Just as he was about to withdraw, Jiu Jia Yi's low voice came through his earpiece. "He Zhong, pull up the check-in records for every VIP room. Especially the Red Cloud Suite."
He Zhong's eyes lit up. "That's the shipowner's private suite."
"I suspect the priest is there."
"Got it." He Zhong worked quickly. Thirty seconds later, the records appeared. He paused, a note of hesitation entering his voice. "There's more than one person staying there."
"Go on."
"Two names. One is Alei'en. The other... is Bai Mo."
Jiu Jia Yi's pupils contracted.
At the name, Lin Yun whipped her head toward him. "What did you say? Bai Mo?"
Her voice seemed to explode through the air.
"You know him?"
Lin Yun's voice trembled. "He was the last person my brother mentioned before he died... He said, 'Bai Mo is the key to everything.'"
Her words still echoed in the air, like a sudden clap of thunder splitting the silence of the night.
"Bai Mo..." she murmured, as though every syllable was steeped in blood-soaked memories. "My brother called me before he died. It was three in the morning, and he sounded frantic. He said, 'Don't look for Bai Mo. He isn't human...' Then the call cut off. For good..."
Her gaze went unfocused, as though she were caught between memory and terror, and her whole body trembled. Jiu Jia Yi stood beside her, brow furrowed, his eyes fixed on the records He Zhong had sent to his terminal.
"Bai Mo, codename the Sunken-Faced One. Ten years ago, he appeared at the scene when the Crow Letter Ceremony went out of control. He was the only survivor of the fire." Jiu Jia Yi's voice was low, like cold iron scraping against iron. "After that, he vanished for eight years."
Lin Yun suddenly asked, "You investigated him?"
Jiu Jia Yi nodded, his gaze sharp as a blade. "He's the third person on my list."
"What about the first two?"
"One died in a plane crash. The other left a final message at the edge of a cliff: 'Don't open the door.'"
The air seemed to freeze.
Lin Yun felt as though something had seized her throat. She could barely force the words out. "You're saying... Bai Mo is still alive, and he's staying in the Red Cloud Suite?"
"The records He Zhong just found confirm it." Jiu Jia Yi stared toward the end of the dark corridor ahead. "He's still on this ship. He may be waiting for us right now."
Lin Yun bit her lower lip. Her nails dug into her palms, but she felt no pain. A blurred face rose in her mind, the last memory her brother had left her—hazy, twisted, crazed. When it overlapped with that name, it was as though a sealed nightmare had suddenly broken free.
"Take me to him," she said, her voice carrying a rare resolve. "I want to know... what made my brother die so suddenly, with so much left unresolved."
Jiu Jia Yi glanced at her, his gaze deep, but in the end he did not refuse.
He only said, "Stay close. Don't fall behind, not even one step."
They hurried through the theater's ruined backstage and climbed the elevator shaft toward the VIP level. The ordinary passage had been damaged in the explosion, and the elevator system was shut down. Only an old maintenance route remained usable: a hidden ladder shaft almost no one knew about, normally sealed off and used to transport emergency equipment.
The iron door slid open before them with a creak. The deep, dark shaft stretched away like a passage straight to hell, smelling of damp and rust.
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