◎”They” Have Returned.◎
“Ji Shen has fallen.”
“Is it confirmed?”
“Bureau Chief Zhang led the team himself. They even mobilized the provincial armed police and issued a citywide manhunt—”
“And the man still got away?”
“He got away. Word is he killed two of them on the spot, but those drug dealers fought like they had nothing to lose. They snatched Ji Shen right out from under our noses.”
“The 725 Case is finished. Ji Shen and his task force had been on it for a full two months. Now the whole operation’s blown wide open to the dealers, and the entire team has been suspended pending investigation.”
“I don’t believe it. I refuse to believe Teacher Ji would do something like this.”
“I don’t believe it either.” Ji Shen was a criminology expert specially recruited from abroad by the provincial public security department. In addition to serving as a consultant on criminal cases, he was also a professor of criminology at the Provincial Public Security University. Several young officers fresh out of the Police Academy in the City Bureau had attended a few of his lectures and now called him “Teacher” without hesitation. They practically worshiped him.
“It’s not just you lot—no one in the entire bureau wants to believe Ji Shen is a mole. But the facts are staring us in the face.”
“Pity that girl Yu Bai. She and Ji Shen only got married three months ago.”
“Who wouldn’t pity her? They tied the knot, and right away Ji Shen got pulled onto the 725 Case. Now this… I hear Bureau Chief Zhang and the folks from the Provincial Department are heading to the Ji Family Villa even as we speak!”
The Ji Family Villa.
More than a dozen police cars lined the road outside the granite walls. Cops swarmed the property from top to bottom, conducting a blanket search. They didn’t leave a single floor tile unturned.
A woman sat on the sofa by the floor-to-ceiling windows. Her shoulder-length curls framed her face, with wispy bangs curling softly at her forehead. She wore a fitted black knit dress, topped with a light wool cardigan and simple slippers on her feet. Her misty eyes gazed quietly at the officers searching beneath the trees outside. Her beautiful face betrayed no superfluous emotion.
She proved remarkably cooperative with the search. Unlike most family members in such situations—who might hysterically obstruct or interfere—she stayed composed. Even when asked to hand over Old Mr. Ji’s portrait for inspection, she merely paused for a fraction of a second and said, “Be careful,” before falling silent.
Too calm.
“Yu Bai, did Ji Shen say anything to you before he left? Leave anything behind?” The speaker was Bai Shiyang, the deputy director of the provincial public security department. In his forties, he kept himself in peak condition—no paunch, no slack—and was agile enough to take on ten men single-handedly. That’s why he still worked the front lines.
“Master…” Yu Bai had been fully cooperative up to that point, but at those words, shock filled her raised eyes, mingled with a flicker of suppressed anger. At last, under Bai Shiyang’s increasingly insistent gaze, she relented. The tension drained from her body, and a faint, almost imperceptible smile curved her lips. “I know you all suspect Ji Shen of being the mole. But—I don’t believe it.”
Her voice was low and steady, carrying a peculiar, softening charm that tingled in the ears. Even laced with anger, it stirred the listener’s heart, drawing them in just a little.
Bai Shiyang’s brows knitted tightly. He shoved his hands casually into his pockets. “Yu Bai, I know this is hard for you to accept. But regrettably, facts are facts. Denial changes nothing.”
Zhang Yunan, standing behind Bai Shiyang, picked up on the subtle shift in the air. He half-expected the woman to snap, to finally show the raw emotion any normal person would feel. Instead, she teetered on the brink of eruption twice before shoving the impulse back down.
“Ji Shen didn’t leave anything behind. This all happened so suddenly—I was completely caught off guard.” There was real feeling in her words this time. She closed her eyes, as if gathering her thoughts. When she opened them again, the anger had vanished, replaced by bewilderment and a sadness that flickered and died in an instant. Her face smoothed into perfect calm. “Will I need to undergo an internal investigation? If so, I think it would be more appropriate back at the Police Bureau.” With that, she reached into her handbag, pulled out her badge and gun, and set them on the table.
From then on, right through her interrogation at the bureau, she remained calm and restrained. She never defended Ji Shen again. It was as if that brief outburst had been erased from her mind with a single keystroke.
Zhang Yunan found the transformation startling. Yu Bai navigated the situation with pinpoint precision. She knew exactly what was expected of her as the family member of a suspect: total cooperation with the police investigation, answering nearly every question put to her. At first, Zhang Yunan chalked it up to professional familiarity between colleagues—the case procedures were proceeding smoothly, after all. But as the rounds of questioning dragged on, he realized they were gradually losing the upper hand. Their train of thought was starting to follow hers. For interrogators, that was a dangerous sign. It meant that if their subject was a criminal, the police had already been lured into her trap—and control of the conversation had slipped away.
A classic defensive psychological state—it was clear she trusted no one right now.
Zhang Yunan had never dealt with Yu Bai personally. He only knew that she had returned from America like Ji Shen and was Bai Shiyang’s prized protégé. But today, this woman’s behavior triggered countless flashes of déjà vu in him. She was just too much like Ji Shen.
That was Zhang Yunan’s sole thought in the moment. Not in terms of personality; the two of them were polar opposites with no common ground whatsoever. No, it was a feeling—one he couldn’t quite put into words himself. They were like those highly trained agents from American movies, always able to sniff out danger around them and throw up protective barriers in an instant. This level of anti-interrogation skill was rare even among veteran detectives.
Questioning yielded no results, and the investigation turned up no other leads. Just days later, the Provincial Department demanded the transfer of all files from the “725 Case.” Zhang Yunan found it strange, as if some shadowy force was keeping a constant eye on the case’s progress. He had no idea whose interests this force served, but soon after, the Provincial Bureau abruptly announced to the media that the case was closed. It was nothing more than a shootout sparked by uneven drug profits and infighting within the syndicate. A mass murder with over a dozen lives lost, exposing a traitor in the police ranks and a drug cartel—and it was swept under the rug just like that.
Outside Pingling City Airport, in the VIP suite of a luxury hotel, Bai Shiyang asked the moment he stepped through the door, “Yu Bai, what happened? Why the sudden rush back to America?”
Yu Bai emerged from the bedroom, her expression tinged with panic. “Something’s wrong at home. I can’t reach them.”
“What’s going on? Have you contacted the American police?”
“I’ve already done that. They’re investigating, but no firm answers yet.” She sank onto the sofa and buried her face in her hands. A full minute passed before she lifted her head, as if steeling herself. “Master, I have a really bad feeling.”
Bai Shiyang’s eyes grew complicated. “What are you getting at?”
A chilling mix of bloodlust and fear suddenly surged from Yu Bai’s calm gaze. “‘They’ are back.”
Bai Shiyang’s face changed in an instant. He knew exactly who she was referring to as “they”.
“Impossible. Everyone in the ‘Red Gate’ was wiped out a year ago. You and Ji Shen went undercover there for three years. The Provincial Bureau teamed up with the American police—we closed the case together.”
“Then how do you explain what’s happening now? Ji Shen’s gone to ground, the truth behind the ‘725 Case’ buried forever. The dark web is flooded with hitman bounties, and videos of the undercover cop assassinations were even uploaded straight to the police intranet. Every detail matches the ‘Red Gate’ playbook for purging traitors.”
“I know—you’re about to bring up Phoebus’s third apostle, Jacob. But he died in that shootout a year ago. Ji Shen pulled the trigger, right?” A year earlier, after the “Red Gate” case wrapped up after three years and nine months, the two biggest heroes—Ji Shen and Yu Bai—skipped the victory banquet entirely. They demanded the case be reopened, both convinced the man they killed wasn’t the real Jacob. But there was no proof.
“I’ve never understood it. All the evidence pointed to the dead man being Jacob. Why wouldn’t you and Ji Shen drop it?”
A shadow passed over Yu Bai’s eyes—a remnant of her long undercover stint, where she had slipped too easily into a criminal mindset. “I know. When we compiled the files, every scrap of evidence confirmed it was Jacob. Neither Ji Shen nor I ever laid eyes on him, so logically, we should’ve accepted it. But the profile didn’t match. We had analyzed all twelve of Phoebus’s apostles, building full psychological profiles for each one. This guy? Every chain of evidence lined up perfectly, but the mental pattern was wrong. A man so paranoid he never showed his face for three years suddenly appears on the day of our operation? That’s suspicious enough on its own. And Ji Shen was under him for three years—he knew the man’s habits, his style. This couldn’t have been the same person.”
“Master, once I sort out the family situation in America, I’ll push to reopen the case there. As for the Provincial Department…”
Bai Shiyang cut in. “I’ll handle the Provincial Department. You focus on your family—don’t worry about things here. If it really is the ‘Red Gate,’ we’ll all have to brace for the worst.” He hesitated, then added, “And no matter whether Ji Shen is in the right or the wrong, your master promises you the truth.”
“Everything in your hands, then.” Yu Bai gave him a deep bow, grabbed her suitcase, and walked out without a backward glance.
