«We are professionals,» Agent David offered, his hesitation betraying a distinct lack of conviction. Realizing how hollow the claim sounded in front of Li Yunlong, he hurried to clarify, «Agent Gillian and I specialize in cold cases. The Mirror Game case was handled by other divisions in the past, but they failed to solve it, so it ended up languishing in the FBI archive.»
«You both look fairly young to me, and you don't exactly seem like you've undergone specialized training,» Li Yunlong countered, looking them over. «How did a pair like you get assigned to an unwinnable case?»
Agent David stammered, unable to formulate a coherent reply, while Agent Gillian turned her head away with a huff of indignant pride.
Understanding dawned on Li Yunlong: the two had clearly crossed the wrong person and been shelved as punishment. They had likely volunteered for the file simply to escape an eternity behind a desk. His interest vanished instantly. With a flick of his hand, the pistol resting on the table flew through the air and dropped neatly back into Agent David's coat pocket. Li Yunlong drained his glass, set it down, and gestured toward the entrance. «Show yourselves out.»
Faced with this outright dismissal, the pair refused to budge. «Mr. Brook Lee, I suspect you're interested in the Mirror Game case yourself, aren't you?» Agent David asked.
«So what if I am?» Li Yunlong sneered. «It's not as though either of you can be of any help.»
Detecting an opening, the agents perked up. They were desperate for a breakthrough; otherwise, they never would have taken on something as notoriously bizarre as the Mirror Game. Everyone in the bureau knew that cold cases left to gather dust in the archives offered little hope of resolution. They would never have touched such a thorny matter had they possessed any other option. «Please, Mr. Brook Lee, don't be so quick to dismiss us. We are, after all, the agents assigned to this case by the FBI. We represent the authority of federal law!»
Li Yunlong curled his lip in open disdain.
Choosing to ignore the gesture, Agent David implicitly acknowledged that Li Yunlong's earlier display earned him the right to be arrogant. «We have the authority to retain you as a special consultant for the FBI, allowing you to participate directly in the investigation.»
The offer genuinely intrigued Li Yunlong. He knew that growing his skills behind closed doors would only take him so far; he needed to step out and see the wider world. More importantly, the role of an FBI special consultant suited his needs perfectly. Such consultants were only responsible for technical matters, bore no responsibility for the case itself, and could walk away if real danger arose. Aside from taking up time and paying very little, the position offered almost no drawbacks. «If you're as powerless as you seem,» Li Yunlong asked, «do you really have the authority to hire me?»
Agent David's face darkened. «I am still a supervisory agent within the FBI. I certainly retain the authority to bring on a special consultant to solve a case.» Although his jurisdiction amounted to a single archive room stuffed with forgotten files and his sole subordinate was Agent Gillian, he did indeed hold the rank of supervisor, along with the official powers that came with it.
«Fine,» Li Yunlong conceded. «Secure me the status of an FBI special consultant, and I'll help you.»
Agent David had not been bluffing about his authority, and he moved with impressive speed. Treating the matter as an urgent priority, he returned that very afternoon with a stack of paperwork for Li Yunlong to sign. Glancing over the documents, Li Yunlong found nothing unusual and signed the name Brook Lee. Most of the pages were bureaucratic bluster, full of self-important language and little substance, but the non-disclosure agreement carried real weight. The FBI operated under a strict classification hierarchy; without the proper clearance, most files remained off-limits. Signing the agreement bound Li Yunlong to secrecy, but it also unlocked access to classified materials related to the Mirror Game. In effect, his lack of security clearance was waived for this specific case, granting him full access to its restricted files.
Agent David gathered the signed forms and handed Li Yunlong an identification badge. «Congratulations, Mr. Brook Lee. You are now officially a special consultant for the FBI.»
Li Yunlong took the badge and clipped it casually to his chest pocket. «You certainly move fast. Well, a deal's a deal. What do you need from me?»
Agent Gillian produced a thick folder of case files. As Li Yunlong flipped through the materials, she provided verbal context. Nearby, Agent David quietly breathed a sigh of relief.
No one else knew the weight he was carrying, not even Gillian, who had stuck by his side. When his former superior lost a high-stakes political struggle, David-as his trusted lieutenant-had been forced to take the fall to minimize the damage and preserve the faction's chances for a future comeback. It sounded simple enough in theory, but reality was far harsher. Even with a strong foundation, the superior had been severely weakened and pushed to the margins of power; without his extensive network, he would never have stood a chance at returning. David had voluntarily taken the heat on his boss's behalf, yet despite all the advance arrangements, his punishment remained brutal. Overnight, he had plummeted from a rising star with a brilliant career to a forgotten archivist put out to pasture. The bitterness and humiliation of that decline were feelings he couldn't share with anyone. Months had dragged by with his former boss's return nowhere in sight, leaving David with no choice but to forge his own path forward. The bizarre, unsolved Mirror Game case was his chosen breakthrough. Though he only oversaw a room filled with old records, he could technically claim jurisdiction over any unresolved case stored within it. Unlike other cold cases, the Mirror Game followed a strikingly consistent pattern: despite occurring across different jurisdictions, a new murder took place almost precisely every four months. Each victim was a young woman, and beside every body lay a small hand mirror that had not belonged to the deceased. The pattern had continued unbroken for three years.
David's sharp eye had caught the trend. A week prior, he had begun cross-referencing incoming reports from across the country until he finally secured the Burbank lead. He knew full well that the Mirror Game was deeply abnormal-otherwise, it would never have been transferred to another division before being dumped back into the archives-but he had few options. The other cold cases under his care were far older, offering even slimmer chances of resolution. Under thirty years old, David refused to accept rotting away in an archive room; he would rather risk his life and future on a desperate gamble for glory than fade into obscurity.
Yet despite their thorough preparation, David and Gillian had hit a wall in Burbank. Departing the moment they received the tip, they had arrived on the night of April 30, only for their investigation to dead-end almost immediately. The Burbank Police Department had done everything humanly possible, interviewing every conceivable suspect and reconstructing the final three days of the victim, Alice's, life in minute detail-who she met, where she went, and when. Their exhaustive efforts rendered Alice's private life entirely transparent, yet they could not trace the origin of the mirror left beside her body. Reviewing the police files, David and Gillian found the local work impeccable, leaving no obvious oversights for professional agents to exploit. Driven to desperation, they broadened their search, which brought Li Yunlong into their sights-a recent arrival who had generated considerable activity in police records. While the fake identity papers Li Yunlong bought were convincing enough to fool average inspectors, an experienced FBI agent like David could tell with sixty percent certainty that they were forged. Though constraints on time, manpower, and funding prevented a full field investigation to secure hard evidence, suspicion alone was enough for David to use local police resources to monitor Li Yunlong's recent activities.
That investigation revealed even more anomalies. Li Yunlong lived an extraordinarily reclusive life, behaving like an outright hermit. Aside from driving out every two or three days to buy supplies, his only destinations were the local church and the police station. He maintained no social life and pursued no visible entertainment, living an isolated existence entirely uncharacteristic of a young man his age. Claiming to be a freelancer, he had no identifiable source of legal income. While his bank account held a hundred thousand dollars, he hadn't touched a single cent of it. Meanwhile, purchasing logs gathered by the agents showed he had spent over twenty thousand dollars in cash during April alone. Although every piece of hard evidence suggested Li Yunlong had no connection to the Mirror Game, the two desperate agents had no choice but to target him as a potential breakthrough.
That plan had smashed headlong into a stone wall. Relying on his instincts, Agent David pivoted, successfully pulling the surprisingly cooperative Li Yunlong onto his side as a special consultant in occultism. As for Li Yunlong's questionable identity, David maintained a stance of total innocence: an upright, honorable agent like himself could never have known the documents were fake! And if they were, he too was simply a victim of deception, entirely unaware! Yes-Agent David was nothing if not righteous and unblemished.
The materials gathered by the FBI were remarkably detailed, but they contained no useful information regarding occultism. The authorities had treated the Mirror Game as a conventional crime, failing to realize why three years of investigation had yielded nothing. From the very beginning, they had been barking up the wrong tree.