The city looked washed clean by dawn. Rainwater streaked down glass towers, turning Shanghai into a watercolor of silver and ash.
Mo Liuxian hadn't slept. The files spread across his office desk were a battlefield of screenshots and surveillance stills from the night before—blurred faces, timestamps, exits.
He'd already eliminated 90% of them. Only one silhouette kept returning: a woman in a black dress, calm while everyone else screamed.
His assistant hovered nervously by the door. "Sir, we cross-checked guest lists. No one by that description registered at the event."
Liuxian's fingers drummed once against the desk. "Check the catering staff."
"We did. All accounted for."
"Then check the shadows," he said, eyes narrowing. "People like her never show up where they belong."
Across the city, Bai Xueyi sat in a small café, a cup of coffee untouched beside her. The message on her laptop screen glowed coldly:
You weren't supposed to survive the first fire.
She enlarged the sender's metadata—nothing. The signal had bounced across three foreign servers, masked behind Aurora Consortium's encryption.
She leaned back, voice barely a whisper. "So, the same company that handled the solvents… and my death."
A waitress passed by, spilling coffee on her sleeve. Xueyi smiled, paid, and slipped out through the back door without leaving a trace of herself behind.
She knew someone would come.
She wanted them to.
Mo Liuxian arrived at the same café an hour later. The CCTV footage on his phone showed her entering and leaving. The owner swore she'd only stayed fifteen minutes. No name, no card, no ID.
But she had touched the window—just once, fingertips leaving faint prints. He ran a handkerchief over the glass and studied the smudge under the morning light. It wasn't much, but it was proof she existed.
His phone buzzed. "Sir," his assistant said, "we traced that maintenance staffer's duffel bag. The purchase record leads to an abandoned warehouse in the old industrial zone—property of Aurora Consortium."
Liuxian's eyes flickered. "Prepare the car."
The warehouse sat at the edge of the docks, the air thick with salt and rust. Sunlight leaked through broken skylights in narrow gold ribbons.
Bai Xueyi was already there.
She had known he'd come—he always chased the trail others feared to follow. She stood near a pile of old barrels, reading an old file she'd found hidden under a steel beam: Aurora Shipping Manifest, 5 years ago. Her name appeared in the corner, beside a code word: "Project Bride."
So that's what I was to them, she thought. A project. A pawn.
Footsteps echoed behind her.
"You move quickly for a stranger," Mo Liuxian said, his voice filling the space like smoke.
She turned, not startled. "You move slower than a guilty man should."
Their gazes clashed, quiet but violent. The sound of the sea outside was the only witness.
"You know about Aurora," he said evenly. "What do you want?"
She smiled faintly. "The same thing you want, President Mo. The truth."
He studied her face—too composed, too familiar. "You talk as if we've met."
"Maybe we have," she said. "Maybe once, in a fire."
He stepped closer. "Who are you?"
Her fingers brushed the edge of the manifest, lifting it between them. "The one you buried with your secrets."
A gust of wind tore through the broken windows, scattering papers across the floor. One page drifted to his feet—an invoice signed by his personal assistant, authorizing the purchase of the exact solvent used in the penthouse explosion.
His pupils tightened. "Where did you get this?"
"From your ghosts."
Outside, a car engine started—the same maintenance worker from last night, watching them through binoculars. He pressed his phone to his ear.
"She found the files, sir. Both of them are here."
A distorted voice replied, smooth and cold:
"Good. Let the fire finish what it started."
He lit a match and tossed it into the oil-soaked grass.
Inside the warehouse, neither Xueyi nor Liuxian noticed the smoke curling under the door.