Chapter 6: The Serpent Case (Part Six)

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Li Rui stood inside the abandoned office building, the USB drive in his hand feeling as heavy as a thousand pounds. Moonlight filtered through the shattered windows, casting mottled shadows on the floor. He took a deep breath and inserted the USB into the laptop he carried with him.

The screen lit up, revealing an encrypted file. Li Rui entered his late father’s badge number, and the file opened smoothly. What appeared before him was a detailed investigation report titled: “The Moat Project Corruption Case.”

The report exposed severe corruption in the Moat Project two decades ago. Li Rui’s father, who served as the project supervisor, had uncovered the scheme and was preparing to report it—only to meet with an “accident.” The report ended with a list of names, prominently featuring the patriarch Lin and several influential figures from political and business circles.

Li Rui’s hand began to tremble. His father’s death was no accident—it was a silencing. To his shock, the list also included a familiar name: the current police chief, Chen Ming.

“No wonder the case has never progressed all these years...” Li Rui muttered to himself.

Suddenly, footsteps echoed outside the door. Li Rui quickly shut his laptop and hid behind the door. The door creaked open, and a tall figure stepped inside. Bathed in moonlight, Li Rui recognized the visitor—it was Chen Ming.

“Come out, Li Rui,” Chen Ming’s voice reverberated through the empty room. “I know you’re here.”

Holding his breath, Li Rui gripped the USB drive tightly. At that moment, his phone vibrated. An anonymous message: “Vent shaft, hurry!”

Li Rui looked up toward the ceiling and saw the vent cover was loose. He quietly climbed up, just sealing the cover when he heard Chen Ming below on the phone: “He’s escaped. Seal all exits immediately!”

The vent was pitch black; Li Rui had to crawl forward by feel. The maze-like ducts soon disoriented him. Then, faint light appeared ahead.

“This way,” a familiar voice called.

Li Rui crawled forward and found a small room at the vent’s end. Lin Xiuwen stood there, holding a flashlight.

“You...” Li Rui eyed him warily.

“Don’t be tense,” Lin said. “I’m here to help. Chen Ming controls the entire area now—you can’t get out.”

“Why help me?”

“Because I’m a victim of this conspiracy, just like you.” Lin smiled bitterly. “You think the patriarch Lin is really my father? No, I was just a pawn he raised. My biological parents were also victims of the Moat Project.”

Li Rui stared in shock. “Then your earlier actions...”

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“That was all an act,” Lin replied. “I had to gain the patriarch’s trust to get close to the truth. Now, it’s time to end this.”

He pulled a phone from his pocket. “I have all the evidence of Chen Ming and the patriarch’s crimes over the years here. I’ve contacted several trustworthy media outlets. If you agree, we release it immediately.”

Li Rui hesitated. He knew once the evidence was public, it would shake the entire city and possibly ignite greater unrest.

“What are you hesitating for?” Lin asked. “Don’t you want justice for your father?”

“I do,” Li Rui said, “but I want to know why you chose now.”

Lin was silent for a moment. “Because of Lin Xiaoman. She’s innocent and shouldn’t be dragged into this. Also...” He gave a bitter smile. “I have cancer. Not much time left. I want to do the right thing before I die.”

At that moment, noisy footsteps approached outside. Chen Ming’s men had found the vicinity.

“No time,” Lin said. “It’s your decision.”

Li Rui took a deep breath and took the phone. “Alright, let’s release it.”

Lin smiled with relief, then left through another exit. “I’ll distract them. You go this way. Remember, truth is always more important than revenge.”

Watching his silhouette disappear into the darkness, Li Rui suddenly understood. He quickly edited a message, sent the evidence to several media outlets, then deleted all records.

The next day, the whole city was in upheaval. Major media headlines exposed the Moat Project corruption, and Chen Ming, the patriarch, and others were immediately detained. Li Rui stood by the police station window, watching reporters gather below, but felt no joy.

“Coroner Li,” Xiao Wang entered, “Lin Xiuwen... he surrendered.”

Li Rui nodded, as if expecting it. He went to the interrogation room and looked through the glass at Lin, who looked up and smiled.

“Was it worth it?” Li Rui asked.

Lin thought for a moment. “For the truth, yes.”

A month later, the trial concluded. The patriarch Lin, Chen Ming, and others were sentenced to heavy prison terms, and the Moat Project was restarted. Li Rui stood before his father’s grave, burning a copy of the verdict.

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“Dad, the truth is out,” he whispered. “You can rest now.”

At that moment, his phone rang. A message from an unknown number: “The game is over, but the truth will never be buried. Thank you, Coroner Li.”

At the message’s end was a serpentine symbol—but this time, the snake’s eyes were closed.

Li Rui put away his phone and turned to leave the cemetery. He knew this city still harbored many dark corners and unsolved mysteries.

But as long as people like him existed, the truth would never be concealed.

Li Rui stood on the rooftop terrace of the city bureau. The city shrouded in morning mist resembled a film negative gradually revealing faint outlines. He touched the button engraved with an “L”; dew condensed on the metal, sliding through his fingers and refracting fragmented rainbows in the sunrise.

Three days ago at the hearing, when Lin Xiuwen entered the courtroom in shackles, a woman in a gray trench coat suddenly rose from the back row and left. Surveillance footage showed her left pinky adorned with a serpent-tail ring—identical to the symbol left at the serial crime scenes.

When the scalpel sliced open a newly received corpse’s chest cavity, Li Rui’s hand suddenly froze. An old fracture on the inside of the fifth rib perfectly matched a record in his father’s autopsy report from twenty years ago. Frost formed on his glasses from the cold in the morgue; through the mist, the pale skin on the table blurred with his memories.

“Coroner Li?” his assistant knocked on the glass door. “Evidence from the riverbank dismemberment case just arrived.”

Fragments of a movie ticket, stained with mud, bore seat number 7, row 13, glowing faintly green under the fluorescent light. As Li Rui picked up the ticket with tweezers, a note slipped from the file—a message Lin had written while in custody: Beware the shadows that walk in the light.

Night rain fell silently as Li Rui stood on the newly rebuilt embankment of the Moat. Construction floodlights pierced the downpour; excavator claws dragged twisted steel from the mud. Ten years ago, his father’s briefcase was buried here. Now, workers fished out a black plastic bag containing a skeletal right hand clenched into a fist.

The police badge number between the finger bones belonged to a drug enforcement captain who had committed suicide three years prior, battling depression.

The forensic room’s shadowless lamp flickered. Li Rui looked up at the winding rain streaks on the glass window. In a fleeting moment, the water marks seemed to form a serpent pattern, flicking its tongue toward the corpse on the table. He reached out to touch the cold steel surface; reflected in the metal was not only his own face but also the red glow of a slowly rotating surveillance camera behind him.

When the evidence room’s safe showed signs of tampering for the third time, Li Rui finally noticed something amiss: the serpent-eye stone that had “disappeared” and “reappeared” bore a fresh new engraving—a variant of the secret code recorded in his father’s notebook.

At three in the morning, the morgue’s refrigeration system hummed rhythmically. When Li Rui opened freezer number 13, what emerged from the cold mist was not a body, but neatly stacked file folders. The top one’s seal was adorned with a dried hibiscus petal—the very same flower pinned to his father’s portrait at the funeral.