---
Jing City didn't sleep, but it had places that did—dark, deserted corners where secrets whispered louder than footsteps. By the time Aira Ke emerged from the shadows of Warehouse 7, her pulse was a war drum beneath her ribs.
Inside that cold metal shell, Kian Lei Raizhen had shown her files. Dozens of them.
Names. Bank transfers. Photos. One particular name—Deputy Minister Zhou Renwei—kept surfacing in bold ink. Alongside it: coded emails, bloodstained ledgers, and one image of a woman face down in a bathtub, timestamped two weeks ago.
"Accident," Kian had said. "That's what the police called it. But she was my informant."
And now he wanted Aira to finish what the dead woman started.
"Expose them. But understand this—you do it alone, you die alone."
Now, as the city's glass towers blinked in the distance, Aira stood still under the overpass, breathing in exhaust fumes and paranoia.
She hated this.
Hated being forced to rely on a man whose charm felt as artificial as the PR photos he posed for. Hated how calm he remained when the world tilted. Hated that every move he made felt five steps ahead.
But most of all, she hated the flicker of doubt in her own instincts.
Was Kian manipulating her—or protecting her?
He had intercepted the hit. He'd shown her the photos. But why? What was he hiding behind those glacier eyes?
Her burner phone vibrated again.
[Unknown Number]: Don't trust the dragon with a paper smile.
She froze.
No name. No number.
The message vanished a second later.
Self-deleting.
Her eyes darted to the shadows beyond the alley.
Nothing.
But she no longer felt alone.
---
The next morning, Aira was back at The People's Eye. The newsroom buzzed with the usual chaos—phones ringing, screens flashing, coffee mugs clinking—but everything felt warped. Distant.
She passed her editor, Jinli, without a glance.
Jinli called after her. "Ke! We need a follow-up on the bank scandal—"
"Tomorrow," Aira muttered, ducking into her glass-walled office and shutting the door.
She yanked the blinds closed.
Then she pulled out her encrypted laptop and opened a folder labeled RaizhenGhost.
Inside: every document Kian had handed over. She had spent all night backing up the files across dead drives, air-gapped systems, and a cloud server under a fake university name.
If this was a game, she wasn't playing by anyone's rules anymore.
Her fingers flew over the keyboard.
Subject: Zhou Renwei's Offshore Holdings
Two accounts in the British Virgin Islands. One in Zurich. All traced back to a shell company: LongHe International, listed under a falsified identity.
She paused.
Aira had seen that company name before.
In a previous exposé. One about "steel procurement corruption."
Steel.
Her blood went cold.
Raizhen Group's core business is steel.
She scrolled back. Checked the dates. The timeline matched exactly with the death of Kian's father—Lei Zhenyuan, "The Steel King."
Her breath caught.
Could Kian's family fortune have been tied to these same accounts?
Was he protecting her from Zhou—or protecting his legacy?
She didn't want to believe it. Didn't want to think she'd been dancing to his tune all along.
But the pieces didn't lie.
The door to her office opened. She spun.
It was Jinli. Holding a single manila envelope.
"This just came in for you. No return address."
Aira frowned, took it carefully. Her fingers felt stiff, almost numb.
Inside: another photo.
This time, it was her—in her office, from this morning. The photo had been taken from across the street through a zoom lens.
On the back, a message:
"Last warning. Drop the story. Or we bury you under it."
Aira's heart hammered. She looked up—but Jinli was already gone.
The walls of the newsroom suddenly felt thinner.
---
That evening, Aira found herself at a rooftop bar overlooking the glittering Huangpu River. She hadn't planned to meet anyone, but the message from an untraceable number had summoned her there.
She sat at a corner table, scanning every face, every reflection in the window.
Then—just as she considered leaving—he arrived.
Kian.
Impeccably dressed. No security. Just a black umbrella slung over one shoulder and that infuriating calm on his face.
She glared at him. "Did you send the threat?"
"No," he said smoothly, taking the seat opposite her. "But I'd have phrased it more eloquently."
"Stop playing games."
"I don't play, Ms. Ke. I calculate."
She slammed her hand on the table. "LongHe International. Offshore accounts. Your father's name is all over the paper trail. You should be under investigation, not leading one."
A flicker crossed his eyes.
"You think I'm hiding the truth," he said quietly.
"I know you are."
Kian leaned forward, voice like smoke curling into her ears. "My father built Raizhen Group. But near the end, someone else was pulling the strings. When I took over, I cut them off. That's why they want me gone. And now—why they want you silenced."
Aira didn't blink.
"And I'm supposed to believe you're some white knight in a tailored suit?"
"No," Kian said, his smile returning like a ghost. "I don't care what you believe. I care about results."
He slid a small black flash drive across the table.
"Encrypted files. Access to Zhou's personal messages. Hidden cameras. Audio logs."
She stared at it.
"What's the catch?"
"Trust," he said. "Just enough to not get you killed."
She pocketed the drive.
"You keep asking for trust, Kian. But you never offer any."
Kian stood slowly, gazing out over the city.
"I offered you your life," he said. "That's more than most get."
---
Back in her apartment that night, Aira triple-locked the door and ran the flash drive through her offline laptop.
Password screen.
She typed: Zhenyuan
Access granted.
She was in.
Hundreds of files loaded onto the screen.
But one video caught her eye—timestamped two nights ago.
She clicked.
The footage showed a dim conference room.
Inside: Zhou Renwei. And someone else.
A woman.
Aira leaned closer.
It was her boss—Editor-in-Chief Jinli.
Aira's world tilted.
Jinli. In a room with the man funding a kill order on her life?
Zhou's voice crackled through the grainy audio.
> "She's too close. If she publishes, we all go down. Handle it."
Jinli didn't flinch.
> "Understood."
Aira covered her mouth, eyes wide.
Suddenly, everything was different.
She couldn't trust anyone at The People's Eye. Not even her own team.
And now… Kian might be the only one who hadn't lied to her.
Her hands trembled as she copied the footage to a secure server.
I don't trust you, Mr. Raizhen… but maybe we want the same thing.
She shut her laptop, drew the blinds.
And pulled her gun from the drawer.
Tomorrow, she'd confront Jinli.
But tonight, she'd sleep with one eye open—and a bullet chambered.
---