Chapter 4 — Ghost Posting
1882 Words
The archive wing didn’t feel like part of the museum.
It felt like the underside of it.
The air was colder here, heavier, as if every sealed box on the metal shelves carried its own small gravity. The overhead lights hummed faintly, washing the rows in a pale white that made skin look drained and paper look too clean.
Jingyan stood motionless at the entrance, eyes locked on the folder placed neatly on the metal table.
A case file.
New. Un-dusted. Wrong in a room built for old things.
And printed on the front in bold black letters:
LIN WANQING
Xu Zhe muttered behind him, voice finally stripped of humor. “Captain… why would a museum archive have her name?”
Zhou Shuo didn’t answer. His gaze moved quickly—door, shelves, table, ceiling corners—like he was measuring the shape of a trap.
Jingyan kept his breathing steady. “Nobody touches it.”
Xu Zhe shifted his weight, restless. “If that’s our killer’s gift, shouldn’t we—”
“No,” Jingyan said. “We document first.”
He took out his phone, snapped photos from a distance, and sent them to the evidence team with a simple note: Archive wing, Harbor City Museum. Potential planted file.
Then he looked up. The aisles stretched long and narrow, rows of labeled boxes stacked like silent witnesses. Beyond them, the corridor disappeared into shadow, broken only by the occasional green glow of emergency signs.
The archive door behind them sat locked. The keypad outside blinked red through the small glass panel.
They were contained.
Not trapped—yet.
But contained.
Zhou Shuo’s voice was low. “This is private property. If we proceed deeper without authorization—”
“We already have an active investigation and potential evidence tampering,” Jingyan said. “And the victim was led into this corridor before she died. That’s enough to justify a search.”
Zhou Shuo’s jaw tightened. “If the foundation’s lawyers push back—”
“They will,” Xu Zhe cut in bitterly. “Rich people don’t like their secrets cataloged.”
Jingyan’s eyes didn’t leave the table. “Xu Zhe, check the network.”
Xu Zhe pulled his laptop out like a reflex, crouching beside the wall outlet. He plugged in a small adapter and tapped rapidly. “Museum network is segmented. The archive wing has restricted subnet. But there’s something… weird.”
“Weird how,” Jingyan asked.
“Like… someone is already watching this subnet. There are ghost pings. A device that keeps waking the system every sixty seconds.”
Zhou Shuo frowned. “Maintenance?”
“No.” Xu Zhe’s eyes hardened. “Maintenance pings don’t hide their MAC address.”
Jingyan’s gaze flicked to the ceiling. Cameras were mounted at the corners, black and quiet. Whether they were recording was another question.
He moved forward slowly, careful not to make the scene feel rushed. Rushing was what the killer wanted—panic, mistakes, chaos.
The folder sat on the table like a dare.
Jingyan reached into his jacket and pulled out nitrile gloves. He slipped them on with calm precision, then nodded toward Zhou Shuo.
“You witness,” Jingyan said. “Everything is on record.”
Zhou Shuo’s expression didn’t soften, but he stepped closer. “Do it quickly.”
Jingyan lifted the file carefully, as if it might cut him.
The folder was heavier than it looked. Professional. Thick.
Inside was an official-looking cover sheet, not museum formatting—police formatting.
Case File: Proposal Scene Murder
Subject of Interest: LIN WANQING
Classification: RESTRICTED
Xu Zhe swore under his breath. “That’s not museum paperwork. That’s ours.”
Jingyan’s chest tightened. “Someone forged it.”
Or someone copied it.
He turned the page. A photograph stared back at him—an old ID-style portrait.
A girl, seventeen at most. Pale face. Dark eyes. Expression blank in the way teenagers became blank when adults asked questions they didn’t want to answer.
Under the photo, a name stamped in sharp letters:
SONG YANYAN
Jingyan’s fingers stilled.
The name didn’t hit him as a random detail.
It hit him like a memory.
A cold interrogation room. A chair too high for a teenager. A file slid across metal. A voice asking calmly: Tell me your name.
And the girl’s answer—soft, controlled, fearless in the wrong way:
Song Yanyan.
Xu Zhe leaned in, eyes wide. “Captain… that’s Wanqing?”
Zhou Shuo’s gaze snapped to Jingyan. “You recognize this?”
Jingyan didn’t respond. He didn’t trust his voice yet.
He turned the next page.
It was an adoption record.
Or what looked like one.
A charity foundation stamp. A hospital signature. A line reading: Name Change Approved.
And near the bottom—
A badge number.
Jingyan’s eyes narrowed, pulse suddenly louder in his ears.
The badge number belonged to someone dead.
His mentor.
Zhou Shuo read it too. His face tightened. “That’s impossible.”
Xu Zhe’s voice went thin. “Unless someone used his badge number after he died.”
Or before he died, Jingyan thought.
He shut the file gently, as if the paper itself had teeth, and placed it back down.
“This isn’t evidence,” he said. “It’s bait.”
Zhou Shuo stared at him. “It’s also a direct link to a foundation.”
“It’s a link someone wants us to see,” Jingyan corrected.
Xu Zhe’s laptop chimed softly.
He froze. “Captain.”
Jingyan turned his head. “What.”
Xu Zhe’s fingers hovered above the keyboard, like he was afraid to touch the next line. “The victim’s account just activated again.”
Zhou Shuo’s eyes sharpened. “But you froze it.”
“I did.” Xu Zhe’s voice cracked with disbelief. “I revoked sessions. I pulled tokens. I even set a monitoring alert. And it just… pinged.”
Jingyan reached for Xu Zhe’s screen.
A live log showed a new connection request hitting the victim’s account—small, quick, deliberate.
Then a new draft appeared.
Not scheduled.
Not saved in the usual way.
It popped into existence like a ghost writing on a locked door.
Xu Zhe whispered, “I’m watching it in real time.”
Text began to fill the draft field, letter by letter, as if someone was typing somewhere else and the account itself was a mouth.
You came.
Good.
Jingyan’s jaw tightened.
The draft continued.
You found her name.
Now find the other one.
The cursor blinked.
Then one final line appeared.
Look behind the box marked “ENGAGEMENT.”
Xu Zhe’s breath caught. “That’s… that’s here.”
Jingyan’s eyes swept the shelves.
Labels. Codes. Years. Sections.
Then he saw it:
A brown archive box on the middle shelf of the nearest aisle.
Stamped with a clean label in bold letters:
ENGAGEMENT
It looked too new. Too intentionally placed.
Xu Zhe swallowed. “Captain… that box was not in the CCTV. It wasn’t on the inventory list on my screen.”
Meaning it had been planted after the fact.
Meaning someone else was inside the museum.
Or someone had access to the archive wing controls.
Zhou Shuo stepped forward, voice low and controlled. “This is an escalation. Someone is actively interfering with evidence.”
“Or guiding us,” Jingyan said.
He moved toward the aisle.
Each step echoed too loudly against the marble beyond the archive wing, as if the building wanted to announce his progress. The shelves rose on both sides, narrowing his vision into a tunnel of paper and steel.
He stopped in front of the box.
ENGAGEMENT
Jingyan didn’t touch it immediately. He listened instead.
Silence.
No footsteps. No breath. No shuffling.
But silence could be a costume too.
He pulled on a second pair of gloves over the first—habit, discipline, control.
Then he lifted the box.
It was lighter than expected.
Inside lay only one object.
A ring box.
Black velvet.
Identical to the one staged at the crime scene.
And taped to it was a small card with printed text.
Say yes.
Xu Zhe let out a harsh laugh that sounded like fear wearing humor. “This person really needs therapy.”
Zhou Shuo’s face was pale under the fluorescent light. “This is not a game.”
Jingyan stared at the ring box, feeling the weight of the killer’s attention pressing against his skin like a fingerprint.
He slowly peeled the tape and opened the box.
Inside was not a ring.
It was a tiny USB drive.
And beside it, folded neatly, was another printed note.
One sentence.
Her name is already in your system.
Jingyan closed the box carefully, like he was sealing a wound. He looked up at the shelves again, the endless rows of stored history.
The killer wasn’t hiding in the darkness.
They were hiding in records.
In paperwork.
In the places where people trusted because they looked official.
Xu Zhe swallowed. “Captain… should I plug that in?”
Jingyan didn’t answer immediately.
His eyes went to the archive door.
Still locked.
Then to the keypad’s faint red glow.
Still sealed.
And then, as if the building itself had decided to join the conversation, the overhead lights flickered once—brief, subtle.
A warning.
The air-conditioning stopped.
Silence thickened, deepened, until Jingyan could hear his own breathing.
Xu Zhe’s laptop screen dimmed for half a second.
When it came back, the draft on the victim’s account had updated one last time.
You have ten minutes.
After that, I post the real video.
Zhou Shuo’s voice turned sharp. “What video?”
Xu Zhe’s eyes widened, panic finally breaking through. “If there’s a real-time video… Captain, the city will riot. The media will—”
Jingyan’s voice stayed cold. “Xu Zhe. Copy everything. Now.”
Xu Zhe’s hands moved fast, no jokes now, no sarcasm left—only skill and fear.
Jingyan held the USB drive between two fingers as if it were contaminated with something invisible.
Ten minutes.
A countdown.
A performance.
He understood then: the killer wasn’t only writing messages.
They were directing time.
Turning the investigation into a live broadcast event where every delay became a punishment.
Jingyan slipped the drive into an evidence bag and sealed it. His gaze lifted to Zhou Shuo.
“We leave,” Jingyan said.
Zhou Shuo blinked. “Now?”
“Now,” Jingyan repeated. “We take this to a clean machine. We don’t play their game inside their stage.”
As they turned toward the door, the archive lights flickered again.
This time, they didn’t stabilize.
The hallway beyond the shelves disappeared into darkness.
And from somewhere deep in the archive wing, a soft sound drifted out—steady, slow, unmistakable.
Footsteps.
Not running.
Not hiding.
Approaching.
Jingyan’s hand went instinctively to the gun at his waist.
Xu Zhe whispered, “Captain… we’re not alone.”
The footsteps continued, measured and confident, as if whoever was walking had no fear of being caught.
As if this were their museum.
And then a voice spoke from the dark aisle ahead—calm, close, almost amused.
“Captain He,” it said softly.
“You finally opened the ring box.”
- Writer
