Leaning against the pillar, Wu Letian's muscles finally began to relax a little—just like his nerves.

  He shook his head vigorously and blinked a few times, still unable to believe what he had just seen. He was standing here, alive and well!

  No—he was hiding here.

  He didn’t know exactly what he was subconsciously trying to avoid, but years of instinct told him that hiding in this corner was the safest choice right now.

  After all, just a few meters away, his corpse was lying on the baggage carousel, still holding Sylvia’s one-of-a-kind pendant.

  Wu Letian took a few deep breaths and began sorting through everything that had happened since he returned to the country.

  Not a single moment had been pleasant—not even from the time he boarded the plane.

  His flight from New York to Dongdu had been delayed for several hours due to bad weather and only landed in the early hours of this morning.

  During the final approach and descent, the plane had been shaking non-stop. And earlier—when it should have been cruising smoothly through the stratosphere—the plane hit a polar vortex above the Arctic, tossing it around like a leaf in a tsunami. Before he even had time to worry about whether he’d survive, he had dozed off in a daze, only to be jolted awake shortly before landing.

  He hadn’t had a drop of water the whole way.

  When he finally floated out of the cabin like a soul leaving his body and stepped onto the solid floor of the airport, he felt more grounded than ever before.

  "Let’s just treat this as the final test before starting my new position," he had told himself confidently. The misery from the delay and turbulence vanished quickly.

  "Tomorrow—no, later this morning—I’ll report in at the Bureau, catch up with old man Zhong, maybe have a drink or two tonight... If he’s not interested, so be it, we’ll keep it professional." As he made plans, he drifted with the crowd toward the customs checkpoint.

  Fortunately, since it was already quite late, no other flights had arrived around the same time, so their tired, shaken group didn’t have to compete for the customs counters.

  Seeing a bunch of foreigners lining up at the manned booths, he took out his passport and headed toward the automated e-gates.

  For some reason, the scanner beeped loudly—“beep, beep”—in quick succession.

  He frowned, took a step back, and placed his passport carefully on the reader again.

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  Still the same “beep, beep.”

  Just then, a young woman in uniform walked over from the other side of the e-gate. “Need some help?” she asked.

  Wu Letian nodded. “Yeah, I think so. My passport doesn’t seem to be scanning properly—it worked just fine when I left the country.”

  She stared at him for two seconds, as if trying to assess whether he was telling the truth, then opened the gate for him. “Please follow me.”

  Wu Letian pressed his lips together and followed her.

  As he walked behind her, he appreciated her slender figure beneath the uniform and, at the same time, recalled his last night with Sylvia before leaving the country.

  “It was unforgettable... I wonder what she’s doing right now?”

  Suddenly, something didn’t feel right. He couldn’t help but ask, “Why aren’t we going to one of the manned counters over there?”

  He was starting to feel irritated. Normally, crossing borders was effortless for him—he never had to go through all this. But this trip to New York had been for a tightly controlled special training, so he couldn’t use his usual diplomatic passport and had to travel like a regular citizen to avoid drawing attention.

  “They're swamped at the moment. I’ll take you to the office—it’ll be faster,” the woman replied without turning her head.

  Looking over at the long lines at the manned booths, he had no grounds to argue.

  Still, he remained alert to anything that felt slightly off. He quickened his pace slightly so that he was just half a meter behind her.

  Just then, the woman lowered her head and hastily typed a message into an app he didn’t recognize: “Don’t kill me!”

  “Don’t kill me!”

  Those three words made his heart jolt.

  For a moment, he wasn’t sure if she was joking with a friend or genuinely in danger. But instinct took over—he quietly took two steps back and pretended he hadn't seen anything.

  The woman quickly put her phone back in her pants pocket. Her movements were fast—if Wu Letian hadn’t been watching closely, he might have missed it entirely.

  Then she turned and looked at him. Seeing that he was a good two meters away and looking elsewhere, her expression smoothed out again.

  Soon, she brought Wu Letian to a small office with a slightly ajar door. It was tucked into a corner of the arrivals area—no windows, no sign, barely noticeable.

  “Zhang Ke, there’s a passport here that seems to have a problem…” she said as she pushed the door open and greeted the person inside.

  “Oh, Xiao Chen. Come on in,” a man answered. His voice sounded like that of a middle-aged man.

  Xiao Chen opened the door fully and gestured for Wu Letian to enter. “Please.”

  Inside, he saw the man referred to as “Zhang Ke.” He wasn’t sure whether that was the man’s actual name or just “Section Chief Zhang,” but his first impression of the man wasn’t bad.

  He looked younger than his voice suggested—probably a few years older than Wu Letian. He wore a side-parted hairstyle, clean-shaven, black-rimmed glasses that seemed oddly outdated. He sat deeply sunk into his chair behind a computer, as though he had grown roots there.

  “You don’t see young people wearing glasses like that much anymore,” Wu Letian thought to himself.

  Xiao Chen brought over a chair. “Please sit. This is our Section Chief Zhang.”

  Then she stepped back and sat down on a small double sofa against the wall, watching Wu Letian from the side.

  “Nice to meet you, Chief Zhang. Didn’t expect to cause this much trouble just coming back home,” Wu Letian tried to lighten the mood. At this point, he still didn’t know why his passport wasn’t working, but something about the situation felt... off.

  “No worries. No need to be nervous. Xiao Chen and I are just trying to help,” Zhang replied casually. He didn’t move an inch, only manipulated the mouse with his right hand, then looked over at Xiao Chen. “Bring me his passport, let’s take a look.”

  Xiao Chen walked over and held out her hand to Wu Letian. “Sir, please.”

  Wu Letian hesitated slightly, debating whether or not to hand it over.