puzzle
On the monitor screen, the lone cardboard box placed by the door stood out starkly in the chilly night. It was like an intruder, abruptly shattering the brief tranquility that had just been established.
Shen Zhiyan quickly operated the control panel, retrieving surveillance footage from the main entrance of the cultural and creative park and surrounding roads. The footage showed the man in the delivery uniform walking out of an alley without surveillance cameras, putting down the box, and then quickly returning the same way, disappearing into the shadows of the alley. The entire process took less than thirty seconds, his movements clean and efficient, clearly indicating he was trained.
“Not an ordinary deliveryman,” Shen Zhiyan concluded in a low voice. He activated an undisclosed passive biosignal scanning system located outside the studio, confirming that the box's exterior showed no traces of common drugs or hazardous chemicals.
"Should we open it?" Jiang Mo asked, her palms slightly sweaty. This feeling of being watched and being unknown was more unsettling than facing a direct threat.
Shen Zhiyan pondered for a moment, his eyes sharp: "Open it. But follow the highest security procedures." He gestured for Jiang Mo to retreat behind the security compartment, then put on special protective gloves, picked up a device resembling a metal detector, and walked to the door. He first used the device to scan the cardboard box from all angles, confirming that there were no electronic emission sources or mechanical triggering devices inside, before carefully cutting open the sealing tape with a utility knife.
Inside the cardboard box, instead of the threatening letter or strange items expected, were several things neatly stacked:
An old, dark blue velvet jewelry box, about the size of a palm, with worn edges.
A stack of letter paper bound with rubber bands, the paper yellowed and looked quite old.
A brand new black USB flash drive, without any markings.
An ordinary white card with the words "Returned to its rightful owner. The clue lies in the beginning" printed on it.
There was no signature, no claw marks. This tranquil "gift" only served to amplify the eeriness of the situation.
Shen Zhiyan took several items to the workbench inside and began working under the isolation shield. He first checked the jewelry box and the letter, confirming that there were no hidden compartments or special treatments. The jewelry box was empty, and the letter contained handwritten, fluent but somewhat messy English, which appeared to be some notes and formula drafts.
His attention was mainly focused on the USB drive. He didn't plug it directly into any computer connected to the intranet, but instead used a completely physically isolated detection device running a homemade security system. After the USB drive was plugged in, the screen lit up, but no programs ran automatically. It only contained a folder named "Observation Log_Fragment".
Shen Zhiyan opened the folder, which contained dozens of text files named by date, spanning several years. He randomly opened a few, and the contents were alarming—they detailed long-term observations and analyses of multiple research projects, and even the personal habits and social relationships of some researchers, written in a calm and objective style, like experimental notes. Shen Zhiyan even knew some of the subjects observed; they were accomplished scholars both domestically and internationally.
"This is... a fragment of the Observer's database?" Jiang Mo looked at the text on the screen and felt a chill creep up her spine. This was more terrifying than a direct threat; it revealed a systematic, long-term, and ubiquitous form of surveillance.
Shen Zhiyan quickly browsed through the files, his gaze finally settling on a log file that began the year he returned to China and joined the National Data Science Center. The records inside meticulously documented everything from the times the lights in his lab were on and off, to the citations of his published papers, and even the coffee shops he occasionally visited nearby… no detail was overlooked.
“Returning it to its rightful owner…” Jiang Mo picked up the white card and looked at the words over and over again. “‘The Beginning’… does it refer to the place where it all started?” She looked at Shen Zhiyan. “Could it refer to… your father’s place? Perhaps these things originally belonged to him? Or are they related to him?”
Shen Zhiyan didn't answer immediately. He picked up the empty, dark blue jewelry box and examined it carefully under the light. The velvet lining had sagged slightly over the years. His fingertips traced a barely noticeable, tiny protrusion on the inside of the lid. He tried pressing it down, and with a soft "click," the velvet base of the box bounced back up.
Beneath the base, instead of the box's wooden bottom, lies a very thin space containing a black and white photograph laid flat.
The photograph shows a young man, dressed in a suit popular decades ago, standing in front of a building with a distinct Bauhaus style, his smile radiating confidence. His features bear a five or six-point resemblance to Shen Zhiyan, but he exudes a more untamed air. What truly made Shen Zhiyan's pupils shrink was a line of delicate handwriting in pen on the back of the photograph:
"To Ayan. May your architecture ultimately protect those you wish to protect. —Qing"
“Qing…” Shen Zhiyan murmured the name, his brows furrowed. He had never heard his father or mother mention this person. He had never seen the building in the photo either.
He handed the photo to Jiang Mo, then sat back down at his computer, pulled up the observation log that began with the year he returned to China, and started more in-depth data mining and cross-referencing. He had a strong intuition that this mysterious "green," this jewelry box, was somehow crucially connected to this long period of observation, and the information his father ultimately wanted to reveal.
Time passed in silence, broken only by the hum of the server fan and the sound of Shen Zhiyan typing on his keyboard. Jiang Mo didn't disturb him, but simply watched his focused profile and carefully put away the video clip.
After an unknown amount of time, Shen Zhiyan pressed the last Enter key, leaned back in his chair, and let out a long sigh. On the screen, at the center of the complex relational graph was the unfamiliar building from the black-and-white photograph, surrounded by multiple clues that ultimately pointed to a name that surprised them all—Li Qingyun, a Chinese scholar who had long faded from public view but had once been renowned in the international architectural community and the early intersection of artificial intelligence.
“Li Qingyun… ‘Qing’…” Shen Zhiyan murmured to herself, her eyes flashing with a light of sudden enlightenment and disbelief. “If it’s him… many things make sense. He was my father’s mentor in college and one of the earliest angel investors of Mingyan Capital. But he died unexpectedly in a laboratory accident more than 20 years ago.”
How could someone who has already been declared dead be involved in this ongoing "observation"? What role did the father play in all of this?
“The nest is not in the direction we imagined…” Jiang Mo pondered those words, looking at Li Qingyun’s face on the screen, a face already frozen in history, and said softly, “Could it be that the ‘claw mark’ we’ve been investigating, its root is not in business warfare, not in simple competition for interests, but in… a more distant past?”
Just as the two were trying to untangle this tangled mess spanning time and space, Shen Zhiyan's private cell phone, used for emergency communications and almost never ringing, suddenly vibrated. The screen displayed a number specially marked by encryption—from the detention center where his father was currently being held.
Shen Zhiyan and Jiang Mo exchanged a glance and pressed the answer button. The voice that came from the other end wasn't familiar, but a strange male voice with a businesslike tone:
"Is this Mr. Shen Zhiyan? This is the city's No. 1 Detention Center. Mr. Shen Huaiming has suffered a sudden emergency and has been sent to the city's central hospital for emergency treatment. Before he lost consciousness, he repeatedly asked to see you. Please come as soon as possible."
The dial tone after the call ended sounded particularly jarring in the quiet studio. Shen Zhiyan's fingers tightened slightly around the phone, her knuckles turning white. This sudden news was like a boulder thrown into a quagmire she had just begun to unravel.
Jiang Mo immediately stood up: "I'll go with you."
Shen Zhiyan raised his hand to stop her. His face appeared somewhat pale under the light, but his eyes were unusually clear: "No. This is too much of a coincidence. I just obtained these clues, and then he suddenly had this problem."
He strode back to his computer and pulled up a hidden monitoring interface—a real-time surveillance system he had set up through special channels to monitor the perimeter of the detention center where Shen Huaiming was located. The footage showed that an ambulance had indeed driven out of the detention center's side gate fifteen minutes earlier.
"The situation might be true," Shen Zhiyan's voice was calm to the point of cruelty, "but it could also be an elaborate trap. You can't go."
He picked up the car keys, looked at Jiang Mo with a complicated expression, and said, "Stay here, lock the door, and stay in touch with Linda. If... if I don't hear from her within two hours, activate our pre-set 'Dawn' protocol."
The "Dawn" agreement, the highest-level emergency plan they established during their time in Vienna, means making all evidence public and seeking the highest level of protection.
Jiang Mo wanted to say something, but seeing the unwavering resolve in Shen Zhiyan's eyes, she simply nodded heavily: "Be careful."
Shen Zhiyan gave her a deep look, his gaze seemingly containing a thousand unspoken words, but in the end, he said nothing, turned, and strode away. The heavy soundproof door of the studio closed behind him with a dull thud, leaving Jiang Mo alone in a silence filled with uncertainty and worry.
She walked to the window and watched Shen Zhiyan's car headlights pierce the night, quickly disappearing into the distance and finally setting around the corner of the cultural and creative park. The night was deep, like an invisible net, quietly tightening.
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