An Unwanted Visitor at the Black Market
Lin Wanqing was filing her nails in the military region’s guesthouse when the letter arrived.
There was no name on the envelope—only five characters: For Miss Lin’s Eyes Only.
She slit it open idly.
At the first line, her hand stilled.
By the last line, her eyes were gleaming.
“Su Qing may not be the Su family’s biological daughter—she could instead be of noble birth from some great clan.”
Lin Wanqing flipped the letter over and read it three times through.
The sender signed as Su Zhirou, claiming to be Su Qing’s stepsister. There was no hard proof, but she named two telling details: the red mole on Su Qing’s body, and the stark, unnatural fear on Father Su’s face when he signed the severance papers.
Lin Wanqing cared nothing for whether Su Qing was heir to some grand lineage. What mattered was something far more useful:
If Su Qing’s background was in question, then her origins were unknown, and her motives suspect.
A woman of unknown history, frequenting the military compound, growing close to a regimental commander—what did those words spell, in these times?
Investigation.
Lin Wanqing folded the letter and slipped it into the hidden pocket of her handbag. A slow smile curved her lips.
This would take no clever scheming. She need only whisper the news—Su Qing’s origins are questionable—into the right ear.
For example: Director Qin of the Military Region Political Department. That old stickler who prized “political purity” above all else.
That same day.
Su Qing had just sold her last batch of goods at the town black market.
It had been a profitable run: thirty jin of white sugar, two bolts of fine cotton, traded for six hundred and eighty yuan in cash and an internal purchase slip for the provincial department store.
The slip had been begged from her by a middle-aged man in a Zhongshan suit, who’d paid three times its face value.
Su Qing had not asked who he was. In the black market, you do not ask what you should not know.
She stowed the money in her private space, slung her empty cloth sack over her shoulder, and turned for home.
She stopped short at the narrow lane at the edge of town.
Someone stood blocking the entrance.
This was no clumsy “chance encounter” like Li Jianjun’s. The man leaned openly against the wall, hands in his pockets, as if he’d been waiting for her for a long time.
He was in his late twenties or early thirties—tall and lean, skin weathered dark, with high cheekbones and a jawline sharp as a blade. He wore a faded black cotton jacket and army caked in mud. At a glance, he looked like a peddler who’d roamed every corner of the country.
But Su Qing’s gaze went straight to his hands.
Knuckles prominent, fingertips dusted with fine calluses—not the rough, worn calluses of farm labor, but the steady, precise kind from years of holding a brush… or a gun.
And his eyes: sharp, assessing, free of malice—yet watching her as if he were measuring every inch.
“You’re Su Qing?” he said.
His voice was low, rough as wind across northern plains.
“And you are?” Su Qing took a quiet half-step back, her right hand already brushing the silver needles tucked in her sleeve.
The man smiled—brief, stiff, as if he rarely practiced the expression.
“Easy. I’m not here to cause trouble.”
He pulled something from his pocket: a palm-sized black token, carved from wood. One single character was etched into its face: Chen.
Su Qing’s pupils flared the moment she saw it.
In the two months she’d operated here, she’d learned the unspoken rules of this underground world. On the surface, the northwest black market was a jumble of independent vendors. But behind every deal, every price, every patch of territory—one person held absolute sway.
No one had ever seen him. He was known only by a codename: Mister Chen. And this token was the mark of his trusted envoys.
“Mister Chen sent me with a message,” the man said, tucking the token away. “The goods you’ve been moving lately—they’re too good. Too consistent. Unnaturally so.”
“He wants to meet you.”
Su Qing did not answer at once. She weighed her options quickly. A summons from Mister Chen was not necessarily bad news—at a certain scale, you could not avoid answering to the powers that ruled the shadows. But it could just as easily be an ultimatum as an invitation.
“When?” she asked.
“Three days from now. I’ll send word of the place.”
“Your name?”
The man paused.
“They call me Aqi.”
He turned to leave, then stopped without looking back.
“Su Qing.”
“Yes?”
“Mister Chen had one more thing for me to say—”
“‘You look like someone I know.’”
Her heart skipped a beat.
“Like who?”
Aqi did not reply. His figure rounded the corner and vanished into the bustle of the town.
Su Qing stood frozen for a moment.
You look like someone I know.
That was no idle line. A kingpin of the underworld would not say such a thing on their first meeting—not to flatter, not to tease. Unless… unless he truly knew someone who bore her face.
She touched the jade pendant resting just below her collarbone. It hummed faintly warm—just as it always did, whenever a clue to her past drew near.
She took a slow breath. There was no rush. When they met in three days, the truth would come.
But before then—there was a more urgent matter.
That morning, word had reached her: Lin Wanqing had visited the Political Department yesterday. She’d stayed forty minutes, and walked out beaming.
Su Qing’s lips curved.
That proud young lady from the capital—had finally made her move.