A Sharp Edge Emerges From The Mist Chapter 10

Safe House

An old residential area, four in the morning.

The darkness in the room was not absolute. The streetlights from the distant overpass filtered through the sheer curtains, casting a thin, dusty glow that barely outlined the furniture in the living room. The air held a faint scent of aged camphor mixed with the subtle smell of dust and the lingering, warm fragrance of the person sleeping on the sofa.

Lin Jianfeng did not turn on the overhead lights, opting instead for an old desk lamp beside the sofa, dimmed to its lowest warm yellow setting. The light pooled like a small circle of lukewarm honey, illuminating a corner of the sofa and softening Shen Qingwu’s pale profile.

She seemed to be sleeping more deeply now; her breathing had grown long and steady, and her furrowed brow had relaxed slightly. Occasionally, she would flinch unconsciously in her sleep, as if still being pursued by some invisible cold or fear.

Lin Jianfeng sat in the armchair nearby, maintaining a posture somewhere between rest and vigilance. She wasn’t sleeping, merely closing her eyes to rest her mind while her ears caught every minute sound inside and outside the room—the occasional passing car in the distance, the faint rush of water in the pipes upstairs, the friction of wind blowing through dry branches. This was an instinct carved into her bones by years of criminal investigation work.

The kettle in the kitchen emitted a low hum; the water was boiling. Lin Jianfeng stood up, her movements light and slow, and mixed a cup of warm honey water. She walked back to the sofa and crouched down, hesitating whether to wake her.

Just then, Shen Qingwu’s eyelashes fluttered a few times before she slowly opened her eyes.

At first, her gaze was vacant, carrying the confusion and weakness of someone just emerging from the effects of a drug. She stared blankly at the ceiling before slowly turning her gaze to see Lin Jianfeng crouching beside her. Her pupils contracted slightly, and it seemed to take a few seconds for her to connect the person before her with her memories.

“…Officer Lin?” Her voice was incredibly hoarse, like sandpaper rubbing together.

“Mhm.” Lin Jianfeng handed over the honey water. “Drink some water; it’ll make you feel better.”

Shen Qingwu tried to prop herself up, but her arms were weak and lacked strength. Lin Jianfeng naturally reached out to support her back, helping her sit up and bringing the cup to her lips.

The warm, sweet water slid down her dry throat. Shen Qingwu took small sips, and a bit of color returned to her pale face. She took the cup, holding it herself, and lowered her eyelashes, her gaze falling on the steam rising from the rim.

“Where is this?” she asked, her voice still low and raspy.

“My parents’ old house. It’s safe,” Lin Jianfeng said succinctly, without much explanation. “How do you feel? Do you need to go to the hospital?”

Shen Qingwu shook her head slightly. “No need… the drug should have worn off by now.” She paused, looking up at Lin Jianfeng. The lamplight cast two small clusters of faint, warm light in her amber eyes, reflecting the complex emotions beneath—gratitude, lingering fear, a hint of embarrassment, and a hard-won calm. “Thank you. I’ve… caused you trouble again.”

“It’s part of the job.” Lin Jianfeng stood up, went to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of warm water, and leaned against the doorframe. “Do you know who did this to you?”

Shen Qingwu remained silent for a few seconds, her fingers unconsciously stroking the warm surface of the cup. “Wang Youcai from Changhe Trading is the most likely candidate. He came to test me and mentioned ‘old accounts.’ Not long after that, I started feeling off.” She closed her eyes briefly. “They couldn’t wait any longer. They wanted to use this method to force me to back down, or… to create leverage against me.”

“Do they know you’re in contact with me?”

“Not necessarily,” Shen Qingwu shook her head. “But my company has been cooperating with your investigation into Xinlong and the New City funds lately; they must have felt the pressure. Moving against me serves as a warning, and they might also want to find a breakthrough from my end to discover weaknesses in your investigation, or… to test your reaction.” She looked at Lin Jianfeng. “You took me away tonight, and they saw it. This will make them even more certain that your ‘relationship’ with me is unusual.”

“So?” Lin Jianfeng took a sip of water, her tone flat. “What reaction do they want to see? That I’ll stand by and let them manipulate you? Or that I’ll be too scared to keep investigating?”

Shen Qingwu was slightly taken aback; she hadn’t expected this reaction from Lin Jianfeng. There was no regret, no weighing of pros and cons—only a near-indifferent “so what.”

“This will make things more dangerous for you,” Shen Qingwu’s voice dropped. “They will see you as an obstacle that needs to be removed, or… a weakness they can use against me.”

“The danger has been there since the day I decided to take on the Zhao Ming case.” Lin Jianfeng walked back into the living room and sat on a small stool opposite Shen Qingwu, looking her straight in the eye. “As for weaknesses… Shen Qingwu, do you really think I was invincible before you came along?”

Shen Qingwu felt a bit uneasy under her gaze and looked away. “I was just reminding you…”

“I heard you,” Lin Jianfeng interrupted. “But I also want to remind you of something. If they dared to move against you tonight, they’ll dare to move against someone else tomorrow. Backing down or showing weakness won’t make them stop; it will only make them more unscrupulous. The only way is to be faster and more precise than they are—to tear them out by the roots.”

Her voice wasn’t loud, but it carried a decisive power that vibrated clearly through the air of the silent, early-morning room.

Shen Qingwu’s fingers tightened unconsciously around her cup. Lin Jianfeng’s words were like a stone thrown into the stagnant water of her heart, which had been frozen by fear and calculation for far too long, stirring up ripples she wasn’t familiar with. She was used to weighing options alone, taking detours, and searching for a way to survive in the cracks, accustomed to viewing everyone as a potential threat or a pawn. Yet the person before her was telling her in the most direct way possible: when facing the darkness, the only way out is to charge straight ahead and tear it open.

Absurd. Naive. And yet… she couldn’t help but feel a sense of longing.

“Easier said than done,” she heard herself say hoarsely. “Anhe has been rooted for so many years, its branches and leaves intertwined. The little evidence you have won’t touch its foundation.”

“That’s why I need you.” Lin Jianfeng leaned forward, closing the distance between them until she could see every minute flicker in Shen Qingwu’s eyes. “Shen Qingwu, you hold the thing they fear most—information. You know their capital flow, their network of interests, and perhaps even some of their hidden ‘history.’ I need that information to turn it into a legally recognized chain of evidence. I don’t want you dropping a few clues here and there while I go off and hit a wall.”

Her gaze was sharp and honest, carrying an earnestness that brooked no refusal. “True cooperation isn’t just trading intelligence. It’s sharing a goal and fighting side by side. You tell me what’s beneath the surface, and I’ll be responsible for finding a way to drag it ashore. Together.”

Together.

The word was like a tiny spark landing on the parched wasteland of Shen Qingwu’s heart, searing it for a moment.

She remained silent for a long time. The only sound in the room was the nearly inaudible hum of the lamp filament and the light breathing of the two women. Outside the window, the sky had unknowingly begun to show a faint, grayish-blue glimmer of dawn.

“My parents’ ‘accident,’” Shen Qingwu finally spoke, her voice light as if afraid of disturbing something, “was a typical method used by Anhe in its early days to clear obstacles. They created a perfect engineering accident scene where every piece of evidence pointed to ‘operational error’ or ‘force majeure.’ It took me five years to piece together some fragments pointing toward the biggest competitor of Qingyuan Industry at the time, as well as… an official responsible for the project’s safety assessment. But of those two people, one died of a ‘sudden heart attack’ six months after the accident, and the other immigrated overseas and vanished. The trail went cold.”

She looked up at Lin Jianfeng. “I’m pursuing Anhe not just for the Zhao Ming case, and not just for the dark secrets of the New City project. I’m doing it for my parents, and for everyone who was silently swallowed by them. But in this process, I’ve used many… not-so-clean methods. My hands aren’t entirely clean either. Lin Jianfeng, with a person like me, do you still want to do this ‘together’?”

This was the first time she had so directly exposed her scars and shadows, laying bare her most unsightly and fragile parts before another person. It was a confession born of near self-destruction, yet carrying a faint hope she hadn’t even noticed herself.

Lin Jianfeng didn’t answer immediately. She looked at Shen Qingwu, seeing the surging pain, struggle, and self-loathing beneath the frozen lake in her eyes. Then, she reached out—not to hold Shen Qingwu’s hand, but to gently take the now-cold cup from her and place it on the small side table.

“I’ve arrested many people,” Lin Jianfeng’s voice sounded exceptionally clear in the silence. “Thieves, scammers, accountants who embezzled public funds to pay for a family member’s medical treatment, and ordinary people driven to desperation. The law has its scales and boundaries, but the human heart… is often gray. My duty is to uphold the dignity of the law and bring criminals to justice. But before that, I have to figure out where the source of the evil lies and what drove people to that point.”

She paused, her gaze steady as she looked back at Shen Qingwu. “Shen Qingwu, what methods you used in the past is a matter of the past. What I want to see is which side you choose to stand on now and in the future. Will you continue to struggle alone in the gray zone, perhaps even being assimilated by the darkness? Or are you willing to step out and use everything you know to end the source that has created countless tragedies? Your choice determines my judgment of you.”

Shen Qingwu’s breath hitched. She looked at Lin Jianfeng, into those clear and steady eyes. There was no judgment there, no pity—only a near-pure obsession with right and wrong, and a respect for choice.

The giant stone that had weighed on her heart for so long seemed to crack, letting in a sliver of light she had almost forgotten existed.

“…Okay,” she heard herself say, her voice carrying an imperceptible tremor but sounding clearer than ever. “Together.”

There were no grand speeches, no blood oaths. Just a simple word, quietly landing in this pre-dawn safe house between two scarred souls who refused to give up.

Outside the window, the light grew a bit brighter, the grayish-blue gradually tinged with a golden-red edge.

The city was still asleep, but a new day had arrived, unstoppable.