Chapter 1: The Letter from the Last Row

Nha Trang's rainy season always hits without warning, the damp sea breeze carrying a thick, briny stench as it seeps into the cracks of the old teaching building, which is being demolished soon. Guhai stood at the end of the narrow corridor, his thumb tracing the yellowed assessment report in his hand. The edges of the paper were curling up from the sweat. The air here was so thick it felt nearly solid, broken only by the distant, low rumble of construction machinery—a sound like a dying beast growling. He wasn't here to carry out the usual routine of shredding student psychological files. He was here on a private request from Desheng Wu, searching for a fingerprint that had been deliberately erased in the ruins.

“Guhai, you sure you want to stay here all night?”

His phone buzzed; it was a message from Huangnan Chen. Guhai glanced at the time. It was already past eleven at night. He typed a quick reply: “I haven't turned in the Archive Room key yet. Something's off in the Last Row.” After hitting send, he silenced the phone and shoved it into his breast pocket. The silence around him was terrifying, broken only by the patter of rain on the tin roof. He pushed open the rusted iron door, and a wave of stale paper and ink hit him, mixed with an unnameable rust smell.

The study room was long since empty, the desks and chairs piled haphazardly in the corners. Guhai turned on his phone’s flashlight, the beam cutting a stark white path through the darkness. His eyes scanned the broken drawers quickly, looking for the School Journal storage area. According to the leads Desheng Wu had provided, that controversial issue of the school paper, Tides, from nineteen years ago, might be hidden right here.

“Why would they cover up a school journal?”

Guhai muttered under his breath, his voice sounding thin and broken in the hollow classroom. He walked over to The Last Row, where a thick layer of dust had settled. When he cleared away the grime and found an old publication tucked inside a hidden slot, his heart skipped a beat. The cover didn't bear the usual school name. Instead, it printed the words “Nha Trang Chamber of Commemorative Special,” with the year marked as 1999. This magazine, which had no business being in a high school’s archive, was clearly a massive mistake—or, perhaps more likely, a carefully designed disguise.

“This isn’t a student's work.”

Guhai flipped open the flyleaf. There was no signature, just a single line of handwritten ink, the strokes sharp as a knife: “To the Chairman, the truth is here. Do not forget.” His fingers trembled as he brushed over the writing. The ink was dry, years old, yet under his fingertip, it still held a bizarre, vivid life.

“You’d better watch your back, Guhai.”

The phone rang again. This time, it was Desheng Wu’s voice. The background was the howl of a downpour, with static crackling through the receiver.

“I’m in the study room. I found the 1999 Chamber of Commerce special,” Guhai kept his voice as steady as he could. “There’s a letter tucked inside.”

“What’s in the letter?”

“The recipient is just ‘Chairman,’ no name. The signature is ‘The Keeper of the Secret.’”

Silence held the line for a few seconds, then the sound of Desheng Wu’s heavy breathing came through.

“Don’t read it out loud, Guhai. That letter was classified as top secret twenty years ago. Aside from me, nobody knows it even exists. How did you get your hands on it?”

“It was wedged inside an old school journal. Chen told me someone had ransacked the Archive Room earlier, so I just assumed it was some junk that got mixed in over time.”

“You’re wrong.” Desheng Wu’s tone grew urgent. “This was a bait left on purpose. Wenxiong Fan’s people have been looking for that letter this whole time. If you’re holding it, you’re the most obvious target in the room.”

“What do I do now? Hand it to the police?”

“No! You can’t give it to anyone. Not even me. The official channels are already tainted. If it goes through the legal system, it’ll be destroyed or tampered with. You have to verify the letter’s authenticity and find the impression on the back.”

“The back?”

Guhai flipped the paper over sharply, focusing the flashlight on the center of the reverse side. There was a dark red stain, clearly shaped. It was a Fingerprint. What made his skin crawl was that in the depression at the center of the print, there seemed to be some crystalline residue left behind.

“That’s blood,” Guhai’s voice was dry. “Not dried blood spots. It’s a coagulate mixed with some kind of chemical agent.”

“Right. That was the only biological sample from the scene back then. Wenxiong Fan used legitimate paperwork to hide the smuggling, disguising the victims as missing persons. And this fingerprint? It’s the key proof that he touched the loot with his own hands.”

“But whose fingerprint is it?”

“That’s the question you need to answer. If it belongs to the victim, he was the last witness. If it belongs to the perpetrator, it’s the smoking gun. Either way, it’s going to bring down a silencer on you.”

After hanging up, the classroom fell into a deathly silence. The rain outside grew sharper, sounding like thousands of needles stabbing against his eardrums. Guhai lifted the paper, carefully touching the Blood Impression with his fingertips. He wasn’t wearing gloves—it was a risk, but it was the only way to get the fine details he needed.

“Guhai, where are you?”

Huangnan Chen’s voice came through the phone’s speaker, laced with obvious panic. Clearly, he’d sensed something was wrong.

“I’m in The Last Row. Don’t come in, Old Chen. The air in here feels wrong.”

“I’m at the school gate. The security guard says I can’t get in. Officer Wu said you’re in danger, so he told me to wait outside for backup.”

“I need you to check something for me. Who was the Chairman of the Nha Trang Chamber of Commerce in 1999?”

“I checked. The Chairman back then was a guy named Liu Taicheng. He announced he was emigrating and never came back. But here’s the weird part: his household registration was cancelled three years later, with no exit paperwork on file.”

“So ‘Chairman’ might just be a code name. Or maybe it’s a dead man.”

“Guhai, listen to me. I just saw a black sedan on the street. It’s been circling the block. The driver hasn’t gotten out, but the headlights are keeping the school gate lit up. Are you sure that letter is real?”

“I’m sure it’s real. Look at the layout. The special paper pulp formula used in 1999 hasn’t been produced in Nha Trang for ages. This is the physical object, not a copy.”

“What about that Blood Impression?”

Guhai squinted, using his phone’s zoom function to examine the fingerprint ridges.

“The ridges are shallow, the edges are blurred. But it doesn’t look like it was pressed after death. If it were a post-mortem blood print, the blood would have soaked completely through the paper fibers. The red here is only on the surface layer. That means the finger had some kind of sticky substance on it when it was pressed.”

“What kind of substance?”

“Could be glue. Could be... chemical solution. The Textile Factory used to use that kind of formula when treating residual agents on fabric. Yulan Fan used to work at the Textile Factory.”

At the mention of that name, Huangnan Chen’s breathing hitched.

“You’re saying this fingerprint is linked to Yulan? She’s been missing for ages. Everyone thought she just moved away.”

“No. Officer Wu said she might be the only witness. If the print is hers, why would she press her own blood onto the letter paper?”

“Maybe... it was her father. He was the Chamber’s accountant back then.”

Guhai’s heart rate spiked. He brought the paper close to his nose and sniffed. Beneath the smell of rust, there was a faint trace of sandalwood. It was a scent specific to old stationery factories.

“Guhai, the car stopped. I hear the engine cut out. They’re coming in.”

“Don’t panic. Remember, don’t admit you saw the letter. Just say you’re waiting for Officer Wu and you don’t know what’s inside.”

“Okay. But if they ask about the fingerprint...”

“Tell them it’s your mistake. You accidentally pressed it there. You’re an editor; you always have ink or paint on your hands.”

“That’s too risky.”

“It’s our only way out. Officer Wu needs time to gather other evidence. We have to get the fingerprint info out before they make their move.”

Footsteps outside the door grew louder, heavy and rhythmic. Guhai quickly folded the letter paper and tucked it into his sleeve. He clicked off the flashlight, and the darkness instantly swallowed the classroom. He held his breath, listening to the two pairs of leather shoes splash through the puddles on the floor, making soft *plup* sounds.

“Anyone there?”

A stranger’s voice rang out, hoarse and cold.

Guhai didn’t answer. He closed his eyes, rapidly replaying every detail of the paper in his mind. The stroke characteristics of the handwritten note. The Blood Impression that smelled of sandalwood.

“I know you’re in there, Guhai. Come out.”

The voice belonged to the stranger who had gotten out of the black car. Guhai recognized it. It was Wenxiong Fan’s deputy, a real estate developer who was often seen in the media.

“Why don’t I come out?” Guhai asked, his voice slowly deliberate and fake calm.

“Because that letter is a hotter potato than we realized. If you hand it over, we can guarantee you walk away safe. If you refuse, the rain is going to be pretty cold tonight.”

Guhai stood up and walked toward the back door of the classroom. In his sleeve, the Blood Impression pressed against his skin, sending a chill of sharp pain through him.

“I’m just a School Journal editor,” Guhai said. “I don’t understand political conspiracies, and I don’t understand cultural artifact smuggling. I’m just trying to finish an assessment report.”

“Clever. So you should understand that some files are destroyed because they burn people alive. We’re just doing a legal cleanup.”

“Legal?” Guhai let out a cold laugh. “The 1999 disappearance case still has no conclusion. Your so-called legality is just a fig leaf to hide the illegality.”

The silence behind him lasted five seconds.

“You have a hard mouth. Well, don’t blame us for not being gentle.”

The footsteps closed in. Guhai flung open the back door and stumbled out into the deluge. The rain poured down, soaking him to the bone instantly. He sprinted toward the school gate, the rain blurring his vision, but a fire was burning inside his chest. He had to send a photo of the letter’s contents to Desheng Wu before that car caught up to him.

“Guhai! Stop!”

The blinding beam of a flashlight pierced the rain curtain; the pursuers were only fifty meters behind him.

“Hand over the letter! It’s our property!”

Guhai ducked into the bushes on the inside of the school gate, his knees hitting the mud. His hands shook as he pulled out his phone, aiming the camera at the paper in his sleeve. The rain kept washing over the screen, making it hard to see the image clearly. He held his breath and pressed the shutter button.

Send successful.

He looked at the “Transfer Complete” notification on the screen, a bitter smile curling the corner of his mouth. Now they knew.

“What are you laughing at?”

The pursuer’s voice was right next to his ear.

Guhai raised his head. Rainwater rolled down the corners of his eyes; it was hard to tell if it was sweat or tears.

“I’m laughing,” he said, “because you think if you destroy the letter, you can erase the truth. But as long as someone saw it, it exists forever.”

He casually tossed the paper into the muddy water at his feet. The sheet, which had carried a twenty-year secret, was quickly soaked in the grime. The writing blurred beyond recognition, but that Blood Impression in the mud still pulsed with a strange, eerie red light.

“Pick it up!”

The man lunged forward to grab it. The two of them tumbled into the mud, wrestling. Guhai felt a sharp pain split his back of the head, and his vision started to blur. But he clung tight to the soaked bundle of paper, his knuckles white from the effort.

“This letter... this Blood Impression...”

The man panted heavily, staring at the paper in the mud. A flash of fear crossed his eyes, not anger. What they feared wasn’t the content of the letter, but the un-washable chain of evidence represented by that Fingerprint.

Guhai took one last look at the mud-smeared paper, and words Desheng Wu had once said surfaced in his mind: Sometimes, justice is not the light, but the shadow. You can only see its outline before the darkness fully descends.

He lost consciousness, his final thought lingering on that blood-stained print. Whose ridges were they? The victim’s father, Yulan Fan? Or some ghost who had died long ago? Was this Fingerprint the key leading into the abyss, or the anchor dragging everyone down into the muck?