Stacks of old yearbooks, school archives, and hospital reports lay scattered across his desk. Qiao Zeyan tapped his fingers against his chin, eyes narrowed on a grainy class photo from three years ago.
"Xu Xiyan," he murmured.
She had the same eyes. Not just similar—identical.
But according to school records, Xu Xiyan was reported dead in a house fire. Cause unknown. The body had never been recovered, but the case had been ruled as accidental. Sloppy. Too convenient.
His laptop chimed.
An encrypted message from an old contact in the Public Security Bureau blinked on-screen.
"You were right. There's no death certificate. Just a transfer of guardianship to a Yan Weiguo. Military clearance level: black-tier. That's beyond me."
Black-tier.
Zeyan leaned back in his chair, processing.
A normal girl doesn't have her file wiped and rewritten under a retired high-ranking general. A normal girl doesn't fight with muscle memory, track fast-moving targets, or read people like a soldier.
He pulled up surveillance footage from the school's sparring exam—slow motion of the moment she disarmed that third-year senior with surgical precision.
That wasn't instinct.
That was training.
The pieces were lining up like chess. But every time he moved a step forward, it felt like someone—or something—was erasing the trail behind him.
He glanced out his window.
The street below was empty. Quiet. But he couldn't shake the chill crawling down his spine.
He wasn't the only one digging.
Meanwhile – Yan Residence
Yan Xiyan sat at her desk, textbooks open in front of her—but her mind was elsewhere.
Grandpa Yan had handed her a folder earlier. Thick, worn, and sealed with a red wax stamp.
She hadn't opened it yet.
She didn't need to.
She knew what was inside—classified reports, autopsy photos, surveillance shots of the massacre that stole her childhood.
The day her family was destroyed.
The day she decided she would come back, not as the broken girl Xu Xiyan… but as the weapon called Yan Xiyan.
Her hand trembled slightly before she curled it into a fist.
She could feel the shadows of her past stirring—because someone else was now walking into them.