted and turned through the overpasses, successfully shaking her pursuers.
Screech! The tires shrieked against the asphalt.
She threw open the car doors. “Go!”
The three of them didn’t move an inch.
Duan Cheng looked at her slowly, his lips parting. “Lin-jie…”
Lin Yan tightened her grip on the steering wheel and looked back at them. “This has nothing to do with you. Don’t ask anything. The less you know, the better.”
“But—” the others protested.
Lin Yan turned her face forward again, staring straight ahead.
“You saw them. The ones chasing me aren’t just the police. There are other, unknown forces at play.”
“Get out of the car. It’s for your own good.”
Zheng Chengrui pushed up his glasses, remaining relatively calm. The pursuers hadn’t caught up yet, so they had a moment to talk.
“But if we leave, how will you find Captain Song by yourself? There’s strength in numbers.”
“I have my ways.” Lin Yan took a deep breath, urging them on. “Hurry up. If you don’t go now, the police will catch up. If you get mixed up with me, are you willing to throw away your careers?”
Duan Cheng’s face was a mask of confusion. “I don’t know if what you’re doing is right or wrong, Lin-jie, but I feel like I should be on your side.”
“You’re not just my superior; you’re my friend.”
The word “friend” was such a luxury.
In her life, Lin Yan could count the number of people she considered “friends” on one hand.
A smile curved her lips before her expression hardened again.
She thought this was just Duan Cheng’s idea and was about to persuade him again when she looked back and saw pairs of eyes, all staring at her with the same resolve.
In that instant, the loneliness from being abandoned by Song Yuhang, the grief from her lover’s betrayal, and even the gnawing anxiety—all of it was soothed.
It was as if an invisible force was pouring into her body.
Her entire being felt revitalized.
“If we’re friends, then get out of the car.”
She said it coldly and tossed a communicator to them.
Duan Cheng froze. When he saw the device land in his lap, he smiled, pushed open the door, and got out.
The group stood on the roadside, watching her white car drive off into the distance. They randomly picked an empty restaurant and went inside.
Not long after they sat down, police cars went screaming past.
Following not too far behind were several other cars of various models, all with local license plates. Duan Cheng picked up a mantou3 from the plate and took a bite.
It seemed Lin-jie was right.
She really was being targeted by multiple factions.
“She’s… she’s already passed out. Should we stop?” The small child’s head lolled to the side in the electric shock chair.
A masked man asked the question.
Standing beside him with his hands clasped behind his back, a man in a black suit remained expressionless, as if he were merely a messenger.
“The boss said to keep going as long as she hasn’t arrived.”
Another, heavier-set thug swallowed hard. “If this goes on, she’s going to die.”
Only then did the man in the black suit lazily raise his eyes, his tone still a flat monotone. “You’re wanted fugitives now. Even if you do nothing, the police won’t let you go. After this is over, the boss will send you abroad and give you fifty thousand US dollars. You’ll be free to roam the world, never having to fear the police again.”
In a jungle somewhere on the border.
Kuba4 hurried down from a wooden house to report the news to an old man sunbathing in the courtyard.
The old man enjoyed his tea. A demure-looking Asian girl, no older than ten, stood beside him, preparing it for him.
He waved his hand, dismissing her.
As the girl, who was barefoot, bowed, the shocking marks of a brutal beating were visible on the back of her neck.
Kuba approached him. “Should we send someone to stop him? This is too much like beating the grass and startling the snake5.”
Having spent so much time with Chinese people, he had picked up their proverbs.
The old man smiled, fanning himself with a cattail fan6, his expression serene.
“No need. Let him be. If he doesn’t even have this much capability, then he’s not worthy…”
He lifted the freshly brewed tea and took a sip, leaving the rest of his sentence unsaid, which was more thought-provoking.
A colorful parrot perched on the old man’s shoulder, mimicking him. “Not worthy… not worthy… not worthy…”
Kuba retreated.
The old man opened his palm, which held some feed, and gently stroked the parrot’s soft feathers.
“Good boy, eat.”
The traffic worsened after she entered the city.
Lin Yan was forced into a city rally race with her pursuers.
The white sports car weaved through narrow alleys. The side-view mirror was knocked askew. The wheels ran over a washboard someone had left on the roadside, sending a basin of water flying and earning her a stream of curses.
“F#ck your mother! Do you even know how to drive?!”
The words had barely left the woman’s mouth when several black cars squeezed into the alley, knocking over the cages outside a pet shop and sending chickens and dogs scattering in a panic.
Even in this tense moment, Lin Yan didn’t forget to think.
Why did Song Yuhang take the USB drive?
She knew her character. She must have been forced.
But…
She remembered what the mysterious person from the provincial capital had told her.
“Song Yuhang can be trusted, but not completely. Don’t forget whose student she is. You’ve faced danger time and time again, and the evidence you submitted to the Provincial Department has vanished without a trace. How can you be so sure it wasn’t someone close to you?”
“You are black, she is white. You can’t guarantee that one day, she won’t abandon you for her so-called justice.”
Lin Yan bit her lower lip until it bled, a fire raging in her chest that threatened to burn her sanity to ash.
A moment’s distraction, and a wall loomed ahead. It was too late to brake.
Lin Yan crashed head-on. Her head buzzed as the airbag deployed.
CRASH! The windshield shattered, and a shard of glass grazed her cheek, leaving a bloody cut.
A shower of bricks and tiles rained down, caving in half the car’s roof.
Lin Yan gritted her teeth, yanked the steering wheel to the right, and floored it. Sparks flew as the tires scraped the ground, and she burst out of the rubble.
Seeing a police car pull out to block her path, she gunned the engine, slammed the accelerator, and executed a perfect drift onto the main road.
The black car behind her wasn’t so lucky. It chased her out and smashed head-on into the police car.
Both vehicles were moving at high speed. With a deafening BANG!, the black car spun out, hit the sidewalk, and flipped over, black smoke billowing from it.
The crowd scattered, screaming in terror.
The police car was thrown against a decorative tree, its trunk, as thick as a bowl, snapping on impact. The engine died completely.
The driver slumped over the steering wheel as a stream of gasoline trickled from the tank, its pungent smell filling the air.
The sound of an ambulance siren rose from the bustling street.
Lin Yan glanced back, a cold sweat breaking out on her forehead. Zheng Chengrui’s voice came through her earpiece.
“Lin-jie, I found her. Captain Song is driving toward Yeling Mountain7, north of the city.”
After shaking their pursuers, the group had hidden in Zheng Chengrui’s house. The curtains were drawn, and Duan Cheng was standing watch at the door.
Zheng Chengrui typed on his keyboard while Fang Xin watched the monitor with him.
Lin Yan got on the highway leading out of the city.
“Alright, I got it.”
She closed her eyes and pressed her lips together. “Do one more thing for me. I can’t trust anyone else to do it.”
She gave him Song Yuhang’s home address.
Zheng Chengrui packed his laptop into a bag and left with the others.
The car pulled up downstairs from the Song residence.
Just as they were about to go up, Fang Xin pulled them back, her brow furrowing at the footprints in the thin layer of snow.
“What’s wrong?”
“A struggle happened here.” She stepped carefully on the ice, walking in a circle.
“One person’s footprints, two, three, four…”
Identifying footprints was a basic skill for trace evidence analysis8.
Fang Xin crouched down, touched the ground, and took a photo with her phone.
“These are a woman’s footprints. There are heavy drag marks, from here all the way to there.”
They followed her finger. Two distinct tire tracks were clearly visible.
It was a good thing it had snowed last night.
When the photo reached Lin Yan, she recognized the footprints in an instant.
When they passed each other in the hallway that morning, she had noticed Ji Jingxing was wearing a pair of thick-soled leather boots.
That brand was a huge hit this year. Of course, she had a pair too.
Lin Yan pressed her fingers to her temples, pinching the fair skin until it turned red with frustration.
It was just as she had suspected.
Screech She pulled over on the highway and let out a heavy breath.
“Stop chasing Song Yuhang. I refuse to believe it. How can three living people be abducted in a city as big as Jiangcheng without a single witness?!”
“Old Zheng, change the direction of the investigation. Find out where that group went.”
Duan Cheng nodded. “I’ll go door to door and ask.”
Fang Xin added, “I’ll go too.”
Zheng Chengrui dove into his own car. Having worked for a long time, he was the only one in the group who owned one.
He immediately opened his laptop and began typing furiously.
“Lin-jie, I can’t use my internal network account. I don’t know how long I can stay hacked in. I’ll be as quick as I can. Also, do you have photos of them? Send them to me so Duan Cheng and the others can start looking.”
Lin Yan picked up her phone, intending to check Song Yuhang’s social media for a photo, but her eyes immediately landed on the picture she had posted that day.
“I will forever be loyal to my ideals and you.”
A heat rushed to her eyes, and tears almost fell.
F#ck you, you liar. You big liar.
Don’t you know that by doing this today, you’ve betrayed both your ideals and me?
Lin Yan felt a long, ragged tear rip open in her heart. A cold wind howled through it, making her feel as if she’d been plunged into an ice cavern, every organ aching.
“Lin-jie? Lin-jie?” Zheng Chengrui’s anxious voice called to her.
Lin Yan wiped away the moisture in her eyes and scrolled down Song Yuhang’s feed, but there was nothing else.
That was her first post, and her only one.
Lin Yan propped her forehead up with her hand, sniffled, and forced her tears back. For a moment, she wanted to hurl the phone out the window.
But in the end, she only gripped it tighter, clenching her jaw. She quickly composed herself and sat up straight.
“No, I don’t have any.”
“What are their names? I’ll try to pull up their information,” Zheng Chengrui asked.
Lin Yan gave them to him, then reached for the cigarette case on the dashboard. Her hand trembled as she lit one up.
Her car was severely damaged. The fierce winter wind whipped through the shattered windshield, quickly turning her hand pale and extinguishing the cigarette several times.
She took a harsh drag, the ember glowing in the twilight.
She was forcing herself to be calm.
This was the first time the technical investigation team was handling a case without Song Yuhang.
If she lost her composure, the kids following her would only fall into disarray.
That USB drive held the lives of Guo Xiaoguang and his mother, maybe even Chunan’s.
She had to protect it, no matter what.
Song Yuhang was carrying the weight of three lives from her own family. She had to protect them, no matter what.
But what if it came down to choosing the lesser of two evils?
What would Song Yuhang choose?
She should know, Lin Yan thought, that taking that USB drive is a death sentence for me. It would steal away all my hope for living and bury the “Fenyang Pier Dismemberment Case” forever, never to see the light of day again.
Lin Yan’s fists were clenched so tightly her nails dug into her palms. She bit her lip until she tasted blood.
Song Yuhang, what… what will you choose?
“Not bad, Officer Song. You’re quite punctual.”
As instructed, Song Yuhang found a phone in a waterproof bag inside the toilet tank of a gas station restroom on the highway. It had only one number saved. She dialed it.
The man’s voice was laced with a smile, yet hoarse. “Alright, let’s begin the next game. See you at the Yeling Mountain Tunnel.”
“What the hell do you want?!” Song Yuhang’s eyes were red. In just a few short hours, she had become a haggard shadow of her former self. Her hair was a messy pile on her forehead from all the running.
“Didn’t I tell you? I want what you have on you.”
“Then let’s trade in person. Let me see them,” Song Yuhang answered, her voice raw.
“Oh? Agreeing so readily?”
She forced herself to calm down and started walking out. “Nothing is more important than my family’s lives.”
The man chuckled, as if he had already seen through her intentions.
“Don’t even think about stalling for time, or using that phone to call for help. The signal receiver for it is on my end. I get an alert whether you make a call or send a text. You make one call, send one text, and I’ll kill one person. Hahaha…”
His demented laughter echoed through the receiver.
Seized by a fit of rage, Song Yuhang felt a stabbing pain in her gut. She gritted her teeth, forcing the words out one by one.
“You dare touch a single hair on their heads, and I will absolutely not give you a thing!”
The man, now back in his own home, poured a glass of red wine and cleared his throat.
“That’s fine. You can destroy it. That would be even better for me. It’s just…”
He looked at the image of the exquisitely carved face of the small child on his screen and licked his lips.
“Such a little child, having to suffer so much. Even my heart aches for her.”
LP: Re-translated on June 27, 2025
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