Act 1: Stand-off on the Isolated Island
When the helicopter landed on the helipad of the deep-sea prison, the sea wind carried a sharp, salty mist straight to their faces. The facility, built atop the cliffs of an isolated island, loomed like a slumbering giant. Its gray concrete walls were constantly battered by the waves, streaked with dark brown stains from years of saltwater.
[Golden bullet-text, teasingly omniscient, flashes through consciousness]
[Night Owl Champion]: “Final boss room of the dungeon unlocked! Gotta say, Observer-07 really picked a grim test scenario this time.”
[System Maintenance Worker]: “Data feedback: Sample Jiang Mian’s heart rate stable, logic core online. Pei Yuyan’s anchor point stability… holding at the 8.3% critical threshold. Test pressure value met.”
[Want Milk Tea Today Too]: “Even if it’s just a test, it’s nerve-wracking to watch! Shen Huaishan is a total maniac!”
The warden was a man in his fifties, a long scar running diagonally from brow to jawline. When he extended his hand to shake Jiang Mian’s, it was rough as sandpaper.
“Miss Jiang,” he said, voice low and hoarse from years spent on the island. “Shen Huaishan has been on a hunger strike for four days. The doctors say he can survive at most three more days.”
Jiang Mian withdrew her hand. “He wants to see me.”
“Yes,” the warden said, eyes flicking with something unspoken. “He set three conditions: a private meeting, no surveillance devices, and a minimum of thirty minutes.”
Fu Chenyu stepped forward. “This violates protocol—”
“I agree,” Jiang Mian interrupted him.
The warden nodded and turned to lead the way. They passed through three heavy blast-proof doors; each step echoed down the hollow corridor. Emergency lights on the walls cast a pale glow, stretching and twisting their shadows.
Before the last door, the warden stopped.
“Miss Jiang,” he turned his head, the scar on his face looking especially vicious in the light. “Yesterday, Shen Huaishan pressed a sharpened toothbrush against his carotid artery. When the guards pried it away, half his body was already covered in blood. Now… he doesn’t look entirely human.”
Jiang Mian lifted her eyes. “Like what?”
“Like a beast that knows it’s about to die,” the warden said as he pushed open the iron door. “Who it bites last… depends on its mood.”
The door closed behind her.
The visitation room was a ten-square-meter sealed chamber, its four walls smooth stainless steel. Four cold white LEDs were embedded in the ceiling, illuminating every face without a single shadow.
Shen Huaishan sat in the center of the room on a metal chair.
Yet after more than a month, the man had become almost skeletal. His orange prison jumpsuit hung loosely from his shoulders, his cheeks hollow, cheekbones protruding, gray hair matted against his scalp. But his eyes—that pair of eyes that could silence a boardroom with a single sweep—were still terrifyingly bright.
It was not a light of reason, but a kind of obsession burning through sanity.
Jiang Mian sat across from him. The iron chair was cold, seeping through the thin fabric to her skin.
Neither spoke first.
The digital clock on the wall ticked: 08:47, 08:48, 08:49…
After three minutes of silence, Shen Huaishan tugged at the corner of his mouth, revealing a cracked smile.
“You arrived faster than I imagined,” he rasped, voice sandpaper-rough, corroded like rusted iron. “I thought you’d wait at least until the day I died.”
Jiang Mian placed both hands flat on the table. “I can’t wait that long.”
“Why?” Shen Huaishan leaned forward, elbows on the table, eyes locked on hers. “Because my daughter is still in your hands? Or… because your little boyfriend is about to give out?”
[Golden bullet-text flashes through the depths of consciousness]
[Night Owl Champion]: “He knows? No, he’s probably just guessing. But that intuition… is terrifying.”
[Observer-07]: “Test pressure rising. Target subject is beginning psychological pressure tactics.”
Jiang Mian’s expression remained unchanged. “Shen Yanxin is in a compulsory medical center. She has professional doctors looking after her; it’s safer than being with you.”
“Safer?” Shen Huaishan suddenly laughed, the sound dry and grating. “Jiang Mian, your mother was very ‘safe’ back then too. Her driver drove for ten years without incident—until the brake line ‘accidentally’ snapped.”
His fingers drummed on the table, one tap, two taps, slow and heavy.
“Your father was even more ‘safe.’ The lab’s fire prevention system passed inspection just three months ago; the fire records were perfect. And then? One ‘accidental’ fire, all data destroyed, and the only person who knew the truth burned alive.”
He paused, eyes fixed on Jiang Mian as if nailed there.
“And now you tell me my daughter is ‘safe’?”
Jiang Mian met his gaze steadily. “Shen Yanxin is guilty of her own crimes. Hiring someone to cause harm, falsifying evidence, academic fraud—each offense has irrefutable proof. She is not a victim; she is an accomplice.”
“Accomplice?” Shen Huaishan repeated the word, a strange curve forming at the corner of his mouth. “And you, Miss Jiang? These things you’re doing now—breaking into banks, forging identities, illegally obtaining evidence—are those accomplice acts too? Or do you think you are the embodiment of justice?”
He leaned back in the chair, hands crossed over his abdomen.
“There is no justice in this world, only winners and losers. My father won for so many years; I’ve won for so many years. Now it’s your turn.” He paused. “But have you thought—when you’ve won enough, who will be the next one sitting in your position?”
[Golden bullet-text floats by]
[System Maintenance Worker]: “He’s trying to establish some sort of ‘kindred’ identification. Classic manipulation tactics.”
[Want Milk Tea Today Too]: “But… it kind of makes sense. Creepy when you think about it.”
Jiang Mian was silent for a few seconds.
Then she spoke, voice low but clear enough to echo in the confined room:
“Mr. Shen, I didn’t come here to discuss philosophy. I came to give you a choice.”
She reached into the inside pocket of her coat and pulled out a photograph, sliding it across the table.
The photo showed Shen Yanxin. She wore a hospital gown, sitting by the window of her ward, profile facing the camera, eyes hollowly staring outside. Sunlight fell on her face, highlighting the still-wet tear stains on her eyelashes.
Shen Huaishan’s fingers trembled.
“She now undergoes six psychological evaluations a day and requires high doses of sedatives just to sleep,” Jiang Mian said. “The doctors say her paranoia is severe. She constantly thinks someone is trying to kill her, checks her medication three times before taking it, and cannot close her eyes at night unless all lights are on.”
She pushed over a second photograph.
A close-up of Shen Yanxin’s wrist, thickly bandaged.
“Three days ago, she tried to cut her wrist with a blunt plastic spoon. By the time she was discovered, half the pillow was soaked in blood,” Jiang Mian paused. “This is not a performance, Mr. Shen. She is breaking down. And all of this began with the logic you taught her—that as long as you win, any means are justified.”
Shen Huaishan stared at the photo, his Adam’s apple moving up and down. He reached out, fingertips grazing the edge of the photo, then recoiled as if burned.
“What do you want?” His voice was hoarse, barely audible.
“The original records of the Eye-Opening Project,” Jiang Mian said. “Everything. From 1967 until now—every experiment, every participant list, every flow of funds.”
Shen Huaishan snapped his head up. “And what will you do if you get them? Those things—”
“Those things can save your daughter from ten more years in prison,” Jiang Mian interrupted him. “And they can let the surviving victims at least know why their loved ones became what they are.”
She leaned forward, eyes sharp as knives.
“Or… you can continue guarding those yellowed papers. Wait until you die, and Shen Yanxin will spend forty, fifty years in a mental hospital—only to wake up one day and find her life reduced to ruins and pills. And the little secrets your Shen family has protected for three generations? In the end, they’ll rot in the coffin with you.”
“Are you threatening me?” Shen Huaishan’s eyes reddened.
“I’m giving you a choice,” Jiang Mian corrected him. “Half a century of blood debt in exchange for your daughter’s chance at a normal life for the second half. This is a fair trade; the Shen family doesn’t lose.”
The room fell silent.
Only the ticking of the electronic clock and the distant roar of the sea could be heard.
Shen Huaishan lowered his head, staring at his trembling hands. The hands that had signed contracts worth billions, that once determined life and death with ease, were now covered in liver spots and bulging veins.
He remembered his daughter as a child. Her first wobbly steps into his arms, the day she got into college and hugged her acceptance letter with a smile like a little sun, her wedding day in a white dress, walking down the red carpet arm-in-arm with Gu Xingye, radiating unrestrained, natural happiness.
Those memories shattered into fragments, leaving only the hollow eyes in the photograph.
“If I give you…” he began, voice rasping like a torn bellows, “how can you guarantee Yanxin will survive?”
“I can’t guarantee she’ll live well,” Jiang Mian admitted honestly. “But I can guarantee she won’t ‘accidentally’ die in prison. She will have a lawyer, regular psychological therapy, and at least her basic dignity. When she comes out ten years later, she can at least start over.”
Shen Huaishan laughed—a laugh more grotesque than crying.
“Start over…” he muttered, repeating the words. “Jiang Mian… do you really believe that? Can people really start over?”
[Golden bullet-text commentary]
[Ex-Boyfriend Go Away]: “Tsk, feels pain now? Where were you before? But this bit of ‘fatherly love’ acting—does it count for points in the test?”
[Sunny Weather]: “Test or not, the character development here is both cringe-inducing and kinda tragic.”
Jiang Mian didn’t reply.
Shen Huaishan shook his head, slowly standing from the chair. He walked to the wall, turning his back to Jiang Mian, facing the smooth stainless steel panels. The panels reflected his twisted silhouette.
“The earliest experimental site of the Eye-Opening Project was an abandoned mine in the Yunnan borderlands,” he said, voice eerily calm. “Winter of 1967, my father brought in the first batch of ‘volunteers.’ Twelve people, all local farmers barely scraping by. Each was given fifty yuan and signed a contract they couldn’t understand.”
He turned toward Jiang Mian.
“Do you know the name of the first person who died? Li Ada. Forty-two years old, with three children. After being injected with the γ-7 prototype, he had a high fever for three days. On the fourth day, he began banging his head against the wall. His skull shattered, brains spilled everywhere.”
“The second was Zhao Xiaomei. Twenty-five, four months pregnant. She died on the operating table; the baby inside her was still moving when she died.”
“The third—”
“Enough.” Jiang Mian cut him off.
Shen Huaishan paused, tilting his head. “What? Can’t listen anymore? Jiang Mian, what you want is a record spanning twenty-seven years. This is just the beginning.”
Jiang Mian stood up. “Tell me where it is. And how to open it.”
Shen Huaishan walked back to the table and sat down again. From the inner pocket of his prison uniform, he took out a small black metal shard and placed it on the table.
It was no bigger than a fingernail, thin as a cicada’s wing, its surface engraved with intricate patterns.
“What is this?” Jiang Mian asked.
“A part of the key,” Shen Huaishan said. “All the original data of the Eye-Opening Project is locked in the underground third level of Binhai City’s old archives, Vault No. 7. It’s a specially constructed vault put into use in 1973, fitted with a German-made mechanical combination lock—no electronic components, immune to hacking.”
He tapped the metal shard with his fingertip.
“Opening it requires two things.” He raised two fingers. “First, this key fragment. It must perfectly fit the grooves inside the lock core to release the first mechanical bolt. Second—”
He paused, pointing to his left eye.
“My iris.”
Jiang Mian frowned. “Iris recognition? But a detached eyeball can’t pass a liveness check—”
“Who told you that lock requires a ‘liveness check’?” Shen Huaishan cut her off, a mocking curve tugging at his lips. “Back then, what kind of advanced liveness detection did the technology even have? When my father commissioned that lock, he specifically requested static iris-pattern matching only—like opening it with a photograph.”
He leaned forward, lowering his voice.
“But he deliberately spread rumors that the lock required ‘pupil contraction under natural light.’ That way, even if someone forced my eye out of me, they’d assume a removed eyeball was ‘dead and useless’ and give up.”
[Golden bullet-text flashes across consciousness]
[Tech Nerd Saves the World]: “Exactly! Early iris locks only compared static patterns! Shen Xinzong was a sly old fox—he planted false intel on purpose!”
[Observer No. 3]: “The test has entered the key puzzle-solving phase. The target reveals the true rules.”
Jiang Mian stared at him. “Then why tell me the truth now?”
“The reason is simple.” Shen Huaishan leaned back in his chair. “You need my iris pattern. And there are only two ways to get it. One: take me alive to the archives and scan it on-site. But do you really think the warden would let a high-risk inmate—four days into a hunger strike, with self-harm tendencies—walk out?”
He paused.
“Two: you take the ‘key’ right now. The iris in this eye is the password.”
The room fell silent.
Jiang Mian glanced at the clock on the wall: 09:18. Countdown remaining: 02:32:00.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked. “If the lock only needs a static pattern, you could have waited—”
“I can’t wait anymore,” Shen Huaishan interrupted, his voice suddenly heavy with exhaustion. “Jiang Mian, this is my fourth day on hunger strike. My body is already failing. The doctors say I have at most three days left. After that, I’ll slip into a coma and slowly die.”
He raised his only remaining right hand and pointed at his left eye.
“And this eye will be cremated along with my body. When that happens, you will never be able to open that vault.”
Jiang Mian’s breathing stalled, just for a moment.