CHAPTER 10: The Cost of Knowing

Jiucheng's underbelly never slept. Especially not where the syndicate used to hide its bones.

The tea parlor was older than the war and forgotten by most of the city, tucked beneath a bathhouse that hadn't seen steam in years. Inside, the air was thick with mold, memory, and iron. Wáng Shuǒrán sat across from a man who couldn't stop twitching.

His name was Lin Zedong—once an accountant for Jian's east quarter, now a walking pharmacy of nerve suppressants and regret. His nails were gnawed down to raw stubs, trembling with old panic. His teeth bore the wear of sleepless nights and secrets chewed to splinters. But his eyes? Still knew where the bodies were buried.

"Why now?" she asked softly.

Zedong laughed—high-pitched, broken. "Because you're the only one reckless enough to aim it at his throat—instead of fleeing."

She didn't smile.

"You used to sign the clearances," she said.

He nodded. "I moved the money. Watched them move the bodies. Thought I was clever until I found out clever doesn't mean safe."

He leaned forward. His breath smelled like fear and fennel.

"He keeps them," he whispered. "The failures. The ones that didn't survive the trial batches. Didn't dispose them. Didn't burn them. Froze them."

Her spine locked.

"Why?"

"Because Jian doesn't believe in death. Only… in retrieval."

He handed her a slip of paper. Coordinates. Then a word scribbled like a curse: Project Mirror.

She was about to ask what it meant when his eyes rolled back. Foam bubbled at his lips.

"Zedong."

His hands twitched. A soft click sounded under the table.

Too late.

His pulse flat lined before he hit the ground.

Whether it was overdose or a remote kill switch, she didn't wait to find out. Shuǒrán pocketed the slip, stood, and walked away without looking back.

Somewhere deeper inside Black territory, Lín Yàonán stared at his reflection in a pane of polished steel. It didn't look like him anymore.

The envelope was gone. The photo: ash. But Jian's message stayed—echoing in the corners of his thoughts.

Pretty things are only useful when they obey.

He tapped into a corrupted junction near the observation ward. It was a gamble—Team Black's system had multiple redundancies—but this burst wasn't meant to transmit. Just to ping.

A short signature, cloaked as a diagnostics loop, laced with old field encryption.

He encoded a single line:

"Someone's moving under Jian's signal. And they're using me as cover."

He didn't know if it would reach Wú Xīnlĕi.

But if anyone could read the pulse, it was her.

Footsteps echoed down the hall.

He stepped back, hands loose at his sides.

The shadows shifted.

Not Mùyĕ.

Not Jian.

A third figure. Just watching.

And gone.

Back at the safehouse, Shuǒrán dropped the coordinates on the table.

Táng Jiēhào raised a brow. "What's there?"

"Refrigerated storage. Not just bodies. Data. Evidence."

"Proof?"

She nodded once.

Jiēhào's fingers danced across the console. "I'll send the drone net. If it's hot, we'll scan first."

Wú Xīnlĕi walked in mid-conversation, eyes glued to a handheld.

"We got something weird," she said. "Old diagnostic ping. Shouldn't have lit anything—but the code matches Black's encryption protocols from three years ago."

Jiēhào looked up. "Source?"

"Encrypted. But tagged with a field cipher I've only ever seen once."

She didn't say his name.

She didn't have to.

Shuǒrán's jaw tensed. Her heart beat once. Then slower.

Yàonán was trying to talk. But not through words. Not directly.

And that was more dangerous than silence.

She turned toward the screen and whispered to herself.

"If he's still fighting, then so am I."

Then she looked up.

"Prep the route. We go at nightfall."

And this time—no one was coming back clean.