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The rain had let up, but the streets still stank of old water, sewage, and mold. It clung to the brickwork and soaked the bottom hem of Du Cheng’s coat as he stepped through the busted doorframe of the ruined bathhouse, flashlight sweeping across broken tiles and rusted pipework.
Jiang Feng was already there, crouched near an old drainage grate, talking quietly into his phone. He caught his words—something about permits, demolition schedules—and nodded once when he saw him.
Li Han came in behind him, hands full with a folder and a small tablet. “The building’s layout is a mess,” she muttered. “Half the plans from the '80s don’t match what’s here. Place was renovated illegally three times before it was shut down.”
Du Cheng grunted in acknowledgment and turned toward the sound of footsteps: Shen Yi, bag slung over his shoulder, sketchpad already in hand. His face was pale in the low light, focused.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Du Cheng said automatically.
“You always say that,” Shen Yi replied, brushing past him lightly. “But here I am.”
Du Cheng didn’t respond. Didn’t have to. He just walked behind him, kept an eye on his footing. The bathhouse was a labyrinth of ruined pools, mildew-dark walls, half-smashed mirrors that caught glimpses of their own shadows.
Shen Yi paused by a long, narrow corridor. “Smells wrong,” he murmured.
“It all smells wrong,” Du Cheng said.
Shen Yi pointed. “No—here. The humidity changes. The walls are sweating in a different pattern.” He stepped closer, crouched down to trace the floor.
Du Cheng watched him warily. “Don’t touch anything you don’t have to.”
“I won’t.” A pause. “Du Cheng. This tile… it’s newer.”
Jiang Feng approached behind them, phone still in hand. “The caller said she remembered a girl going missing after bathing here. Around 2007.”
“Just a rumor?” Du Cheng asked.
“She was reported missing. File got buried.”
Li Han flipped through a scan of it on the tablet. “Fourteen-year-old. Last seen by friends at school. Lived near here.”
Shen Yi stood slowly. “This floor isn’t just patched—it’s hollow underneath.”
Du Cheng’s stomach tightened. “Back up.”
But Shen Yi took one more step.
And the floor gave way.
It was fast. A shudder, then a splintering crack. Shen Yi vanished with a shout. Tiles broke like glass. Dust and cold air rushed up like breath from a grave.
“SHEN YI!”
Du Cheng was already at the edge of the hole before the echoes stopped. “Shen Yi! Talk to me!”
Below—darkness. Then: “I’m here!”
Du Cheng exhaled shakily, knelt at the edge. “Are you injured?”
There was a pause. “I think—I landed on something soft. But my shoulder’s—something popped.”
“Can you move?”
“…Yes. Slowly.”
Li Han was already on her radio, calling for backup, rescue. Jiang Feng lowered a flashlight. It caught flashes of white below—dust, and something pale.
Du Cheng squinted. “What the hell is that?”
“Looks like—” Jiang Feng swallowed. “A sheet. Or cloth. And bones.”
A pause. Then Shen Yi again, voice sharper. “It’s a body.”
Du Cheng shut his eyes for a second. Of course it was.
Du Cheng stood at the edge of the hole, his heart hammering in his throat. “We’re getting you out,” he called down, voice sharp with the urgency he couldn’t quite swallow. “Don’t move unless you have to. Don’t touch anything.”
“I won’t,” came Shen Yi’s voice again—steady, but tight. “There’s something down here. Human remains. Clothes too. I think it’s the missing girl.”
Jiang Feng turned to Du Cheng, already pulling out his phone. “I’ll call the fire team. There’s a precinct with a winch unit nearby—shouldn’t be more than forty minutes.”
“Make it twenty,” Du Cheng snapped.
Li Han appeared beside them with a coil of thin rope and a headset. “We don’t have visuals, but we might be able to get him a way to communicate. And a light source.”
“Good.” Du Cheng crouched at the edge again. “Shen Yi, how’s your shoulder?”
A beat.
“It’s… out of place, maybe. Hurts to lift. But my legs are fine. Just bruised. I think.”
“Don’t test it,” Du Cheng said. “Just stay where you are. Help’s coming.”
“Can you get me a pen?” Shen Yi asked. “And paper. Maybe my sketchbook, if it's still in the car.”
Du Cheng stared into the dark, trying to see Shen Yi’s face, but the angle was wrong, and the shadows below were thick. “Seriously?”
“There’s a face,” Shen Yi said quietly. “I don’t know how long she’s been here, but… I can see what she used to look like. Before all this.”
A muscle jumped in Du Cheng’s jaw. “I’ll get your kit.”
He stood up. Jiang Feng looked at him. “He’s trying to stay focused.”
“I know.” Du Cheng didn’t say the rest: It’s how he copes.
He Rong Yue arrived ten minutes later, coat unzipped, gloves already on. “I was in the lab when the call came through,” she said. “Where is he?”
“Down there,” Du Cheng gestured. “Collapsed floor. It used to be a cold pool. Now it’s a fucking grave.”
She knelt beside the edge, swept her flashlight downward, brows furrowing. “We’re going to have to preserve everything as-is. If he’s with the body, we’ll need to be extremely careful bringing both up. Especially if it's old.”
Du Cheng’s hand curled into a fist. “And if he moves wrong, it’s going to get worse for him.”
Li Han returned with Shen Yi’s sketchbook and his battered pencil case, plus two small glowsticks and a narrow headlamp on a wire.
“Send these down with the emergency line,” she said. “He can strap the light to his wrist.”
They used the rope to lower the items gently, and after a few breathless minutes, Shen Yi’s voice floated back up again:
“Got it.”
“Sketch what you can. Don’t strain yourself,” Du Cheng said.
Silence. Then, almost gently: “Du Cheng. I’m alright.”
“You’re not,” Du Cheng muttered. “But I’ll let you believe it for now.”
Fifteen minutes later. The fire team arrived—ropes, harnesses, all professionalism and purpose. Du Cheng braced himself when the lead tech, Lieutenant Gao, did a visual check of the hole.
“Not too deep,” Gao said. “Four, five meters. Bad angle, though. Narrow opening, debris everywhere. Gonna take time to get someone down safely.”
“Send me,” Du Cheng said immediately.
Jiang Feng grabbed his arm. “You’re not trained for this kind of descent. Let them do their job.”
He pulled away from him, but didn’t argue. His eyes stayed on the hole, on the shadows below, where Shen Yi was.
Twenty-eight minutes after the fall, the note came up—lowered on the same line they'd sent the sketchbook down. Du Cheng grabbed it first.
It was a half-drawn face. Young, delicate, smudged but unmistakable. Someone who had once been real.
Below the sketch, Shen Yi had written:
Left shoulder likely dislocated. No other injuries confirmed. Victim female, approx. 13–15. Likely asphyxiated or strangled. Tilework newer than surrounding. Burial intentional. Please preserve the bones by the left wall—they’re separate.
Du Cheng read it three times.
He handed it silently to He Rong Yue, who took it with solemn care.
“We’ll treat it as an active crime scene from now,” she said.
He nodded, still watching the hole.
Forty minutes in. The descent began.
A young firefighter, slim and quiet, lowered himself slowly into the dark. Du Cheng stood stiffly at the edge, listening for any shift in Shen Yi’s voice below.
“Target located,” the firefighter’s voice crackled through a radio. “Visual contact established. He’s conscious. Injured but stable.”
Du Cheng exhaled for the first time in nearly an hour.
The rope creaked, taut and steady as the firefighter eased downward. For a long moment, all Du Cheng could hear was the faint scratch of boots against old tile, the occasional shifting rubble. Then the voice came again, calm over the radio:
“Securing the injured. Preparing for ascent.”
There was a pause, a crackle of static, then another line:
“He’s asking if his sketch made it up.”
Du Cheng huffed out something between a breath and a laugh. He pressed the button on the comm unit the firefighter had handed him earlier. “It did. It's perfect. Now stop worrying and let them get you out.”
No response, but he imagined Shen Yi smiling faintly in the dark.
Jiang Feng moved beside him, watching the descent-turned-ascent through narrowed eyes. “This job,” he muttered, “should come with a defibrillator. For the team, not just the victims.”
Li Han gave him a quiet glance, then returned to her radio updates. “CSU's almost here,” she said. “They’ll hold the site. Forensics can start once He Rong Yue gives the go-ahead.”
Down below, the rope twitched, then rose.
Du Cheng’s heart caught in his throat as a shape emerged from the dark—the firefighter first, guiding the harness carefully.
And then Shen Yi, drawn up slowly into the murky light.
His left arm was strapped to his chest with makeshift fabric bracing. His face was pale, smeared with dirt and a thin trail of blood down one temple. But he was conscious. Eyes open. Head lifted, searching.
When they met Du Cheng’s gaze, something cracked open in Du Cheng’s chest.
They got him onto the stretcher fast. Du Cheng hovered beside it as the paramedics checked vitals and adjusted the brace.
“I’m not dying,” Shen Yi said, dryly.
“Shut up,” Du Cheng muttered, brushing a bit of dirt from his hairline. “You’re not allowed to fall through floors anymore.”
“You’re going to make it a rule?”
“I’m going to put it in the department handbook.”
Shen Yi smiled faintly, but his face tightened with pain as they shifted him. Du Cheng instinctively reached for his hand—and this time, he didn’t stop himself. Shen Yi’s fingers curled around his like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Hospital – Two Hours Later
Shen Yi was finally out of X-ray, resting on a narrow hospital bed. His left arm was braced in a sling, and his shoulder would need realignment under light sedation. His vitals were stable. The bruises were spreading, slow and ominous, under his skin.
Du Cheng sat beside the bed, jacket off, shirt sleeves rolled to the elbow, one leg bouncing restlessly.
He Rong Yue arrived with two cups of coffee and a tired nod. “The body’s in the lab now. I’ll do a full autopsy tomorrow.”
“Was it her?” Shen Yi asked from the bed.
She nodded. “Xia Wen. Missing 2007. DNA already matched her parents.”
Du Cheng saw something flicker through Shen Yi’s eyes—grief, or relief, maybe both. He leaned forward.
“You gave her face back. Her name. We can find the one who did this.”
Shen Yi nodded. “The sketch helped?”
Du Cheng pulled it out from a file folder he’d brought from the site. It was a little crumpled now, but intact. “They recognized her immediately.”
Shen Yi exhaled slowly, eyes closing.
“She was wearing red. A bathing suit. It must have been summer. The tile above her was newer… someone covered her with care.”
“She knew her killer,” He Rong Yue said. “Or they wanted to believe they’d buried her well enough.”
“She was just a girl,” Shen Yi murmured.
Silence settled for a moment. Jiang Feng and Li Han arrived, one after the other, a small stack of takeout containers between them.
“You good, Shen Lao Shi?” asked Li Han
Shen Yi opened his eyes and managed a weak thumbs-up. “Du Cheng’s already glaring at me like a protective auntie. I think I’ll survive.”
Du Cheng gave him a sideways look. “Auntie’s the one bringing you soup for a week.”
“Is that a threat?”
“It’s a promise.”
Later That Night
Du Cheng waited until the others had gone—Li Han lingering longest, pretending to organize evidence folders while sneaking worried glances—and then pulled the curtain closed around Shen Yi’s bed.
The hospital lights were soft, sterile. Shen Yi looked small in them, his wrist still banded with IV lines and pulse clips. But his eyes were alert.
Du Cheng sat, rested his arms on the side of the bed, and let his forehead fall against the blanket for a long second.
“Hey,” Shen Yi said softly. “I’m here.”
“You went through a floor, Shen Yi.”
“I noticed.”
Du Cheng looked up. “I thought—I didn’t know how deep it was. If you’d hit your head wrong—”
“I didn’t.”
“You were alone with a body. Trapped. And you asked for a pencil.”
“I knew you’d get me out.”
Du Cheng looked at him for a long time.
Then, very quietly: “Don’t make me watch you fall again.”
Shen Yi’s hand brushed his, soft and warm despite the chill in the room. “Next time I’ll take the stairs.”
Du Cheng didn’t laugh, not really. But his hand stayed there.
Epilogue: One Week Later
Shen Yi was recovering at home, arm in a sling, sketchpad balanced on his lap.
Du Cheng brought soup. And protein bars. And the updated case files.
He Rong Yue’s report showed cause of death: asphyxiation, blunt trauma. No signs of sexual violence. Someone she trusted.
The killer was a former bathhouse employee. Caught after Li Han found his prints on the back of a removed tile from a sealed storage room.
Du Cheng read the confession aloud, voice tight.
Shen Yi drew, quietly.
After a while, he said, “Sometimes, the dead speak very softly. I’m glad we heard her.”
Du Cheng nodded. Then got up, walked behind the couch, and leaned down to press his forehead gently against Shen Yi’s uninjured temple.
“You were reckless,” he said.
“You were worried.”
“I still am.”
“I know.”