The flickering fluorescent light of the precinct's archive room hummed a lonely, buzzing tune, a sound that seemed to seep into the very bones. It was a place outside of time, smelling of decaying paper and the cold ghost of forgotten secrets.
Above, the glittering metropolis of Port Sterling hummed with the silent efficiency of AI-driven police drones. But down here, in the station's gut, justice was an analog affair. It required patience, intuition, and ink-stained fingers.
Detective Julian Zheng ran a hand over a row of cold metal cabinets, his personal purgatory. He was hunting for the ghost of his mentor, Detective Liang, the man who had taught him everything.
The official report, filed neatly five years ago, cited a massive heart attack. Julian, who had seen Liang wrestle a suspect half his age into submission just a week before he died, knew that report was a fiction written to close a book that should have remained open.
He could still hear Liang's gravelly voice, a constant echo in his mind.
"The bigger the man, the cleaner the mess, kid. Remember that."
Liang's own end had been far too clean.
Julian pulled a dusty folder from a section labeled Accidents & Misadventures, Year 20XX-5. His search was methodical, a quiet rebellion he conducted after hours. He was looking for the last rock Liang had kicked over.
His eyes landed on a name that felt out of place among the mundane tragedies: Meng, Liana.
He remembered the media frenzy. The city's most beloved ballerina, a star extinguished in a fiery wreck on the coastal highway. It was a tragedy, yes, but a public one, seemingly straightforward.
He opened the file, the brittle paper crinkling under his touch. It contained the standard accident report, a brief coroner's summary, and a few witness statements that spoke only of seeing flames against the night sky.
But tucked at the very back, almost an afterthought, was a loose sheet of paper. It was a printout of an internal note from Liang's terminal, logged just two days before his death. The terse, impatient phrasing was unmistakably Liang's.
Case 734 - Liana Meng. Brake lines clean on inspection, but first responder's initial notes mentioned tampering. That page is now gone. Source inside Huo Enterprises says they're stonewalling. Their golden boy, Kian Huo, just adopted the daughter, Elara. Smells like a five-star cleanup.
Julian's pulse kicked up a notch.
A missing page. Huo Enterprises. The name was a monolith in Port Sterling, a corporation that cast a shadow longer than the city's tallest skyscraper.
He pulled out his department-issued tablet, its screen cracked from a past chase, and entered the case number. The digital file was flagged with a bright red banner: SEALED BY ORDER OF THE DA'S OFFICE - FAMILY PRIVACY REQUEST.
For a car accident? That wasn't a red flag; it was a fireworks display signaling a cover-up.
His phone buzzed, the harsh vibration startling in the silence. A text from Captain Davies.
Zheng. My office. Now.
Julian sighed, the frustration a familiar, bitter taste. He snapped a quick, illegal picture of Liang's note before sliding the file back into its place, a ghost returned to its crypt.
Upstairs, the air was different—cleaner, brighter, full of the ordered noise of a working precinct. Captain Davies' office, however, felt like its own pressurized bubble. Davies leaned back in his chair, rubbing his tired eyes. The man seemed to age in dog years, worn down by the city's politics.
"Don't tell me you were in the basement again, Julian," he said, his voice flat. "Chasing Liang's ghosts won't bring him back."
"Just following up on a loose end from an old case, Captain."
"Liang's loose ends are tripwires," Davies countered, leaning forward. His gaze was sharp, a mixture of professional warning and something else—maybe genuine concern. "I'm telling you for your own good, let it go. We have a floater down at the docks. A fresh case. A real case. Go work it."
"On it," Julian replied, his face a neutral mask. He knew Davies was trying to protect him, but he also knew the captain was scared of the same shadows that had consumed Liang.
He walked back to his desk, the order to drop it only strengthening his resolve. He wasn't just chasing a ghost; he was following his mentor's last lesson.
It came back to him now, a memory from a late-night stakeout. Liang had pointed to the distant, glittering towers of the financial district.
"They can't erase everything, kid," he'd said. "They're arrogant. There's always a wire transfer, a phone log, a forgotten partnership. Find the money, and you'll find the motive."
Ignoring the file for the floater case, Julian opened a secure browser on his terminal. He didn't search for Huo. That would be too obvious, too easily tracked. He searched for their known business partners from five years ago.
He scrolled through financial reports, press releases, society photos from galas much like the one Elara was attending now.
Then he found it.
A photo from a charity auction, taken just weeks before Liana Meng's death. It showed the Huo Patriarch, beaming, his arm around another man. The Feng Patriarch. Liam Feng's father.
He dug deeper, his fingers flying across the keyboard. The Feng family's shipping empire had been teetering on the edge of bankruptcy that same year. Public records showed they were saved by a last-minute, massive infusion of cash.
The investor was a shell corporation registered in an offshore haven. But its listed legal representative in Port Sterling? A boutique law firm whose biggest client was, and always had been, Huo Enterprises.
The pieces in Julian's mind weren't just snapping into place; they were forming a dark, ugly picture.
A dead ballerina who may have been an obstacle.
A powerful family in financial trouble.
A "rescue" that looked suspiciously like a buyout under duress.
The Meng case wasn't a cleanup. It was the closing cost of a brutal transaction.
The 'why' was still a mystery, but the 'who' was becoming clearer with every click.
This mission wasn't just for Liang anymore. It was for Liana Meng, and for her daughter, a girl who was likely living in a beautiful cage, completely unaware that the bars were forged from her own family's tragedy.
He finally stood up, grabbing his jacket. He'd go to the docks. He'd work the case, be the good soldier Davies wanted him to be.
But his real hunt had just begun.