8:17 a.m.

Inside the SID Operations Room,
no one had truly rested.

The coffee had been refilled for a second round.

No one smoked.

Because by now,
the case had given everyone the same feeling—

the air itself
could no longer be trusted.

On the main screen,
the leads from all four cases
had been broken apart again,
then reassembled.

Locations.
Time.
Ventilation structures.
Victim backgrounds.
Forum invitations.
Sample deliveries.
Boutique fragrance events.

All of the lines
slowly narrowed
toward the same direction.

Not a factory.
Not a laboratory.
Not a black-market channel.

But—

a route that looked perfectly normal,
even refined.

A boutique perfume distribution channel.

Tan Chih Lin projected several company names onto the screen.

They had registrations.
Websites.
Social media pages.
Member events.
Sample shipment records.
Even polished brand stories that looked convincing.

On the surface,
they sold taste.

Sold exclusivity.

Sold the idea of
a niche scent “only insiders would understand.”

But dig a little deeper,
and several layers of shell companies
began to show unreasonable gaps.

The names of the listed managers were too clean.

Warehouse records were incomplete.

Logistics routes detoured too often.

Event rosters were edited too frequently.

And strangest of all,
several channels operating under different names
had all used the same group of temporary marketing staff
within the last three months.

I stared at that list.

“Pull the people.”

“Already doing it,” said Tan Chih Lin.

A row of faces appeared on the side screen.

Men and women.

Mostly young.

Mixed freelance backgrounds.

Some worked promotions.

Some did event hosting.

Some were little more than temporary sample distributors.

Kim Min Jung enlarged several pieces of surveillance footage
from their events.

Fragrance pop-up zone.

Campus trial booth.

Mall member sampling corner.

In the footage,
they looked like ordinary staff.

Handing out cards.

Passing samples.
Registering names.
Smiling.
Welcoming people.

Nothing unusual.

And the more ordinary they looked,
the more dangerous it became.

Because the things that can enter a crowd
without being remembered
usually look exactly like daily life.

“Filter for direct contact with the four victims.”

I said it.

Half the faces disappeared immediately.

Seven remained.

Then the system cross-checked event timing,
location overlap,
sample batch movement,
and the flow of forum invitation codes.

At last,
only two people were left on the screen.

One was Xu Rou.

Twenty-six years old.

Freelance promoter.

Part-time luxury-brand host, gift sampler, and member registration staff.

The other was Fang Ze Ming.

Thirty-one years old.
Training facilitator for boutique fragrance channels.
Responsible for event explanations, guided trial-scenting, and follow-up contact.

I said nothing as I looked at their photos.

Xu Rou’s smile was perfect.

Perfect in the way a smile becomes
when it has been practiced a thousand times.

Fang Ze Ming looked quieter.

Like the kind of person
whose face you would forget
five minutes after meeting him.

I spoke.

“Start with Xu Rou.”

9:05 a.m.

East City.

A shared apartment unit
with expensive rent,
fresh renovation,
and just enough emptiness
to feel wrong.

Xu Rou lived there.

The door was locked.

No one answered inside.

Building management said
she had not returned last night.

We entered lawfully.

The apartment was neat.

Too neat for someone who had left in a hurry.

Her cosmetics were there.
Her clothes were there.
Her laptop was there.
Her phone was not.

The bed had been used,
but not last night.

The kitchen sink was clean.

The trash bin held only coffee capsules
and takeaway containers.

Lee Wai Hing,
wearing gloves,
searched carefully.

“No signs of struggle.”

Yim Bing stood by the window,
watching the street below.

“No signs of forced removal either.”

Chang Hsin-Yan went to the vanity table
and studied a row of small perfume vials beside the mirror.

There were twelve.

Different brands.

Some labels were printed.
Some were handwritten.

She didn’t touch them.
She only lowered her head slightly
and read the air.

Then she said,

“She didn’t leave in peace.”

I turned to her.

“What makes you say that?”

“The tabletop is too tidy. Not naturally tidy—deliberately reset before leaving. But two things weren’t put away: one open sample vial, and one note that had been crumpled and flattened again.”

I walked over.

The note carried only half a sentence:

‘If I don’t come back—’

The rest had been torn away.

The room went quiet for two seconds.

“She knew something would happen,” I said.

“Or she had already been warned,” said Chang Hsin-Yan.

At that point,
Tan Chih Lin called me from the living room.

“Chief, the laptop wasn’t fully locked down.”

I went over.

The screen lit up.
The desktop was clean.

Too clean.

Almost like a new machine.

But Tan Chih Lin never trusted surfaces.

He went straight into cache folders,
temporary directories,
and recent external-device logs.

Five minutes later,
he looked up.

“Something was deleted. In a rush. A large deletion window ran last night between 1:00 and 1:27 a.m.”

“Can you recover it?”

“Partly.”

“Do it.”

A few more minutes passed.

Then the fragments slowly began to reassemble.

Event staffing charts.
Sample movement sheets.
Temporary client registration logs.
And one spreadsheet with a bland, harmless name—

Trial Follow-up B

Tan Chih Lin opened it.

Inside were several codes.

Not names.

Not numbers.

Tags.

ECU-CS-01
WCU-CS-03
ECU-CS-05
CCU-CS-02

I looked at those lines
and felt a cold line run down my spine.

East City University, Computer Science.
West City University, Computer Science.
Central City University, Computer Science.

This was not a client list.

This was a selection list.

Kim Min Jung came closer.

“If these codes correspond to the victims—”

“Not if,” I said.

No one finished the sentence.

Because everyone already understood.

Xu Rou was not just a normal promoter.

She might not have known the full structure of the operation.

But she had definitely participated in the front-end contact.

Distributing samples.
Registering names.
Following up.
Filtering.

She was the hand at the door.

Not necessarily the one who killed.

But the one who helped guide people inside.

“Where is she?” Yim Bing asked.

I looked at the emptied apartment.

“Missing.”

10:12 a.m.

Fang Ze Ming was located.

Not by us.

He presented himself.

After receiving our summons,
he appeared exactly on time
at a boutique café.

He chose the place himself.

Near the window.

Not crowded.

Background music.

A place good for conversation.

Also good for watching people.

The moment I entered,
he stood up.

Polite.
Well-mannered.
Well-dressed.

Like everyone in high-end retail,
he knew how to make himself appear harmless.

“Commander Yang,” he said. “I’m willing to cooperate.”

Too fast.

When people are too quickly willing to cooperate,
it often feels less natural, not more.

We sat down.

He ordered black coffee.

He never took a sip.

Chang Hsin-Yan sat at my right.

Lee Wai Hing sat slightly behind.

Yim Bing stayed outside,
watching the street.

Tan Chih Lin and Kim Min Jung were online,
tracking his device activity.

I looked at Fang Ze Ming.

“You know Xu Rou?”

“Yes. We’ve worked together at events.”

“Where is she?”

“I don’t know.”

“Which trial-scent clients have you been following recently?”

“Many. In this line of work, lists move quickly.”

“Lin Bing, Hong Yu, Tan Xin Yi, Su Mei Mei. Do those names mean anything to you?”

His eyelid moved.

Very slightly.

But not enough to escape Chang Hsin-Yan.

“No,” he said.

Too fast.

Like an answer prepared in advance.

I did not expose it.

I simply pushed the four photographs toward him.

“Look carefully before you answer again.”

He lowered his gaze.

First photo.
Second.
Third.
Fourth.

His motions were correct.

His expression stayed composed.

But when he put the photographs down,
his index finger tapped the rim of his cup twice.

That was not nervousness.

It felt like waiting for a rhythm
already programmed into him.

“I don’t have a direct memory of them,” he said. “Too many events. Too many faces coming and going.”

Chang Hsin-Yan suddenly spoke.

“Do you usually say ‘direct memory’?”

He looked at her.

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve used the word ‘direct’ three times already,” she said. “Most people, when they’re uncertain, say ‘I don’t remember,’ ‘I don’t think so,’ or ‘they don’t look familiar.’ You’re using distancing language. It sounds like you’re deliberately leaving yourself room.”

Fang Ze Ming smiled once.

“Customer-service habit. That’s all.”

“No,” said Chang Hsin-Yan softly. “It’s fear of saying the wrong thing.”

The air suddenly felt thinner.

Fang Ze Ming did not answer.

He picked up the cup again.
Still did not drink.

“Who are you afraid of?” I asked.

He looked at me.

For the first time,
there was real instability in his eyes.

Not guilt.

Fear.

It flashed once.

Then he forced it back down.

“Commander Yang, I’m just an employee.”

“Do employees know how clients get coded?” I placed the printed sheet on the table.

The instant he saw the page,
his face lost half a shade of color.

Not much.

But enough.

“That’s outside my authorization,” he said.

“But you understand it,” I said.

“…”

“Who gave you the list?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Who gave you the selection tags?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who told you to approach them?”

“I don’t know!”

That last sentence came out half a notch louder.

Two people in the café turned to look.

Fang Ze Ming realized he had lost control
and pulled himself back at once.

But it was too late.

Once fear shows itself,
it never wipes clean.

Chang Hsin-Yan looked at him,
but did not press.

She only said, slowly:

“You don’t not know.”

“You’re afraid to know.”

His jaw tightened.

I could see it clearly—
something inside him was splitting.

One half wanted to talk.

The other half did not dare.

Not because of loyalty.

Because of consequence.

At that moment,
Tan Chih Lin’s voice came through my earpiece.

“Chief, his phone just received an encrypted push notification. Self-destructed in three seconds. Spoofed as a system alert.”

My eyes hardened.

“Content?”

“Couldn’t capture all of it. But we caught a few words—‘Don’t talk.’”

I looked at Fang Ze Ming.

He looked back at me.

The color drained fully from his face.

That was not coincidence.

And it was not ordinary partner-to-partner warning.

That was surveillance.

Real-time.
Skin-close.
The kind that knew the instant he sat here,
the instant he hesitated,
the instant he might speak.

For the first time,
I felt it with complete clarity—

our opponent
was not simply hiding somewhere far away.

He was watching.

He had been watching all along.

Chang Hsin-Yan behaved as if she had heard nothing from my earpiece.

She just kept watching Fang Ze Ming’s face.

The corners of his eyes.
The tension at the mouth.
The way he swallowed.
The shallow rhythm of his breath.

Then she said very softly,

“You’re already being watched.”

His pupils contracted.

“Not starting today,” she said. “Since the moment you made contact with those people. Every word you say, every word you don’t say—they know. That’s why you came exactly on time today. That’s why you’ve been so cooperative. You want to look normal. But the more normal you try to look, the more you look trained.”

His hand finally began to shake.

Lightly.

But uncontrollably.

“I didn’t kill them…” he said.

His voice had gone hoarse.

“I really didn’t kill them.”

“I believe you,” said Chang Hsin-Yan. “You’re not the one who executes the final step. You’re just the guide standing behind the scent recruiter.”

The moment she said scent recruiter,
his whole body reacted
as if pricked by a needle.

He jerked his head up.

That was enough.

That reaction
was worth more than a statement.

I stared at him.

“Who is the recruiter?”

His lips moved.

No sound came out.

“Male or female?”

No answer.

“One person, or a group?”

His breathing lost its rhythm.

“Name,” I said.

The fear in his eyes
suddenly overwhelmed everything else.

And then he did something strange—

he changed.

Not gradually.

He recoiled into himself,
as if jerked backward from some edge.

“I don’t know anything,” he said.

The voice that had been cracking a moment earlier
became mechanical.

“I only do event promotion. I don’t organize client data. I don’t assign lists. I’ve never seen those photos. I don’t know anything about Xu Rou. You’re asking the wrong person.”

It was too neat.

Too neat not to be rehearsed.

Lee Wai Hing muttered a curse under his breath.

I didn’t move.

Because I knew what had just happened in front of us
was not an ordinary reversal.

It was the reaction of someone
being yanked back into line.

Like a man who stepped to the cliff edge
and suddenly remembered
what was standing behind him.

Under the table,
Chang Hsin-Yan touched my hand once.

The meaning was clear.

Don’t push harder.

Push more,
and this man might break.

I leaned back in my chair
and looked at Fang Ze Ming.

“Fine. We stop here for today.”

He seemed not to expect that.

A flicker of surprise crossed his face.

“But listen carefully,” I said. “From this moment on, you are not free. And you are not safe.”

The blood drained even further from his face.

“Lee Wai Hing.”

“Yes.”

“Bring him back to SID. Protective isolation. Seize every device. Kim Min Jung, Tan Chih Lin—track all real-time communications, mirrored accounts, and the origin of the self-destructing push.”

“Understood.”

Fang Ze Ming did not resist when he was taken out.

He looked as though he had aged ten years.

At the door,
he turned back and looked at me once.

There was no plea for help in that look.

Only an unspoken sentence—

They’re watching.

11:46 a.m.

SID Operations Room.

Fang Ze Ming’s devices had been dismantled.

Xu Rou was still missing.

Her last appearance on surveillance
was at 12:51 a.m. the night before.

Location:
two streets from her apartment.

She looked back once.

As if someone were behind her.

The next second,
the footage cut into a traffic blind zone.

And then
she was gone.

Chang Hsin-Yan stood before the screen.

She reviewed all the access logs,
message fragments,
and Fang Ze Ming’s interview footage.

Then she said only one sentence:

“There is someone behind all this monitoring every contact.”

I looked at her.

“You’re certain?”

“Above ninety percent,” she said. “This isn’t just upper-level supervision. It’s actual monitoring. Speech patterns have been corrected. Response rhythms have been trained. Fear triggers are highly consistent. Xu Rou likely discovered something, which is why she disappeared. Fang Ze Ming, on the other hand, was pulled back the moment he was about to speak.”

“You mean they monitor their own people too?”

“Not monitor,” she said, looking at Fang Ze Ming’s pale face on the screen. “Control.”

Control.

That word again.

From the moment the victims sat down,
to the instant a promoter changed his story.

What the enemy had been doing
was never just killing.

It was placing everyone who touched this chain
inside some invisible cage.

I stood before the main screen,
watching that line of connection
grow finer,
and deeper.

Boutique perfume channels.

Trial-scent events.
Forum funnels.
Sample deliveries.
Front-end selection.
On-site deployment.
Distance observation.
Real-time warning.

It was too complete to feel like crime.

It looked more like a product pipeline.

And for the first time,
I understood with complete clarity—

the other side
was not in a hurry to erase every trace.

Quite the opposite.

It was as if they had deliberately left us a line.

Not too long.
Not too short.
Just enough for us to see.

Just enough for us to follow.

Why?

Confidence?

Provocation?

Or because they wanted to know
how far we could chase it?

Outside,
the daylight had fully arrived.

Sunlight entered the room.

But there was no warmth in it.

I spoke slowly.

“He didn’t slip.”

No one answered.

Because everyone knew
who I meant.

“He left this line on purpose.”

I looked at the last image of Xu Rou,
then at Fang Ze Ming’s face,
tightened by fear.

“He wants us to follow.”

The air hardened into silence.

Yim Bing spoke first.

“Then that means the end of the line is not the answer.”

“Right,” I said.

“It’s the next layer of setup,” said Chang Hsin-Yan.

“Or a trap,” said Lee Wai Hing.

“Or both,” said Kim Min Jung.

I nodded.

Good.

Now everyone had arrived
at the same point I had.

This was not ordinary police work.

Not linear pursuit.

Not a simple case of following a thread
until the truth fell out.

Every clue we now held
could be something deliberately planted
to guide us.

And if the enemy wanted us to follow,

then he had already prepared
to meet us somewhere ahead.

I looked at the main screen
and gave the order slowly:

“From this point on, no line connected to the fragrance distribution channel moves forward alone.”

“Every point of contact gets double-layer surveillance.”

“Every related person gets watched before they’re touched.”

“I don’t want anyone else disappearing in front of us.”

No one spoke.

Because this wasn’t just an order.

It was a warning.

To them.

And to myself.

I looked at the screen one last time.

Xu Rou was missing.

Fang Ze Ming had changed his story.

The line
was still there.

But by then,
I could already smell
that what waited at the far end of it
was not only the scent of answers.

It was the scent of a hunter.

And this time—

when we followed the trail,

the other side
would very likely be waiting
to see how we chose to walk into it.