The Aging Spy

Jorgen was getting old. As an agent of the Military Intelligence Section Seven, it wasn't easy to live to the age of fifty, so he wasn't quite sure what this aging meant to him.

On this bland afternoon, with the gentle breeze carrying the sun's warmth, the large oak trees outside the city were drying the white droppings of birds on their canopies, while Jorgen was fishing for uninteresting fish in the Valley of Heroes. He watched the float bobbing up and down in the water, imagining it was the head of Mathias Shaw, with water bubbling from his nostrils as he pleaded, "Mr. Jorgen, you can still work for twenty more years, no, twenty-five more years."

Tsk, how boring, Jorgen thought. He lifted the fishing rod, only to find that the hook had caught a tangled mess that looked like a knotted rag.

A dead man's head with hair?

No, it wasn't. Jorgen reeled in the fishing line, letting the tattered thing rest on the rocks. It was a torn blue shirt. He picked it up, unfolded it, and saw the bloodstains that couldn't be washed away by the river, already seeping into the fabric.

"Work experience brings inspiration" - this was a phrase he often taught to younger agents in the classroom. So, driven by this proud inspiration, he took off his clothes and jumped into the water, not forgetting to do a full set of warm-up exercises beforehand to prevent leg cramps. Although the canal water wasn't very clear, he immediately spotted the ubiquitous small fish and couldn't help but curse inwardly, "That fishing rod is really useless."

He hadn't been for long when he discovered the male corpse. It was tightly bound with coarse hemp rope, with the other end of the rope tied to a large stone at the bottom of the river. The distortion of the water on the line of sight made it look like a twisted military flag from a distance. As Jorgen approached it, a small fish swam out of its mouth.

There were no obvious wounds on the front of the corpse. Jorgen swam to the back and found the two large characters carved on the spine of the corpse: V3. These two characters were probably carved with four strokes, and the cuts were deep. The soaked and swollen pale skin, along with the knife marks, looked like a broken layer of ice. A strand of pulled flesh hung at the bottom of the "V."

By this time, Jorgen's breath had reached its limit, so he hurriedly surfaced, and the sudden rush of water into his nostrils caused him to sneeze loudly.

The security forces of Stormwind were quite efficient, and the removal of the corpse did not attract too much attention from the civilians. Jorgen took a towel handed to him by a guard and wiped his face.

"I know that man," Jorgen thought, "and I recognize that mark."

"Sir Jorgen, are you done with that? It's public property of the security team..." The guard timidly pointed at the towel still on Jorgen's face.