Chapter 2: Echoes from Ten Years Ago

At 4 a.m., the wind by Ling Lake was especially biting, like an invisible hand that pierced every crack and seeped into the bones. Li Sen stood by the lake, watching the ripples spread across the water under the lights. The list in front of him, its handwriting, flickered again and again in his mind.

Shen An, missing for nine years, yet now a woman had reported that he went missing just last night. If this wasn't a case of a name overlap, where had he been for these nine years? Why would he appear on a list dated ten years ago? The timeline of all this was starting to blur, like an ink painting drawn with a wet brush, with the boundaries uncontrollably bleeding out.

Li Sen returned to the station and retrieved all the information on Shen An. To his surprise, Shen An’s social records had been cut off nine years ago. His ID, social security, bank accounts, and travel history all abruptly stopped after a certain day—exactly the day he disappeared. There had been no trace of him in the nine years since.

However, the woman who reported him, Zhao Man, insisted that her boyfriend, Shen An, was a "real person." Li Sen ordered the tech team to trace Zhao Man’s photos, social media records, and communication content. Preliminary findings showed that she and Shen An had exchanged hundreds of messages and had over twenty photos together, spanning nearly two years.

This couldn’t have been a fabricated life. In the photos, Shen An’s face was almost identical to the one in his file from nine years ago, just a little more mature and calm. He wasn’t someone who had "reappeared"—he had always been there, just without leaving any official record.

“If he really existed these past few years, why can’t we find any trace of him?” The technician frowned, suspecting the data might have been tampered with.

“This isn’t deleted data; it’s bypassed all systems,” Li Sen pointed at Shen An’s photo. “It’s like he was living deliberately but intentionally made himself impossible to trace.”

Zhao Man had calmed down somewhat in the interrogation room. She was wearing a deep blue trench coat, her hair slightly messy, her eyes tired yet clear. She said that Shen An had gone for his usual evening jog the night before, leaving home around 9 p.m., but after 10 p.m., his phone was unreachable. She called the police at 2 a.m.

“When did you meet him?” Li Sen asked.

“Two years ago, at the company’s annual meeting. He was the head of the outsourced design team,” Zhao Man replied, her voice firm, as if she had rehearsed her response.

“Did you ever find him odd in any way?”

Zhao Man hesitated for a moment. “Sometimes, he’d just stare blankly at the lake. When we walked by Ling Lake, he would always walk to the stone pier at the southern tip and say it was quiet there. He once said something I never quite understood.”

“What did he say?”

“He said, ‘Things beneath the water will eventually float to the surface.’”

Li Sen’s heart tightened.

The phrase sounded like something spoken by someone who knew too much but couldn’t say too much. He realized that Shen An might be a key piece in this puzzle, and now it seemed that piece was drifting toward them.

A few hours later, another alarm came from the southern bank of Ling Lake.

During a routine dive inspection, the team discovered a gap covered by rocks, about two meters deep. The water in that area was unusually turbulent. Li Sen arrived at the scene himself, and when the diver pulled out the metal box, everyone held their breath.

The box was heavy, and the lock had rusted and fallen off. When it was opened, a foul stench filled the air. Inside was a nearly skeletal body and a few moldy letters.

The body was initially identified as male, and the remaining clothing was consistent with the fashion of nine years ago. After comparing dental records, it was confirmed that the body was indeed Shen An.

Zhao Man nearly collapsed when she received the news. She was convinced she had lived, eaten, and traveled with Shen An for the past two years, and everything seemed perfectly clear. She didn’t believe the man in the lake was her boyfriend. Li Sen presented her with the DNA comparison report, and Zhao Man’s expression went blank for a moment. Then, trembling, she said:

“If he’s been dead all along… then who was the person with me these past two years?”

The interrogation room fell into a deathly silence.

Li Sen suddenly recalled Shen An’s words: “Things beneath the water will eventually float to the surface.” Now, it seemed more like a prophecy. He marked everyone’s name on a timeline: the time of the incident, the time of the disappearance, the time the body was found, the content of the letters... Everything formed a chaotic web, as if an unseen hand was pulling these nodes and sending them all to the surface.

A second letter was found in a sealed bag along with the second body. This letter was more complicated, no longer just a provocative simple sentence, but a handwritten passage.

“If you’re reading this letter, it means I’ve failed. I tried to escape the path it set, but the more I struggled, the deeper I sank. I’m not the first, and I won’t be the last. It is the lake, it is memory, it is a contract, it is some form of existence. It’s observing, it’s waiting for me—not, it’s waiting for you.”

Li Sen read the passage, and a chill ran through him.

The lake wasn’t just a natural body of water; it was like a stage designed into a "story," where anyone who got close would be consumed by some kind of logic. And now, this logic was slowly rising to the surface.

He realized something: these victims weren’t suicides, weren’t random, and weren’t accidental victims. They had most likely all been involved in something—a secret event from ten years ago—and the lake was the shared witness.

Among the seven people on the list from ten years ago, three were now known to have surfaced. Four were still missing.

Li Sen turned around and looked at the map. He retrieved the data on the four missing people and was surprised to find that they had all briefly crossed paths—a university club called the "Water Mirror Society." They had once been a secret research club at a prestigious university in the city, focused on the mysterious legends of Ling Lake.

And Shen An was the president of the society that year.

The file also mentioned a detail—they had filmed a short documentary by Ling Lake, titled "Eyes Beneath the Mirror." The film had never been made public, and after a small campus screening, it was sealed away.

Li Sen immediately arranged for a search of the university’s old archives, and eventually found a copy of the film in a batch of uncategorized files.

That night, he played the less-than-fifteen-minute video in the meeting room.

The video began with several society members laughing as they adjusted the camera, before switching to scenes by the lake at night. The camera shook and the focus was blurry, but in the final few minutes, something eerie appeared—a figure slowly walked into the lake, with five or six people silently watching from behind, not a single sound.

The figure entered the lake and never returned. A few minutes later, strange whirlpools appeared on the surface. The screen went black as a hand rose high, holding something glittering, and then it went completely dark.

The bottom right corner of the video displayed the filming date—exactly ten years ago.

At that moment, Li Sen finally understood. This wasn’t an investigation into a series of lake-side deaths. It was an uncovering of a ten-year-long mysterious cycle involving “summoning,” “sacrifice,” and “witnessing.”

For the first time, his heart truly grew cold.