Chapter 15 – The Gloved Man's Trail
The rain fell like needles over City A, a relentless drizzle that blurred neon lights and cleansed no sins.
Inside a sleek black SUV parked along Pier C, Bai Xueqing watched the harbor through tinted glass, expression unreadable. Mo Chen sat beside her, a secure tablet on his lap, fingers dancing over the screen.
"They've scrubbed the message server," he said, lips tight. "But not clean enough."
Xueqing turned to him. "He got sloppy?"
Mo Chen smirked. "Not sloppy. Arrogant."
He pulled up a trace pattern on the screen—a tangled mess of rerouted proxies and encrypted channels.
"Encrypted over six layers. But one of them? Military-grade," he said. "And it wasn't used by just anyone. It's registered to a ghost project: K-27."
Xueqing narrowed her eyes. "K-27... sounds familiar."
"It should. It was one of the intelligence black sites shut down right before you... died."
Silence.
She didn't flinch at the word. But her fingers curled slightly against her lap.
"I read your dossier after you vanished in our last life," Mo Chen added quietly. "You were supposed to be transferred to K-27. You never made it."
Xueqing's voice was cool. "So you think Ghosthand is linked to the group that erased me from the records?"
"Or maybe he was part of it," Mo Chen said, dark eyes intense. "Either way, he knows you. Knows who you were."
A tense pause.
Then Xueqing said, "Pull every known associate from that project. Cross-reference with current underground syndicates and mercenary networks. I want a list."
"Already started." He leaned in. "But you should know—he's watching us too."
---
Back at Bai Corp's intelligence room, Lin Nuo plopped a box of egg tarts onto the table, munching as he scrolled through the internal feeds.
"Okay, hear me out," he said between bites. "What if Ghosthand is a jilted ex who's really into spy drama? The man loves dramatic entrances."
"Not helpful," Xueqing muttered.
"But entertaining," Meng Zhihao added, sipping bubble tea with a straw that had a tiny duck on it.
Xueqing rolled her eyes. "Focus, gentlemen."
Lin Nuo cleared his throat. "Alright. So, here's something weird—we tracked a ping from Qiao Lan's phone after she was taken into custody."
"What?" Mo Chen stood. "When?"
"Ten minutes ago."
Mo Chen stormed to the console. "Her phone was supposed to be locked in isolation."
"It is," Lin Nuo said. "But the ping didn't come from her device—it came from near her device. Like someone trying to ghost-pair with it."
Xueqing's gaze sharpened. "Meaning?"
"Meaning Ghosthand left a signal trigger on her phone. He knows she's been caught."
Mo Chen growled under his breath. "And now he'll either disappear... or retaliate."
Xueqing stared at the blinking red dot on the screen.
"No," she said. "He won't run. He'll try to erase her before she talks."
---
Three hours later, under a false identity, Qiao Lan was moved to a safe house under Lin Nuo's team. She was restless, sitting in a guest room with shaking hands, whispering her brother's name like a mantra.
The clock ticked past 2 a.m.
The moment came.
A shadow passed the hallway. Silent, precise.
A man in black, face hidden by a mask, gloves tight over his hands, stepped toward the safehouse door.
He touched a device to the lock—hijacking the biometric reader.
Inside, Qiao Lan stood. Frozen. Sensing him before she saw him.
But before the door could open—
Boom.
A burst of pressure threw the attacker backward. Mo Chen stepped out from the side corridor, eyes blazing.
"Wrong house, Ghost."
---
The figure fled, fast—darting through shadows like smoke. Mo Chen gave chase, winding through the alleys behind the estate.
As they reached the roof of an adjacent building, the masked man turned.
And for a moment—
Mo Chen paused.
Those eyes.
Cold. Calculating. Familiar.
Before he could react, the man tossed a gas capsule and vanished into the night.
Mo Chen stood alone, the city silent below him, Xueqing's voice crackling in his earpiece.
"Did you see his face?"
"No," he said quietly. "But I saw something worse."
"What?"
"I think I've seen him before."