At 3 a.m., the city slept, its neon lights fading, and the streets sank into a quiet gray shadow. But in the midst of this tranquility, a silent death unfolded.
Deep in an abandoned alley in the southern district, the body of a man lay curled in the shadows. Dressed in a black windbreaker, a knife wound to his chest, his face covered with blood and dirt, making it nearly impossible to identify him. On the brick wall by his feet, a strange triangular symbol was drawn in blood. The edges of the symbol were intentionally elongated, resembling some sort of emblem or warning that sent a chill down the spine.
When Su Wanqing arrived at the scene, the first light of dawn was just beginning to break. She crouched down to examine the victim's wound, her brows furrowed. The wound was neat and deep, the cut smooth, entering the rib cage, avoiding major arteries but precisely stabbing the heart. This suggested the killer was extremely skilled, likely a professional assassin with systematic training.
"This wasn't a typical street fight," she said calmly, "The killer knew exactly where to strike."
As Lu Chenzhou reviewed the surveillance footage at the alley entrance, he noticed some unusual signs. Several cameras in the area had been deliberately wiped, and the only footage left barely captured the victim entering the alley. Both the killer and the process had been carefully avoided. Even more strangely, the victim appeared cautious when entering the alley, as though he were meeting someone in secret.
"He was lured here," Lu Chenzhou transmitted the footage to the tech team, "and he knew the killer."
Soon, the victim's identity was confirmed—Wu Ke, a 35-year-old male with multiple prior convictions, who had disappeared five years ago. The police suspected he had joined the underground organization "The Abyss." Although there had been no criminal activity under his name since, his frequently changing accounts had been linked to financial transactions in several major cases.
"He was indeed part of 'The Abyss,'" Lu Chenzhou said grimly. "This murder probably wasn't the work of an outside force; it looks like an internal purge within 'The Abyss.'"
"What about the symbol?" Su Wanqing photographed the triangular symbol on the wall and handed it over to the special task force for analysis.
A few hours later, the analysis results came back. The mysterious triangle had appeared in an unsolved case three years ago—in an underground trade gone wrong, two members of "The Abyss" had died in a car from poisoning, and this same symbol had appeared at the crime scene.
"This is an internal judgment mark for 'The Abyss,'" one of the officers involved in the analysis whispered. "It's said that anyone who breaks the 'Deep Oath' within the organization is eliminated by the 'Executor.'"
"Executor?" Lu Chenzhou's gaze turned cold.
"They're like an internal cleansing team, responsible for dealing with violators of 'The Abyss' rules. They leave no trace, answer only to the core leadership, and are not controlled by external orders."
The case's direction suddenly shifted—this wasn't a police strike against "The Abyss," but rather a leak from an internal collapse.
Su Wanqing returned to the lab to reanalyze the victim's wound. She noticed a very faint metallic scrape on the edge of the knife wound, suggesting it wasn't a regular knife but a long, foldable military-grade dagger. She found a reference in the database for a tactical knife code-named "Disaster Blade," used by a foreign espionage organization before entering the black market. If it was indeed the "Disaster Blade" that delivered the fatal blow, it meant the killer not only had professional assassination skills but also equipment comparable to that of a mercenary.
While Lu Chenzhou continued to investigate the weapon's origin, he also traced Wu Ke's recent activities. Through his communication records, they found that two days before the murder, he had contacted a mysterious individual codenamed "R" multiple times. Shockingly, "R's" IP address matched a recent encrypted communication node detected by the police related to "The Abyss."
Further investigation revealed that Wu Ke had been involved in an internal "Abyss" operation called the "Shifting Sands Plan," which was highly classified, and the police had never obtained the full details. Now that the "Shifting Sands Plan" had abruptly been halted, Wu Ke was executed. All signs pointed to the high-ranking members of "The Abyss" cleaning up those who knew too much.
"Maybe the 'Shifting Sands Plan' is connected to the recent urban chaos we're investigating," Su Wanqing hypothesized. "This isn't just an isolated purge; the entire organization is restructuring strategically, eliminating unreliable factors."
"The question is, why are they so eager to cover up this plan? Did it fail, or did we trigger some kind of red line with our actions?" Lu Chenzhou frowned.
They realized that the danger posed by "The Abyss" was far beyond what they had imagined, not only because of its vast infiltration but also its well-organized internal control system. This internal purge could be a precursor to something much larger—a sign that an even broader operation was being planned.
At Wu Ke's residence, the police unexpectedly discovered a password-protected journal with a faded "triangle" symbol on the cover. Inside, there was a coded entry that read:
"If you see the triangle blood, the Executor is here. The oath is broken, and the next one is you."
The words seemed more like a threat, almost like a dark announcement from within "The Abyss."
"They've started to distrust even their own members," Su Wanqing whispered.
"And we—" Lu Chenzhou's gaze was calm as still water, "must find the entrance before this crack grows larger. Tear apart this black web from the inside."
As nightfall descended again, the bloodstains in the dark alley had been washed away by the rain, and the triangular symbol faded with the wind. But somewhere in the shadowy corners of the city, "The Abyss" was quietly reconstructing, and the battle that belonged to Su Wanqing and Lu Chenzhou had silently entered the next round.