Chapter 7: The Raven (4)
Once she was let out, Li Yufu never locked her up again — he even gave her free access throughout the organization.
At first, though, Elyse couldn't go anywhere at all.
Her limbs had withered to an alarming thinness — she couldn't even stand or walk on her own.
To keep her happy, Li Yufu had Cry brought from Little Golden Port to Tikka specifically to look after her.
Cry burst into tears the moment she saw Elyse. She'd grown darker and thinner, but she was smart enough to say nothing — only her eyes asked the question:
Didn't you escape? Didn't you get out?
Elyse sat in a wheelchair. It was nearly summer, the weather warming, but she still wore long sleeves and pants, a thin silk blanket draped over her frail knees.
She stared at the weeping girl for a long time without offering a single word of comfort. When Cry served her sweet soup and spoon-fed her, she ate mouthful by mouthful, very carefully.
Her stomach had shrunk too much — Elyse couldn't eat much.
She extended her thin fingers and pushed every remaining morsel on the tray toward Cry.
— Just like before, giving her most of the food.
The girl hesitated, then sobbed again.
"I don't need it anymore," she said, rubbing her eyes. "I really don't."
Because of Elyse, she and her family were doing well now.
She wasn't hungry anymore.
But Elyse either didn't understand, or she understood and didn't care what anyone else meant. She'd become abnormally rigid — only her own demands mattered.
Because Cry refused, her brow furrowed.
Before the crying girl could react, Elyse's hand shot out, grabbed Cry's hair at the back of her head, forced her face up, and dumped an entire plate of fried eggs into her mouth.
Vegetable soup. Bread. Mashed potatoes. Bacon.
She shoved each item into Cry's face one by one, not caring what spilled everywhere.
Cry stared in terror.
She saw on Elyse's face the first smile in days — sickly and serene.
"Eat."
She said.
"Or I'll kill you."
Crazy. Crazy!
A long-forgotten thought surfaced in Cry's mind: This is what a real madman looks like.
…
After two more weeks of recovery, one morning, Elyse was wheeled into a bright meeting room. From start to finish, she kept her eyes cast down, indifferent — like a jade statue without a pulse, not caring where she was being taken.
Li Yufu sat in a wide swivel chair, chin propped on his hand, smiling at his favorite creation.
The moment Elyse raised her head and saw Li Yufu, it was like a candle being lit — starting from her eyes, her whole being came alive again.
The thin girl pushed aside her blanket. She could walk now — slowly, step by step, she rounded the yellow rosewood desk, one hand finding the arm of the swivel chair, turning Li Yufu to face her.
Then she folded herself into his arms, like a fledgling into its nest.
She let out a sigh of relief at being soothed.
Li Yufu absently stroked her hair. He could feel the dependence radiating from this person — a very peculiar sensation, like a dog you'd raised for years, that deep, instinctive obedience.
Something no one had ever given him before.
On the desk sat a tray. A new syringe held half a vial of liquid, crystalline and translucent in the sunlight streaming through the window.
"Little one, this is my gift to you."
Li Yufu said.
Elyse glanced at it and asked slowly: "What is it?"
"A diamond."
His eyes glittered with amusement, tinged with anticipation: "Giving a girl a diamond is a proposal."
"Little one, this is the diamond I'm giving you. You'll never leave me, and you'll love me forever."
He pinched her chin.
"Will you?"
Elyse stared with her phoenix eyes straight into Kunjiao's brain.
Methamphetamine, she thought calmly.
It seemed a very long, and yet a very short moment — a trembling wait — before he heard that ecstatic, sacrificial phrase again. This time, spoken to him, as he'd wished.
"I will."
She pressed her forehead against his shoulder and picked up the syringe from the tray.
She gripped it between her teeth.
She rolled up her sleeve, revealing an arm you could crush between two fingers.
Coldly, as though examining someone else's body, Elyse held the syringe in her teeth and probed the blue vein at her elbow.
Then, with a single motion, she pulled off the needle cap with her free hand and jabbed it down.
Before the needle could pierce the skin, Li Yufu moved. He seized her wrist, his low laughter whispering into her ear: "That's not how you do it."
"I'll help you."
The tourniquet bit tightly into her elbow. The man's hand slapped her skin, bringing the blue-purple great vein into view like a river rising through flesh.
Elyse leaned against his shoulder, her face turned up, vacant.
A bee-sting of pain.
She flinched.
His other hand stroked her head with tenderness.
The liquid was pushed into her vein.
"Don't be afraid," he kissed her forehead, like a demon beguiling a lamb — "Stay with me forever, Elyse."
She went numb and closed her eyes.
They said injecting methamphetamine on the first try could cause a violent physical reaction — severe cases could kill outright. Who knew if her wrecked, allergic constitution could survive it.
Whatever.
The world was full of monsters and demons. Living wasn't that great anyway.
She waited for the pain and convulsions to descend.
She waited a long time.
But nothing happened.
She was almost falling asleep when Li Yufu's muffled laughter rolled from above her. He laughed harder and harder, practically doubling over, as though he'd never been this amused in his entire life.
Elyse asked softly: "What did you actually inject me with?"
"Glucose."
He'd finally laughed enough. He picked up the syringe and threw it like a paper airplane, then tousled her hair affectionately.
"Congratulations, little Elyse."
He announced warmly:
"You passed. From today, you are our 283rd honored member of Black Moses."
7.
Baishan City, China.
Director Lin's private office — a small meeting room reserved for important matters.
Zhou Mi, Director Lin, and Captain Zhang sat around a tea table.
Kind-faced Captain Zhang spoke first:
"Confirmed — no surveillance?"
Zhou Mi nodded.
"No phones brought in. We've all been scanned with detectors. Clean."
Director Lin asked quietly: "What's the ghost's status?"
Zhou Mi: "Still in his hole."
Someone exhaled. The small room fell silent.
Zhou Mi broke the gravity: "Any word from the Raven?"
Director Lin shook his head slowly, heavily: "Not only is there no word from the Raven — in the past three weeks, every line we've extended has either been cut or too low-level to reach someone of Kunjiao's rank, let alone identify transaction locations. Something big is happening over there, but we can't see what."
Behind his gold-framed glasses, his eyes were bone-tired.
"I have a very bad feeling. Exceptionally bad."
The other two didn't speak — in truth, they all sensed the storm coming.
Zhou Mi recalled something Elyse had once said — someone is preparing to do something enormous. To succeed, they first have to blind us.
More than half a year ago, Director Lin had proposed the Raven Plan — inspired by the first interrogation of Elyse.
He'd known from the start that Elyse hadn't killed Winter Lee. But he didn't know what secrets she was hiding, so he'd tried a fishing expedition — a mix of truth and fabrication, pressing forward relentlessly, hoping to catch her in an inconsistency. At the time, he genuinely believed she was dirty.
He'd felt something was off back then, but didn't know who the mole was, or how many moles there were.
After Winter Lee's death, he'd basically confirmed — someone had sold out their undercover operative.
After the interrogation, when Elyse sliced herself with a mirror shard, Director Lin recognized her fear.
— Winter Lee must have told her something.
He, Zhou Mi, and Captain Zhang had all been groping in the dark at first — none of them finding each other.
Until Elyse slowly drew the threads together.
She sought out Zhou Mi first, tearing the existence of Black Moses into the light of day.
Then Case 127 happened. Elyse reverse-confirmed that Director Lin wasn't the ghost, and Zhou Mi and Director Lin finally found the elephant.
Director Lin was demoted and stripped of authority. Case 127 had paved the way for certain people.
Then, through the chain of clues and deductions triggered by Wu Xiaochuan, they essentially locked onto the first ghost.
And indirectly confirmed Captain Zhang's innocence.
The ghost didn't know he'd been made.
After reviewing the entire sequence, Director Lin floated a concept — the embryo of the Raven Plan: use the exposed ghost in reverse to send new assets into northern Myanmar.
After that, Elyse was threatened by Shane.
She realized Shane was also a Black Moses member, and Black Moses's power was growing. As an ordinary person who knew their secrets, she could be "disappeared" at any time.
In fact, Black Moses had already made their move — the black money wired into her account was step one.
Elyse decided to return to northern Myanmar herself.
To be their asset.
Zhou Mi was the only one who opposed it. He believed Elyse not only lacked professional intelligence training, but as a woman, she was powerless against real danger.
He didn't want her to die in Myanmar.
She'd barely escaped with her life. She deserved to live.
Moreover, they almost never sent female assets — women had almost no chance of surviving in northern Myanmar.
Winter Lee was the bloody proof.
But… conversely, if they did survive, they'd also be the most unexpected assets. Winter Lee had been the longest-hidden undercover of them all — without her, domestic intelligence would still know nothing about Black Moses.
Director Lin agreed.
Given the uniqueness of Elyse's experience, she was genuinely the best candidate to infiltrate Black Moses from the inside. With a mole in the system, they had to break protocol — and her ordinary-citizen status was actually an advantage.
Zhou Mi's objection was overruled.
After a painful consensus, the three officers collaborated with Elyse to stage a seamless performance for the ghost.
— Making Elyse the scapegoat for police incompetence and buck-passing.
Soon after, Elyse was abducted by Charlie Group operatives and vanished without a trace.
More than half a year after Elyse's disappearance, a long-dormant encrypted inbox finally received its first intelligence report.
The precious, detailed dispatch laid Black Moses and Kunjiao bare, and enabled them to lock onto the second major ghost.
In truth, within the real Raven Plan, the other assets were merely bridges — sent out to confuse the ghost, feeding it false intelligence.
Now, sitting in that room, only three people in the world knew the full truth.
The bridges' real purpose was only to "ferry."
And Elyse — she was the white raven that had flown straight into the heart of northern Myanmar.