Chapter 5

Chapter 5

The next afternoon, I received a call from an unknown number.

The caller was Ah Liang.

My brother had mentioned him before.

He said he was part of the very first group of sound engineers at Distortion.

When the call connected, he only said one thing.

“If you aren’t completely brain-dead yet, come meet me at the old warehouse.”

When I arrived, Ah Liang was crouching on the ground, repairing some cables.

The first thing he said when he saw me was: “You’re the one who released that hidden camera footage?”

I didn’t deny it.

Ah Liang tossed an old hard drive directly at me.

“If Pei Che knew you’d done this, he’d be angry enough to come back from the dead.”

My expression darkened instantly.

“What exactly are you trying to say?”

“I’m saying you’ve been hating the wrong person.” Ah Liang plugged in the hard drive and clicked on an audio recording. “I’m also saying that you misheard your brother’s last words from beginning to end.”

It was my brother’s voice again.

But this time, it was the complete version.

“Pei Shi, if you’re hearing this, don’t just listen to the first half.”

My breathing stopped.

The recording continued.

“Don’t believe Wen Yan when he says ‘just wait a little longer and we can overturn the case.'”

“He always wants to shoulder everything alone, but this isn’t something one person can carry.”

“The one you really need to watch out for is Lu Qi.”

“He has the ledgers, the drugs, and all the surveillance footage from that night.”

“If something happens to me, look for the Black Box. It’s inside the baseplate of the number two server.”

“And one more thing.”

“Don’t blame Wen Yan.”

“He didn’t sell me out. I’m the one who dragged him down with me.”

When the recording finished, I didn’t move for a long time.

Ah Liang pulled up a screenshot of surveillance footage.

Wen Yan wasn’t the only one in the image.

Lu Qi was there too.

And the fragmented file I had received previously had conveniently cut out the part with Lu Qi.

“Understand now?” Ah Liang looked at me. “That half-clip was originally left behind specifically to make people misunderstand Wen Yan.”

My throat tightened.

“Why didn’t Wen Yan say anything sooner?”

“Would it have mattered if he did?” Ah Liang sneered. “Back then, Lu Qi used your employment records at Distortion to threaten Pei Che. If Wen Yan had opened his mouth, Pei Che would have been ruined first.”

“What about Wen Yan?”

“He isn’t clean either,” Ah Liang said. “The night Pei Che had his accident, Wen Yan originally had a chance to take him away. But he hesitated. He was one step too late. And that one late step cost a life.”

I lost my voice instantly.

The hardest thing to swallow was never pure evil.

It was the ‘almost.’

It was the fact that if things had been just a little faster back then, everything might have been different.

Ah Liang looked at me and added one more thing.

“The backup projection system for Anniversary Night can still produce a complete mirror image,” he said. “But Lu Qi is doing a final sweep tomorrow. If you really want to bring Pei Che’s matter to light, go find Wen Yan tonight.”

I turned and left.

As I reached the door, Ah Liang shouted from behind me.

“Pei Shi.”

I stopped.

“Don’t stab your own people first this time.”

I didn’t look back.

But I knew he was right.

On the way back, I turned on my phone.

The homepage was filled with trending topics for Anniversary Night.

One of them was about Wen Yan’s performance being canceled.

The comments were a mess of insults.

Some said he deserved it.

Some said Pei Che’s truth was finally coming out.

Others pointed out that it clearly looked like someone had intentionally released only half the footage.

I stared at the phrase “only half” for a long time.

In that moment, I truly realized for the first time that I hadn’t just stabbed Wen Yan.

I was clearing the path for Lu Qi.

I clicked my phone off and stood by the roadside, letting the wind blow against me for a long while.

Finally, I hailed a taxi and went straight to find Wen Yan.