Shadows (Chapter 1)

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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Content

Chapter 1: Arrival

Chapter 2: SecuData

Chapter 3: Smokers

Chapter 4: Pepper and Chili

Chapter 5: Friends from Afar

Chapter 6: Basketball Prodigy

Chapter 7: Star Chart

Chapter 8: Tony Chapter 9: Shadows

Chapter 1: Arrival

The Amsterdam to Chengdu flight, ML847, was delayed by 32 minutes before finally landing safely.

Liu Jinwen carried a black backpack and wheeled her suitcase, following the other passengers towards the exit. It was peak arrival time, and passengers from four different international flights were gradually converging at the immigration channel, forming long queues.

Immigration officials were present to guide the flow of people and maintain order, but the line moved at a snail’s pace. After 17 minutes, Liu Jinwen finally reached counter number 8.

“Where are you coming from?” The immigration officer asked in a neutral tone, without looking up.

“Amsterdam, the Netherlands,” Liu Jinwen replied politely.

“Look at the camera.” The officer still didn’t look at Liu Jinwen.

Liu Jinwen obligingly adjusted her head, her eyes facing the camera mounted on the immigration counter. She didn’t know what was behind the azure lens, but she assumed someone was looking at her through it. Only then did the officer raise his head, comparing the passenger in front of him to the photograph on her passport, and glancing at the screen of the computer in front of him. He handed the passport back to Liu Jinwen.

“You can pass through.”

The arrivals hall was extremely crowded, and Liu Jinwen felt a little out of place. She had been living in Paris for a long time, which was also a large European city, densely populated. But compared to Chengdu Airport, Paris felt like a small town, at least in terms of population density.

Liu Jinwen quickened her pace. She had already booked a flight from Chengdu to Beijing, and luckily the delay of ML847 wasn’t significant, or she might have missed her connecting flight and disrupted her carefully laid itinerary.

Beijing Airport was even more crowded. Liu Jinwen quickly exited the arrivals hall. Instead of taking a taxi, she boarded the airport express bus to Jianguomen, then transferred to the subway to reach North 5th Ring Road, where the Admin Department had arranged accommodation for her. If everything went smoothly, she would only be staying there temporarily.

On her first day reporting for duty, the Bureau had already scheduled her itinerary. Xiao Hua, the assistant to the bureau director, met Liu Jinwen at the security checkpoint and led her to a small conference room.

Liu Jinwen was a member of the Ministry of State Security’s International Intelligence Bureau, stationed in Europe, with her long-term residence in Paris. Because her single-point-of-contact in France had been unexpectedly exposed, the International Intelligence Bureau had urgently arranged for her extraction to return home. Over the next few days, Liu Jinwen would debrief the International Intelligence Bureau of the Ministry of State Security and undergo internal vetting, after which she would be re-assigned accordingly, the duration of the vetting was currently unknown.

The vetting process lasted ten days, followed by a period of waiting for the conclusion – indefinite waiting, which was the most agonizing part. During the waiting period, Liu Jinwen was free to go out, but she knew that her every move and utterance was under the surveillance of the Ministry of State Security. To minimize trouble for herself and avoid causing unnecessary problems for others, Liu Jinwen kept a low profile, stayed home most of the time, and patiently awaited the results of the vetting.

Two weeks later, Jiang, the director of the International Intelligence Bureau of the Ministry of State Security, spoke with Liu Jinwen personally, acknowledging her achievements during her time working abroad and informing her that the Ministry had decided to assign her to long-term domestic work. She would be transferred to the Beidu City State Security Bureau and appointed as Deputy Section Chief of Section 4 of the Counter Espionage Reconnaissance Department, or known as Department 6 to the public. She was to report to Department 6 in Beidu City within one week.

Being assigned to work in an unfamiliar city after the vetting was entirely within Liu Jinwen’s expectations, but being appointed Deputy Section Chief was completely unexpected. For Liu Jinwen, this appointment was both an affirmation and reward for her past work, and a source of expectation and encouragement for her future endeavors.

The Beidu City State Security Bureau had received orders from the Ministry and had made arrangements for Liu Jinwen’s work. The assignment to the Counter Espionage Reconnaissance Department of the Beidu City State Security Bureau was at the behest of the Ministry of State Security. Department 6 assigned her to Section 4, and also arranged an apartment near the office as temporary accommodation. Within a three-month period, Liu Jinwen would have ample time to find suitable private accommodation.

The Beidu City State Security Bureau’s Counter Espionage Reconnaissance Department managed a one-bedroom apartment as Liu Jinwen’s temporary accommodation. This was what Liu Jinwen had requested. Living alone, she didn’t want a large apartment. Although the bureau covered the expenses, she felt it was unnecessary, at least to save time in cleaning and tidying up. The apartment complex was not only close to the office but also on a subway line, which was very important for convenient daily life.

With everything prepared, Qiao Changfeng, Chief of Section 4 of Department 6, specially arranged for a driver to pick up the newly appointed Deputy Section Chief from Beijing.

On Saturday afternoon, Gao Shifu, a driver from Section 6, arrived at Liu Jinwen’s temporary residence in Beijing to pick up her. After arriving in Beidu City, Gao Shifu drove her directly to the apartment arranged for her by the Department. After Gao Shifu left, Liu Jinwen, like anyone who had just moved into a new home, walked around the unit to familiarize herself with the rooms, furniture, and facilities. Then she went to the kitchen, rummaged through the cabinets, and found some tea of an unknown vintage, which she placed in a teacup.

Liu Jinwen placed an electric kettle, filled with water, very close to the power strip, the spout directly above it. She powered on the electric kettle then returned to the bedroom to start organizing her luggage. The water in the kitchen boiled, and because the kettle was overfilled, some of the boiling water splashed onto the power strip, instantly causing a short circuit and cutting off the power to the entire apartment.

“Gao Shifu, are you home yet?” Liu Jinwen called the driver for help.

“Deputy Section Chief Liu, I’m almost there, just arrived at my residential complex. Do you need something? Did you forget something in the car? I’ll bring it to you right away.”

“Everything’s here. Gao Shifu, I’m really sorry, I’ve encountered a small problem. I don’t know how to fix it, and I don’t know anyone here. I had to call you for help.”

“No problem, Deputy Section Chief Liu, you are always welcome. What can I do to help?”

“I was boiling water when the power suddenly went out. I don’t know what’s wrong, and I don’t know if I can fix it or how. Can you please come to take a look?”

“A small matter, a small matter. Deputy Section Chief Liu, just wait for me at home, I’ll be there shortly. Don’t touch any of the appliances, it just so happens I know a bit about electrical work, I’ll take a look when I get there, I can usually fix minor problems.”

“Thank you so much, Gao Shifu! I just arrived in Beidu City, and I don’t know anyone here. I really don’t know what I would do without your help!”

As she hung up the phone, Liu Jinwen glanced at her watch. It would take Gao Shifu about 30 minutes to get back here, so she decided to use those 30 minutes to thoroughly check every corner of the apartment.

It was clean in the hallway, bathroom, or bedroom, but she discovered something unusual in the living room. A hidden camera was installed inside the television, positioned at the lower edge of the screen bezel, almost seamlessly integrated with the infrared remote control receiver. She continued to check the kitchen, but found nothing amiss.

Before Liu Jinwen arrived in Beidu City, her home had already been pre-equipped with surveillance devices. This apartment was property of Beidu State Security Bureau, and currently, only staff from the State Security Bureau knew she was living here, so it was safe to assume that everything had been set up in advance by the Bureau, although she had no way of knowing which department or individual was responsible. From Section 4 to the Counter Espionage Reconnaissance Department, and even to the Ministry of State Security, it was possible, after all, she had been urgently extracted back home because of the exposure of her single-point-of-contact in France, and the vetting process was over, but the vetting would never truly end.

She couldn’t say that the Ministry of  State Security didn’t trust her, only that the Ministry didn’t trust anyone, including herself. She decided to act as if she knew nothing, and observe how things unfolded. She would only be staying in this apartment for a maximum of three months, and she would see what the situation was like after she moved.

Qiao Changfeng, 51 years old, was a typical middle-aged man when walking down the street – not slick, but certainly not someone you’d immediately like. He was very friendly to the newly assigned Deputy Section Chief, first exchanging pleasantries with Liu Jinwen, then introducing her to the colleagues in Section 4, and accompanying her to meet the section chiefs of several other departments, as well as the director and deputy director of the Counter Espionage Reconnaissance Department. He even took her to the Bureau’s HR Department to report in, and finally to meet the deputy bureau director, bureau director, and political commissar. By the time they returned to the section, it was lunchtime, and he arranged for Liu Jinwen to be taken to the cafeteria to familiarize herself with the facilities, acting like an older brother guiding the way.

Liu Jinwen certainly saved herself a lot of trouble with Qiao Changfeng taking care of everything on her first day. However, shortly after lunch, Qiao Changfeng assigned her a case – to lead the formation of Special Task Force, STF-6029, and investigate it. He said that working on the case would allow her to quickly familiarize herself with the work.

Qiao Changfeng’s arrangement made sense. Many things could only be learned through practice, and the reality often differed from initial expectations, whether the task seemed simple or difficult. New colleagues, even those with years of experience, needed to first familiarize themselves with the internal workings to successfully carry out their work, and the best and fastest way to do that was to jump right in.

There was another reason why Section Chief Qiao Changfeng assigned Liu Jinwen, who had just started working that day, to be in charge of this case. The case was based on intelligence received from the International Intelligence Bureau of the Ministry of State Security. The leak involved files and data from a project being developed at the 602 Institute – a project on passive ultra-high-sensitivity underwater object measurement and identification. Liu Jinwen had been working at the International Intelligence Bureau of the Ministry of State Security before coming to Beidu City, so she would be well-positioned to communicate and coordinate with the bureau if necessary during the investigation. However, this wasn’t a particularly strong justification, as Liu Jinwen had been stationed abroad for a long time, and the number of colleagues at the bureau who knew her – and whom she knew – could be counted on one hand. Nevertheless, being able to immediately dive into work still made Liu Jinwen feel happy.

The 602 Institute was originally established with security in mind. Its location was chosen to be in Dayangzhuang, in the southern part of Beidu City, which was sparsely populated at the time, practically in the suburbs. As the city of Beidu City, a municipality adjacent to the capital, continued to develop and expand, Dayangzhuang was incorporated into the urban area, becoming part of the Nanxia District along with several neighboring villages.

Not only the area surrounding the 602 Institute, but the entire Dayangzhuang region, was transformed into a jungle of concrete and steel. The Dayangzhuang area was also renamed Feiyang Street, and the Feiyang Street Office and Feiyang Street Police Station were subsequently established. The community’s infrastructure and amenities were continuously improved, presenting a vibrant and thriving scene, making it hard to imagine that this was once the rice cultivation area of Beidu City.

As the Feiyang Street area rapidly developed, the aged buildings of the 602 Institute stood out as mismatched and out of place. There was little interest in learning about them, and many cutting-edge research results originated from these historically dilapidated buildings.

However, due to its increasingly increasing real estate price, the 602 Institute became a thorn in the side of some real estate developers. Finally, with the coordination of Beidu municipal government, the 602 Institute was relocated to a new site in the western suburbs two years ago. In fact, the land had already been auctioned off before the institute had officially moved. The day after the 602 Institute moved out, the entire site was demolished to make way for a super commercial and recreation center.

The relocation was a good thing for the 602 Institute – it was removed from the noise and chaos of the city, and replaced with new, modernized office and laboratory buildings, as well as state-of-the-art equipment and new facilities. These new investments were beneficial for maximizing output, of course, but they were also expensive. The land swap compensation was insufficient, so Beidu City provided a special research fund, and the Ministry of Science and Technology approved an additional special appropriation, which successfully enabled the institute’s relocation and upgrade.

The institute director, Doctor Li, clearly wasn’t interested in the leak or the State Security Bureau. He simply showed up to shake hands with the State Security Bureau officials to demonstrate his high regard for the incident, and then handed everything over to the security department.

Xu Kai, the head of the security department, joined the 602 Institute’s security section after retiring from the military at the age of 24, and has worked at the institute for another 24 years. The security section had been upgraded to a security department, and Xu Kai had been promoted from a section member to a department head.

Xu Kai immediately arranged for an internal investigation of the institute and provided the Beidu City State Security Bureau’s Section 4 with the personal information of all 47 researchers and staff involved in Project HTR85 – the passive ultra-high-sensitivity underwater object measurement and identification project.

Liu Jinwen tasked her colleagues with conducting background checks on all 47 researchers and staff.

Two days later, Xu Kai called, requesting that the State Security Bureau immediately come to the 602 Institute.

Over the past two days, the 602 Institute’s security department, in coordination with the institute’s network center, investigated the recent activities of all personnel involved in Project HTR85, while also screening the technology and network equipment used in the project. They discovered that the project’s dedicated internal network had been injected with a Trojan program, and a dedicated microdevice for data transmission had been installed on the server in the server center. This led to strong suspicions that someone was using the Trojan program to steal the research data of Project HTR85.

Everyone was interested in the printed micro circuit board hidden within the server rack – it was a key component in executing the core step of transmitting data. The network used by Project HTR85 was a completely isolated local area network disconnected from the external network. Without this secretly installed device, it was virtually impossible to silently steal any data from the internal network.

At this time, the creator of the Trojan program and the individual who injected it remained unknown. The physical network transmission device appeared to be custom-made, and its origin could not be determined for the time being. However, the 602 Institute’s network center provided an important piece of information – it had temporarily ruled out the possibility of the breach originating from within the institute.

The entire network of the 602 Institute, including all the isolated local area networks independently used by different research projects, was managed and maintained by the institute’s network center. To ensure network and data security, the network center had signed a service contract with a data security company called “SecuData”, which sent engineers to the 602 Institute every month to conduct network security and stress tests, identify potential vulnerabilities, and then have the 602 Institute’s network center improve network management and reinforce security defenses.

SecuData Data Security Company is a state-owned enterprise headquartered in Beijing, under the guidance and supervision of the Ministry of Public Security’s Cyber Information Security Center. It provides data security services to state organs, large and medium-sized state-owned enterprises, key universities, and research institutes, with a total of 6 network security laboratories, 15 cloud computing centers, and 21 branches across the country.

The Beidu City branch of SecuData is located in the Beidu High-Tech Development Zone. Just a week ago, on the 13th of this month, SecuData had just completed a network security test at the 602 Institute. According to the 602 Institute’s internal protocols, employees of the institute’s network center entering the HTR85 project server room were not allowed to bring in any hardware, including storage media, and were even prohibited from carrying mobile phones or laptops in or out of the server room. Therefore, they were completely incapable of copying files, injecting Trojan program on the server, or even installing hardware devices. However, SecuData’s engineers were allowed to bring their own work laptops into the server room, but only after undergoing a security check by the 602 Institute’s security department. Based on this, the 602 Institute’s security department and network center both strongly suspected that employees of SecuData had taken advantage of their access to tamper with things in the machine room and steal confidential information from Project HTR85. The suspects were among the three SecuData employees who had conducted the network security check last week.

Liu Jinwen decided to go to the Beidu High-Tech Development Zone herself. Perhaps the answer lay within SecuData Data Security Company.

On the way, Chen Mingxuan was driving, and he and He Fang, who was in the passenger seat, weren’t familiar with the newly arrived Deputy Section Chief Liu. There wasn’t much conversation, and it felt awkward to remain silent, even more so to leave the deputy section chief out of the conversation. Liu Jinwen broke the brief awkwardness by initiating a casual chat with the two of them. The three of them gradually became more “talkative”, and Liu Jinwen quickly became acquainted with her two young colleagues, at least it appeared that way.

As the car drove onto the Second Street of the Beidu High-Tech Development Zone, the blue “SecuData” logo on the roof of a glass curtain wall office building came into view. This was the office building of SecuData Data Security Company, which also housed one of the company’s network security laboratories.

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Truth drips slowly in the places light cannot reach.

§ The Alphabet Series §

§ Miss Qiu Series §

§ Stand Alone §