Chapter 3: Sister's Warning

The rain pounded through the old district in the dead of night, a dull, oppressive drumbeat. It felt like thousands of tiny needles jabbing at the nerves of hearing, trying to pierce the rotting walls of the old mansion. Friedrich Junker sat at a desk buried under stacks of case files, his fingers tracing the copy of the provisional order he had just acquired from Karl.

The edges of the paper were caked in fresh gray dust, carrying the distinct musty mold smell of the archive’s basement, mixed with the sharp bite of aged tobacco. Under the dim table lamp, the documents gleamed with a faint, eerie sheen. The lamp’s flowered glass shade cast a flickering halo, stretching Friedrich’s shadow long and distorted across the peeling wallpaper behind him.

He furrowed his brow, trying to piece together the truth behind his father’s late-life silence from this meager lead, but a nameless chill crawled up his spine. It felt like ice water sliding down his vertebrae, one bone at a time. Thunder rumbled distantly outside, like a distant verdict of judgment, making the enclosed study feel even more suffocating.

Just then, the heavy wooden door of the study slammed open with a back-teeth-gritting creak. Cold wind rushed in, carrying the damp, rotting scent of the hallway, shattering his train of thought and making the candle on the desk—should there have been one—flicker violently.

Anna Wagner stood in the doorway, arms crossed tightly over her chest. Her gaze sliced like a blade into the yellowed paper in her brother’s hand. Her face was pale and rigid, every nerve seemingly on the verge of snapping. The suppressed anxiety in the room had become so thick it was almost a solid substance, turning the air viscous and stifling.

She didn’t speak. She only applied immense pressure through her silence, as if warning that a taboo was about to be broken. Rainwater dripped from the ends of her hair, leaving dark circular spots on the floor. Each drop fell like an invisible full stop, ending the moment of peace.

Friedrich slowly raised his head, forcing his voice to remain steady. “Sister, I just need to uncover the truth. This is for Father, and for the last shred of dignity our family has left.” His tone carried a barely perceptible tremor, the precursor to a breakdown after long-term suppression, as if his throat were choked with soaked cotton.

Anna let out a cold, harsh laugh, a sound more grating than a blade scraping across glass. She strode quickly toward the desk, her soles echoing heavily and urgently on the wooden floor. Her finger trembled as she pointed at the photo. “Look around you! Look at the result of collecting all this stuff!

Your father kept silent about those secrets for a lifetime, and you are tearing this family apart in the same way!” Her emotions broke through their restraint completely. She snatched up an unrelated photo from the desk recording a battlefield ruin and tore it in half.

The white fragments fluttered down like snow, landing on Friedrich’s open notebook with a soft thud. In the dead silence, the sound was unnervingly clear, like the crack of a bone breaking.

She crouched down, frantically pulling a handkerchief from her pocket to wipe the tear tracks on her face. The intensity of her agitation made the gesture look slightly absurd, the handkerchief twisted into a ball in her fingers.

“On his deathbed, Father was clutching a rusted Brass Badge in his hand,” Anna’s voice was hoarse, laced with deep pain, every word squeezed out of her chest like blood, “That badge was his last line of defense, and the very root of our family’s division.

He repeatedly warned us that the fortune came from ill-gotten gains. If we dug it up, we wouldn't find redemption. We would find destruction.”

Friedrich froze. His mind instantly flashed back to Father’s eyes in his final moments—cloudy, yet filled with terror. Those eyes had seemed to forecast an imminent crisis, like a startled bird staring at an invisible arrow.

He realized that the badge and the order in Karl’s possession were likely intricately linked. They both pointed toward that deliberately buried abyss, and the echo of that abyss was the suffocating silence in the study right now.

Anna stood up, straightening her disheveled collar and forcing a veneer of calm, as if the outburst just now had been a sudden, fleeting fever.

“I don’t oppose you seeking the past, but I oppose you digging this way,” she said, pointing at the scattered photo fragments on the floor, her voice cool to the point of cruelty. “Look at the situation. The family’s savings are already depleted. Your investigation fees are draining our last buffer.

If the truth comes to light, retaliation from the Kaizers and their allies will follow immediately. The remaining clan members will lose their last shelter and dignity, becoming stray dogs begging on the streets.”

A flash of vulnerability passed in her eyes, quickly replaced by resolute determination—a hard shell formed by the instinct for survival.

“You have to weigh the pros and cons, Friedrich. Some scars are harder to bear when peeled open than when they’re just healing. Don’t drag us all down in your pursuit of so-called justice.”

Friedrich was silent for a moment, his gaze falling on the letter from his father’s belongings on the desk. He pulled out the letter, his fingertip lightly tracing the characters that pressed so hard they nearly tore through the paper. The hesitation in the brushstrokes bore a startling similarity to the signature on the order provided by Karl, like scratch marks left by the same pen in a fit of rage.

“He knew about the inside story from the start,” Friedrich murmured, his voice vibrating in the air. “Father hinted in the letter that Kaiser, using his status as a occupying force commander after the war, covered up the illegal transfer of a massive amount of assets. Silence wasn’t protection. It was complicity.”

He raised his head, a rational light flashing in his eyes, backed by a cold chain of logic. “I need to verify the era of that badge. Only by confirming its origin can I prove the authenticity of the order. Reason tells me time is on the side of truth, not fear.”

Anna stepped closer, pressing both hands on his shoulders with a force that hurt, her fingertips piercing through his thin shirt into the flesh.

“If you insist on pursuing this, you must bear the consequences alone,” she warned, her voice so low only the two of them could hear it, carrying a nearly threatening tenderness. “That includes retaliation from Kaiser’s forces, and completely losing your status as a Junker Family heir. In this circle, knowing is evidence of crime, and pursuing it is suicide.”

Her eyes showed deep helplessness, as if pleading for him to turn back. Her gaze was like a huge net, trying to trap him in a cage of safety.

“Are you sure you want to walk into this minefield? Once you step forward, there’s no way back.” Friedrich didn’t flinch. He looked his sister directly in the eye. There was the bond of blood there, but also a chasm of conflicting stances. He gently pushed Anna’s hands away, the motion tender yet firm, like pushing open an iron door about to be welded shut.

He walked to the old suitcase in the corner and reached deep inside, pulling out a Brass Badge wrapped in oil paper. It was a medal with intricate patterns, its surface covered in rust from the passage of time. But under the light, it still emitted a dull metallic sheen, like a long-sleeping beast.

“I’m sending it to Professor Johanna Dressler,” Friedrich said. “She’s the historical authority, and the most neutral person available. Her appraisal will be the only key to breaking this deadlock.”

Anna’s face turned instantly pale. She lunged forward, reaching out to snatch the badge. Her fingertips nearly touched the cold metal, but Friedrich skillfully dodged her. “Don’t get so agitated,” he said calmly. “The badge might have been swapped, but precisely because of that, we need to verify it through public channels.

Hiding it in the dark only lets the conspiracy succeed.”

“You’re too naive!” Anna exclaimed, her voice echoing in the spacious study, bouncing off the heavy tapestries. “Kaiser’s people are everywhere. Any information leaking out can be intercepted. Handing over this badge is the same as putting a knife in their hands.”

She stepped back, leaning against the doorframe, breathing hard with her chest heaving violently. “Keeping it hidden and waiting for the right moment is the only law of survival. The moment you act, not only will you be silenced, but the entire family will be destroyed because of it. This isn’t bravery. It’s stupid stubbornness.”

Friedrich stood before the desk, looking at the cold badge, his inner scale swinging violently between fear and desire. He remembered Father’s distorted face, the dust in Karl’s archive, the buried bloodstains, and suddenly smelled a hint of rust-like blood.

He picked up the pen and signed the authorization letter, his movement fluid and decisive. The ink bled into the paper, like a wound that would never heal. “I have no other choice,” he said. “The silence has gone on long enough. It’s time for the truth to see the light.” He carefully sealed the badge in a waterproof envelope and affixed the address of the history department at the Municipal Museum.

Anna watched his busy figure, no longer stopping him. She just slowly closed her eyes. In that closed gaze lay both acknowledgment of her brother’s determination and a powerless sigh at the unknown future.

Outside, the rain gradually eased. A sliver of pale moonlight pierced through the gap in the dark clouds, illuminating the letter on the desk about to be posted. It also illuminated the unbridgeable crack between the two of them, cold and clear.

As the paper slid into the mailbox with a dull swallowing sound, it severed the last stagnation in the study. Friedrich turned around and found Anna standing silently at the edge of the shadow, her fingers gripping an old key—her backup—so tightly her knuckles were white.

“Once you choose this path, there’s no turning back.” Her voice was hoarse, shedding the earlier panic and replacing it with a near-cruel calm. She tossed the key to Friedrich. The metal hit his palm with a chill that went straight to the bone. “If Johanna’s appraisal confirms the badge is from that era, Kaiser’s hounds will immediately catch the scent of blood.

At that point, you won’t just be the exposé. You’ll be the criminal for the whole clan.”

Friedrich held the key, feeling the sharp edges of the metal dig into his skin, a very real pain. He looked out the window. The pale moonlight was being swallowed by heavier darkness, foreshadowing the approaching storm. At the end of the street, a black sedan was slowly approaching. Its headlights cut through the damp air after the rain, silently closing in on the mansion that had been silent for decades.