A Sharp Edge Emerges From The Mist Chapter 5

The First Gift

Technical Section of the Shuangcheng Public Security Bureau, 1:00 AM.

The lights were blindingly white, and the air was thick with the smell of coffee, heat from electronic equipment, and some kind of chemical reagent. Computer fans hummed as data streams and comparison progress bars scrolled across several screen walls.

Lin Jianfeng sat on a temporary folding chair in the corner, still wearing the jacket with the torn cuff. She hadn’t changed, nor did she feel sleepy. She held an unlit cigarette between her fingers, habitually rolling it. Her eyes were fixed on Lao Zhang and Xiao Chen at the main console.

Lao Zhang, a veteran of trace evidence examination, was currently wearing a magnifying glass, carefully handling the dagger inside an evidence bag. Xiao Chen stared at the screen of the automated DNA analyzer, his brow furrowed.

The dagger was cleaned thoroughly, Lao Zhang said without looking up, his voice raspy from staying up late. No fingerprints, and even the fabric impressions on the grip were intentionally wiped. It is made of ordinary high-carbon steel, common on the market, no serial number. The craftsmanship… is quite good, but tracing the source would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Lin Jianfeng wasn’t surprised. A professional attacker wouldn’t leave such amateur traces.

What about the blood analysis? she asked.

Xiao Chen tapped a few keys and pulled up a preliminary report. The results are in. The blood belongs to a male, Type O. In our criminal record database… there is no match.

As expected. Lin Jianfengs fingers stopped rolling the cigarette. The missing persons database? Or fugitives in the assistance notices?

We are expanding the search, including databases from neighboring cities, Xiao Chen said, rubbing his reddened eyes. But the system automatically flagged a low-probability association.

What association?

About three months ago, a neighboring city busted an underground casino and loan sharking den, detaining over a dozen thugs. One of them fell suddenly ill while in custody and was declared dead after failed treatment at the hospital. There was some controversy over the autopsy report at the time, but it eventually came to nothing. That dead thug was Type O. Xiao Chen pulled up the old case brief. However, the DNA records are incomplete, only the blood type was recorded. So the system only gave a low-probability alert.

A thug who died of illness with the same blood type as the attacker. A coincidence?

Lin Jianfeng stood up and walked behind Xiao Chen, looking at the sparse brief on the screen. The nature of the case was heinous, but the handling seemed… sloppy. The death certificate and hospital records were all there; procedurally, nothing was wrong.

Check the duty doctor and the officer in charge at that hospital. Do it privately, Lin Jianfeng said in a low voice. This connection was too weak to be a formal lead, but it was like a thorn pricking her professional intuition.

Understood, Xiao Chen nodded and made a note.

Just then, another technical officer responsible for data screening let out a surprised sound.

Captain Lin, I found something!

Lin Jianfeng immediately walked over. The officers screen was running a data mining program aimed at combing through all the traces left on Zhao Mings electronic devices before his death—things that might have been deleted or hidden.

We recovered a cache fragment from an uninstalled encrypted communication app on his old phone. The technology is very niche, leaving almost no trace. But deep in the system logs, we found a fragment of a sent record that wasn’t completely overwritten. The technical officer pulled up a string of jumbled characters. The timestamp is around 4:00 PM the day before he died. The recipient was a virtual temporary email address that has since expired. But the first few bytes of the content were partially preserved…

He tapped the keyboard, attempting to decode it. A line of intermittent characters popped up on the screen:

…project… water… too deep… touched… NL association… Xinlong… be careful…

Xinlong? Lin Jianfengs eyes sharpened.

Yes, just those two characters. The rest is gibberish, the technical officer said. We checked this Xinlong. There is no registration record in the industrial and commercial system. But in some… uh, non-public economic crime lead databases, it has been mentioned. It is suspected to be a very covertly operated underground bank, mainly involved in abnormal cross-border fund flows and money laundering, but no substantial evidence has ever been caught.

NL (Nolan Consulting), the old Nanwan project, and now this Xinlong underground bank. Before his death, Zhao Ming was indeed touching a complex, intertwined web.

Can you locate this Xinlong? Even just a general area of activity? Lin Jianfeng asked.

The technical officer shook his head. These types of banks usually only have a few core members who know the physical operation points. Most transactions are completed through encrypted digital currencies and complex layers of shell companies. Their counter-reconnaissance awareness is extremely high. Unless…

Unless what?

Unless there is an internal data leak, or they make a mistake themselves.

Almost the moment he finished speaking, the office door was pushed open. A female administrative officer walked in quickly with a freshly printed document, her expression somewhat strange.

Captain Lin, we just received an attachment to an assistance notice from the Economic Investigation Detachment. Yesterday, they raided a small den involved in illegal foreign exchange, caught a few low-level lackeys, and seized some ledgers and computers. During data recovery, they found an encrypted partition. After cracking it, they found scattered customer codes and fragments of transfer records…

She handed the document to Lin Jianfeng. One of the records has a blurred recipient code, but Zhao was handwritten in the remarks. The amount isn’t large, fifty thousand yuan. The transfer was over a month ago. And a temporary account linked to the payer was tagged with a term in another completely unrelated record—Xinlong Payment.

Lin Jianfeng quickly scanned the document. The records were indeed fragmented and the connection was indirect, like scraps accidentally left behind during data cleaning. But Zhao and Xinlong appearing together at this point in time was no coincidence.

It was almost as if… someone had specifically delivered this to her.

What did Economic Investigation say? Did they have this Xinlong Payment lead before?

I asked. They said they didn’t. This record was buried very deep, and the tag looks like it was jotted down by an insider; it is not part of the standard accounts. They think it might be an accidental discovery, so they shared the information according to protocol, the officer replied.

An accidental discovery? Right after Zhao Mings death, right after she was attacked and received the warning about deep water from Shen Qingwu, a lead about Zhao Ming and the mysterious Xinlong bank just accidentally appeared?

It was too convenient. So convenient it felt like a carefully designed gift.

Lin Jianfeng closed the file and walked to the window. Outside was the sleeping city, with only scattered lights. She remembered Shen Qingwus expressionless face behind the lowered window of the Bentley in the alley, and the words there won’t be a next time.

This wasn’t help. This was more like… guidance.

Leading her away from a direct investigation into Shen Qingwu herself and the old Nanwan case, pushing her toward a clearer, but potentially more dangerous target—the Xinlong underground bank.

What was Shen Qingwu afraid of? Was she afraid Lin Jianfeng would keep digging into the Nanwan past? Or was she afraid she would uncover something even more lethal than Nanwan?

Or perhaps, Shen Qingwu herself wanted to use Lin Jianfengs hand to touch this Xinlong?

Lin Jianfeng turned around, her gaze becoming sharp and clear again.

Xiao Chen, make Xinlong a key focus of the Zhao Ming case. Check all reports of abnormal fund flows that might be related to it, suspicious company registrations, especially anything with even a slight connection to the New City Development Zone project. Lao Zhang, continue the in-depth analysis of the attackers blood and the dagger; don’t miss any minute details. Also…

She paused, looking at the document from the Economic Investigation Detachment.

Contact the colleagues at Economic Investigation. I want to personally see the computer and the original ledgers they seized. Also, find out the original source of the lead for their raid yesterday.

Yes, ma’am!

The Technical Section became busy once more. Lin Jianfeng sat back in her chair and finally lit the cigarette, taking a deep drag. The smoke curled upward, blurring the thoughts in her eyes.

This gift from Shen Qingwu had suspicious packaging and a mysterious purpose.

But what was inside was very likely one of the keys to the truth.

She just didn’t know which door this key would eventually open, or what kind of monster it would release.

She stubbed out the cigarette and let out a soft breath in the cold early morning air.

No matter what it was, she had to open it and see.

This was her duty, and her choice.