Nominal: Hou Liangping blocking the door? He was slapped away!

Northern front, field tents.

The red and blue markers on the tactical screen have been returned to their positions, and the order to conclude the exercise was issued just ten minutes ago.

Shen Zhong turned to the last page of the sealed receipt sent by Handong, picked up a red pen and wrote the last line in the blank space of the briefing: "The northern route is nearing completion, and we will return to Handong immediately."

The pen was pressed down very hard, leaving visible marks on the paper, as if it were piercing into the paper everything that had been weighing on my heart these past few days.

Zhou Weiguo stood by the table and handed over a booklet containing the interim closing documents.

"General, the crew is ready to take off at any time."

Shen Zhong closed the briefing, stood up, and buttoned the top button of his combat uniform collar. His fingertips smoothed the collar with unhurried ease, but his eyes held no trace of the northern front.

"Walk."

With just one word, all the staff officers in the tent stood at attention simultaneously, their breathing even synchronized by half a beat.

……

dusk.

At the Handong Provincial Military Region Airport, the guide lights at the end of the runway lit up one after another, and the orange-red light covered the entire landing line.

The sound of the military transport plane's tires hitting the ground was dull and solid. Before the fuselage had come to a complete stop, the hatch had already begun to descend.

The duty officer jogged to the bottom of the gangway, stood at attention, and saluted, his back teeth clenched.

Shen Zhong, dressed in his combat uniform, descended the gangway without changing into his civilian clothes. The soles of his military boots crunched crisply on the concrete. Before he could even shake off the dust of his journey, his aura already filled the entire runway.

He nodded and strode towards the military compound.

There were no flowers, no processions, and no unnecessary ceremonies.

But all three duty officers on the control tower stood up and watched through the glass window as the figure disappeared at the gate of the compound. None of them dared to make a sound.

The duty officer glanced at his colleague and said in a low voice, "The general didn't go back to his office; he just asked for a car."

"Where to?"

"Provincial Department".

The colleague swallowed hard and didn't ask any more questions. Everyone on the track knew who this guy was going to chop up next—he came back and, instead of going home, he was already sharpening his knife.

……

The provincial archives room had its iron gate tightly closed.

Qi Tongwei was checking the serial numbers of the last batch of evidence at the sealing table when his phone screen suddenly lit up.

The encrypted text message contained only six characters, without a signature.

He stared at the screen for three seconds, closed the packing slip, and the bandage on his left arm moved slightly.

Lu Yike looked up from the other end of the technical cabinet: "Who?"

"I'm back."

As soon as the two words were spoken, Lu Yike paused for a moment, then put the anti-magnetic box down steadily without asking any further questions. She simply subconsciously checked the inventory receipts again—with her connections to the city, every number in this room had to be perfect.

……

Fifteen minutes later, the access control for the archives room beeped.

The iron gate was swung open from the outside, and Shen Zhong walked in sideways, his combat uniform still carrying the smell of the air conditioning in the cabin and the dust from the northern front.

Qi Tongwei stood in front of the sealing table, his left arm wrapped in a new bandage, his back straight, showing no sign of bending over.

Shen Zhong glanced at the three rows of evidence boxes on the table, and without saying a word, reached out and flipped open and rolled up the signature pages.

The military seal, the discipline inspection seal, and the procuratorial seal—three red seals—are neatly pressed at the bottom of the page, none missing.

He flipped through the pages one by one, his finger pausing for two seconds on the witness number before continuing to flip down.

We checked every box of physical evidence and overseas documents, leaving no stone unturned, not even a folded corner.

The finger finally stopped on the attachment to the Hong Kong freezing letter.

"Are there any survivors in Hong Kong?"

Qi Tongwei answered decisively: "All accounts are locked, we didn't catch the people, and two of them escaped."

Shen Zhong put the freezing letter back in its original place, took out a comparison report brought back from the northern route from his briefcase, and spread it out on the table.

Zhou Weiguo stepped forward, took out his notebook, and began to check the discrepancies item by item.

The two documents were placed side by side, showing the cross-provincial organization code, the shell company's associated path, and the nodes of fund flow. Every single one was related to the past, and not a single number was ambiguous.

The heavy red pen circled the badge number next to the middleman surnamed Qin—"Q7-HZ-019"—then the pen cap was put back on, the movement so slow it was as if someone was being sentenced.

He closed the suitcase and turned to look at Qi Tongwei.

A few seconds of silence, so quiet you could hear the low hum of the dehumidifier in the corner of the archives.

"You've revealed half of Handong's face."

Qi Tongwei showed no extra expression: "The rest are in the core."

"It's not all done." Shen Zhong folded the comparison report and stuffed it back into his bag. "There's still one page left."

His gaze suddenly fell on Qi Tongwei's left arm, which remained at an unnatural angle, with the edge of the bandage faintly showing a dark color.

"What happened to your hand?"

"External injury".

Shen Zhong glanced at him; that look had seen countless false reports on the battlefield, and this little bit of concealment couldn't fool him. He didn't press further, but turned to Zhou Weiguo and said, "Send the army doctor over."

Qi Tongwei tried to say no, but Shen Zhong had already turned away to look at another list of evidence on the table, giving him no chance to refuse. His logic was always simple—the knife belonged to him, and if it chipped, it was up to him to decide.

Light footsteps came from outside the door. Lu Yike pushed the door open and came in with two cups of coffee. When she saw the heavy combat uniform from behind, she clearly paused for a moment.

Shen Zhong didn't turn around, but he clearly knew there was someone behind him.

"I won't stop you from using people," he said to Qi Tongwei, tapping the table with his finger and emphasizing each word, "but a dull knife needs sharpening; don't use a chipped blade to chop hard bones."

These words, though seemingly referring to a knife, landed on the left arm, revealing the thoughts of the other person in the room as well.

Lu Yike placed the coffee on the edge of the table, her lips moved, but she ultimately didn't take anything. The general had already said what needed to be said, and he had said it with more conviction than she had.

She went back to the technical cabinet to continue organizing the inventory receipts, her back ramrod straight.

……

Late at night, in the provincial military district office.

Only the table lamp was on, its warm yellow light illuminating half of the tabletop, while the rest remained in darkness.

Shen Zhong sat alone, with three things placed in front of him.

The sealing wax file bag is intact, and the steel stamping pattern on the red wax is clearly visible.

The black book's tattered pages were photocopied, with Chu Pingshan's handwriting crookedly writing several dates and codes, as if his hand was trembling when he wrote them.

The red circle on the last page of the comparison report for the northern route is still wet.

He picked up the sealing wax bag, turned it over, and rubbed his fingertip against the wax residue at the seal, then stopped there without moving.

It hasn't been dismantled.

At his level, the more anxious he is, the more he will lose. When to reveal this secret, and in whose presence to reveal it, is itself a crucial move.

The airport lights outside shone through the blinds, casting alternating stripes of light and shadow on half of his face.

The phone on the table rang once, and he pressed speakerphone.

Zhou Weiguo's voice: "General, the date on the third line of the black book's tattered page coincides with the timeline marked by Gao Yuliang in the sealing wax bag."

Shen Zhong placed the sealing wax bag back on the table, and tapped the second page seal lightly twice with his index finger, the rhythm so steady it was as if he were pinching someone's pulse.

"I'm meeting Gao Yuliang tomorrow."

"Yes."

The phone call ended, and only the faint hum of the lamp base remained in the office.

The sealing wax bag lay quietly under the light, the secret of the second page still sealed inside the red wax, waiting to be revealed.

The hand that could uncover it just landed in Handong tonight.