Episode 20: Beneath the Undertow

It was late at night. The lights inside the police station were bright, yet they seemed swallowed by some shadow, as if the air itself were thick with the smell of decay, closing in around the whole building.

Situ Hengyi sat at his desk and looked up at the clock on the wall, its second hand like a blade. He turned to the monitors, his expression cold, holding in his hand a photograph he had just obtained from Qin Lang, along with a case file retrieved from the archives.

Every page cut like an engraving knife across his heart.

As the case moved into deeper waters, the contract and voice recorder left behind by Song Yiyi had led to a case from many years ago — the Qiao Lingchuan case.

It was clearly not suicide, but murder…

In his earphones there was only a buzzing background of white noise.

He felt something strange — the monitor flickered at the corner of his eye. He did not know whether the Judge had already been watching his every move, or what truth he really held.

The camera he had just checked seemed to have restarted, its recording light flickering faintly. He looked up at it, and the red dot lit up. “Impossible… I locked off the signal with my own hands just now.”

Alarmed, he opened his notebook and checked the internal communications. Every system had been countered; remote surveillance was secretly running.

Situ Hengyi's brow furrowed. “Someone… is inside the station.”

His phone received a text message. He looked down and saw it was anonymous. He opened it, and a single line read: “You have found another breakthrough. If you keep going, you will meet death. Do you still want to continue?”

It was signed: the Judge.

He gripped the phone tightly, his expression resolute, and looked up toward the camera, as if speaking to it: “I will not give up!”

His thoughts went back to Su Yizhou's warning —

“If you investigate this case, you are not just fighting one murderer, you are fighting the whole system.”

And now the evidence told him plainly: “This trial is not only about the dark underbelly of the entertainment world, but also a chess game where the police, politics, and the forces behind the scenes are all intertwined.”

The Judge was challenging the entire system. He knew this trial was no longer about the entertainment world, but about the system that controlled the very root of evil. Situ Hengyi had been dragged into this darkness himself. He wanted to pry open a crack in the dark abyss, yet that also meant death —

The telephone rang, breaking the stillness. It showed an unstored internal number.

Situ Hengyi answered, and a low voice came through: “Situ Hengyi, do you think you are chasing the truth? In fact, you have already been put on the list. Your every move is under our control.”

The voice had been processed, run through a voice changer. It was clearly someone from inside the police, unwilling to let him remember the voice.

Situ Hengyi's fingers trembled slightly, but his voice stayed steady: “So you have been monitoring me all along? Then all the more reason I must find out who is pulling all the strings behind this.”

The voice grew dull and gave a cold laugh: “Sometimes the truth is a cruel reality. Do you still want to keep investigating?”

Situ Hengyi looked up at the camera, his face expressionless, his eyes sharp, and answered firmly: “The victims need justice!”

The other end of the line was silent for a few seconds, then came a cold laugh: “Be careful — not every internal line is your friend.”

The call ended, and another text appeared on the phone screen: “Your choice will be a journey of death. If you still want to continue, listen to Yu Mengge's last song, and you will find the answer.”

Signed: the Judge.

At that moment the phone screen went dark, and there were no further replies.

The atmosphere fell quiet again. He looked around. Tonight was his shift, yet the night felt endlessly long. He gazed out the window at the darkness, like a fog that hid the truth.

Situ Hengyi leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, countless faces flashing through his mind: “Colleagues, superiors, the chief… who can really be trusted? Everyone who comes near him could be a hidden pawn.”

Outside, the wind howled, as if in warning. It had begun to rain again. This season brought the most rain; a fine drizzle drifted down, the streets wet everywhere, leaving him inexplicably restless.

Situ Hengyi understood clearly: “This is no longer a journey to investigate Yu Mengge's case, but a life-and-death game of psychology and politics — he must find a way out between distrust and truth, or the next person to be marked could be himself.”

The rain was falling harder now, and there were fewer and fewer pedestrians on the street. He looked out the window at the noisy city, unable to calm his thoughts.

After work, Situ Hengyi leaned against his car smoking, his expression grave. It was the first time he had wanted a cigarette since quitting, to ease the pressure, but his hand was shaking, and after so long without smoking, it made him cough.

Qin Shaohua stood opposite him, his tone low: “Officer Situ, smoking is bad for your health. If you feel restless, why not have a coffee candy instead?”

He walked over, took the cigarette away, stubbed it out, and put a candy in his mouth, his expression calm, saying gently: “This is not a single incident. Qiao Lingchuan, Yu Mengge — they are all on the same line.”

Situ Hengyi turned to look at him, composed and calm, the candy in his mouth, and said coldly: “Who is at the end of the line?”

Qin Shaohua gazed at the street lamps in the rain, his eyes deep: “I would guess it is the one who started the ‘File-Burning Plan’ all those years ago.”

He held a candy in his mouth and went on: “According to the information I have obtained, Tianze Entertainment is not a talent agency, but a company involved in many projects — biological research, arms, money laundering, even murder… Many artists are listed under various headhunting firms, but those are really just shell companies, set up to divert the flow of money.”

He added: “In the early 1990s Tianze was not an entertainment company at all, but a chemical factory. After 2000 it became an entertainment company, and also an entry point into the capital grey network.”

Situ Hengyi perked up. He looked carefully at this usually refined barrister and asked suspiciously: “How did you get this information?”

“I have an informant,” Qin Shaohua said with a faint smile. “Investigating stiffly the way you do will never get results. Learn from your opponent, and you can get the answer.”

He added: “I had someone take out that master tape for restoration. It has been a long time, and the tape is a little damp, but it should be restored soon.”

Situ Hengyi looked at him questioningly and asked coldly: “Something so confidential — is your informant inside Tianze Entertainment?”

Qin Shaohua turned to look at him and smiled as if keeping a secret: “Now they are in the dark and we are in the light. We always have to change strategy and think from the other side's position. If you were the villain, how would you handle these things?”

Situ Hengyi's brow furrowed, and then understanding dawned: “Destroy the evidence. The ‘File-Burning Plan,’ codename HX-17, is about destroying all the evidence.”

“Exactly.” Qin Shaohua smiled slightly, a smile as sharp as a blade of ice. “And the date of Sun Chong's death — it was exactly the week HX-17 was first launched. Qiao Lingchuan was the plan's first person, and the artists who followed all died one after another.”

Lightning flashed, lighting up the two men's crossing shadows.

Situ Hengyi said in a low voice: “This time, we are not just investigating a case — we are digging up graves.”

Qin Shaohua went on: “Then let the dead speak.”

Three days later, following the address provided by Qin Lang, they found Sun Chong's home.

After a day on the road, with rain threatening again, the night was dark as ink, the rain fine and the clouds thick. Situ Hengyi and Qin Shaohua arrived at Sun Chong's residence. Since he had died nine years earlier, his wife had continued living in the apartment allocated to them in the courtyard — an old, dilapidated apartment building.

Sun Chong's wife was already old, her eyes unfocused, yet the moment she saw them show their credentials, her mouth trembled slightly, as if she had been waiting for this day for a long time.

“You… have come to ask about Qiao Lingchuan?”

She poured them two cups of tea, put on her reading glasses, and finally saw the two young men clearly. The old lady seemed especially serene as she slowly began: “After that happened, Old Sun was always full of regret. Ever since he died, I have been waiting for someone to come and uncover this case.”

Her voice was dry, yet it carried a strange calm. She turned and took out a long-dusty iron box, with Sun Chong's handwriting pasted on the bottom — ‘If anyone asks, give the truth to a person of justice.’

Qin Shaohua opened the box. Inside were several yellowed photographs and a sealed report. As Situ Hengyi opened the report, his brow instantly tightened —

“The body was incomplete: the left arm was missing, the skull was never found, the heart was suspected to have been removed, the intestines were exposed. Before death, he suffered extremely cruel torture.”

“Preliminary assessment: not suicide.”

“Note: traces of unknown chemical agents were found at the scene, suspected to be connected to an internal research project at Tianze Entertainment.”

Qin Shaohua spat out coldly: “A research project? What would an entertainment company be researching?”

Sun Chong's wife smiled, a smile carrying both tears and chill: “They are not in entertainment. They are playing a deadly game.”

She handed them a letter — a handwritten manuscript Sun Chong had left before his death. The scrawled writing on the paper recorded his final confession —

“I saw Qiao Lingchuan's body. That was no ordinary death. Someone wanted to erase the evidence that he had ever existed.”

“Before he died, he seemed to hold evidence that a senior figure had taken bribes. There is someone in Tianze who should never have walked among the living.”

Situ Hengyi's fingertips paused, and outside the rain came the echo of a police siren.

Qin Shaohua closed the letter and said gravely: “So… Qiao Lingchuan was not the first, and Yu Mengge will not be the last.”

Sun Chong's wife nodded lightly, her eyes brimming with tears: “The day he left, he said one thing to me — truth does not die, but it waits for someone to wake it.”

Situ looked up, his expression heavy, and at that moment thunder rolled, like an echo travelling from nine years ago.

The rain grew heavier, and the street lamps flickered in the mist. Qin Shaohua drove, while Situ Hengyi sat in the passenger seat, the two of them silently turning over the materials Sun Chong had left. The handwriting on the autopsy report was old, yet it carried a sense of oppression — as if the paper itself remembered fear.

Qin Shaohua said in a low voice: “I checked Sun Chong's death record. Officially it says he died of a sudden heart attack, but the surveillance from that day has vanished entirely.”

Situ Hengyi's brow tightened: “Vanished?”

“Yes —” Qin Shaohua's gaze was cold and grave. “The entire forensic centre's backup servers were formatted. The only fragment left is footage from the three minutes before he collapsed.”

He handed over the tablet. The footage showed corridor surveillance — a man in white standing before Sun Chong, his back slim, wearing a mask, holding a black file bag in his hand. The image flickered, strong ripples of interference appeared, and when it returned, Sun Chong was already lying on the ground.

Situ Hengyi stared at the figure's back in the video, and his heart suddenly sank:

“This movement — is it like putting something down?”

“No, it is retrieving something.” Qin Shaohua's tone was low and cold. “I enlarged those frames. The file bag is printed with a logo — the Tianze Entertainment logo.”

The two men looked at each other, and the car fell into an eerie silence, as if the other side had already been laying plans in advance. They had found the right target, so the other side was getting anxious.

Situ Hengyi's hand gripped the steering wheel tightly, and he said in a low voice: “They are not just suppressing the news… they are destroying evidence.”

Qin Shaohua did not blink, giving a cold laugh: “Destroying evidence, killing people, buying off forensic doctors, controlling the media — even the police are being manipulated. Tianze Entertainment is like a giant net. I suspect — someone around us is tipping them off.”

Outside the car, thunder and lightning lit up the cold severity and shadow on his profile for an instant, looking exceptionally cold, and foretelling that the journey ahead of them would be very difficult.

Situ Hengyi was silent for a long time, and finally asked: “Who do you suspect?”

Qin Shaohua looked at him, his eyes meaningful. “If it is a mole, he will know we went to Sun Chong's home today, and before dawn there will be movement.”

At that very moment, Situ Hengyi's phone vibrated.

The caller ID showed: Qian Musheng.

— That gossip blogger, the person who had reported Song Yiyi's fatal fall.

The moment the call connected, all he could hear was the other person's hurried breathing and faint trembling voice: “Officer Situ… someone is looking for me… I think the next one might be —”

Before the words were finished, violent sounds of collision and shattering glass came from the other end.

The signal was cut off instantly.

Qin Shaohua looked up, his gaze like a blade: “They have made their move.”

Situ Hengyi's eyes were resolute as he said in a low voice: “This time, we move one step ahead of them.”

Meanwhile, on the other side, the entertainment world calmly carried on with its own game.

The senior management inside Tianze Entertainment were also in a panic. The public's disgust, blame, curses, and mockery toward the entertainment world… netizens flooded the screens online in turn, forcing all the programmes originally scheduled to be broadcast to be cancelled, and a change of strategy became necessary, while the rumours online only grew wilder. He Yuchuan simply could not control the situation.

After Xia Zilan finished a set of publicity stills and posted them online, they drew great enthusiasm from netizens. Bai Yujing took the opportunity to arrange a fan meeting for him, to build momentum for his next drama, deliberately having him dress simply, so that fans would feel a sense of closeness.

She discussed it with the producer. This fashion suspense drama was still about two months away from filming, and the script needed revising; roles could not be added at random, nor could the established characters be changed at will. Xia Zilan, meanwhile, suggested going to the police station to intern for a while, so that he could better shape the character in the drama.

Bai Yujing opposed his doing that, and they began to argue.

Xia Zilan took hold of her wrist and pleaded: “Sister Bai, will you agree?”

Bai Yujing waved her hand and said sternly: “You are a public figure, not a street punk!”

Xia Zilan rolled his eyes and said coquettishly: “You go and talk to Officer Situ about it.”

Bai Yujing looked at his innocent expression and could not help laughing and crying at the same time: “The police station is not a place you can just hang around.”

At that moment Tian Sirong came over, interrupting their conversation. In a blue suit, she looked dazzling, and deliberately lowered her voice: “Xia Zilan, why didn't you come to the dinner I invited you to last time?”

Xia Zilan turned his head away, looking into the distance, and said with disgust: “I have no time, I need to rush to my schedule!”

Bai Yujing turned to look at her, her face stern and her tone unfriendly, and said: “Sister Rong, Zilan is my artist. He is not a commodity!”

Tian Sirong reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear and smiled: “I just want to make a friend!”

Bai Yujing stepped forward, glanced at the time, and said with a cold laugh: “He is a trending star, and you are an expired star. We have no fate together.”

Tian Sirong's expression tightened, and she put away her smile: “Bai Yujing, I used to be a first-line actress too!”

Bai Yujing glanced at her and said with a cold laugh: “I have never even seen your work.”

Bai Yujing also understood that this Tian Sirong was certainly no kind soul. She deliberately approached popular stars, so that the capital behind her could turn them into a ‘commodity.’ She had set a rule: her artists never signed with any talent agency.

“Stop arguing, all of you,” Jiang Yanzhou had heard their argument from afar, and he came out to smooth things over. “Sister Rong, what are you doing at Tianze when you have nothing to do?”

Tian Sirong smiled, feigning gentleness: “I came to see President He, to talk about cooperation on the next drama.” She tossed her hair. “I am a financier!”

Jiang Yanzhou leaned close to her ear and murmured: “Song Yiyi is dead. You had better restrain yourself. Don't let your soul drift away the moment you see a handsome man. He is not right for you.”

Tian Sirong's expression tightened, and she forced a smile: “All right, I have things to do!”

Before she had finished speaking, she hurried away.

Jiang Yanzhou turned to look at Bai Yujing, her face serious, and glanced at the clock on the wall, smiling lightly: “Junior sister, you are still as aggressive as ever.” He turned to look at Xia Zilan and said elegantly: “Your suggestion is a good one. Why don't I arrange it for you?”

Xia Zilan refused: “No need. I will solve it myself.”

Jiang Yanzhou gripped his phone tightly and said gravely: “He certainly has the presence of a superstar!”

Bai Yujing looked at his affected manner and said coldly: “Mr. Jiang, you need not trouble yourself!”

She lowered her head to look at the watch on her wrist. It was time to interact with the fans, so she pulled Xia Zilan away with her.

Jiang Yanzhou kept his smile, raised his wrist to check the time — there were still fifteen minutes before the appointed time — and elegantly flicked the cigarette ash from his shoulder, saying coldly: “Sooner or later you will come begging me.”

After they had all dispersed, Gu Moyan slowly walked out. He had been hiding in a corner all along, listening to their entire conversation. He watched their disappearing backs with cold eyes, reached out to look at a leaf in his palm, and let it drift down to the ground, his expression cold.