Chapter 1021: Face belonged to Lee Shin
Chapter 1021: Face belonged to Lee Shin
For a long moment, no one spoke.
The surveillance footage kept playing, but the four men no longer watched it.
Three pairs of eyes were fixed on Xu Long.
Liu Shan stared at the assistant as though he had suddenly grown a second head.
"What are you talking about? That’s Lee Shin."
Lin Hui immediately joined in.
"That face doesn’t lie."
Qi Li clenched his teeth. His gaze shifted toward the monitor, where the man had already disappeared from view.
"I know who I saw. That was not Choi Li Sun."
Xu Long looked between them, utterly lost.
He didn’t know who Lee Shin was but he knew who he saw in the footage.
He puckered his lips to one side in thought then looked at the screen.
"Are we even looking at the same person?"
His head tilted to one side and three lines appeared in the space between his brows.
"I mean, considering you guys deal with the underworld, I’m sure you guys know who I’m talking about."
He leaned over Liu Shan’s shoulder and reached for the laptop.
"Look."
He dragged the playback backward.
The hallway appeared again.
Three men emerged from the private room.
The first two passed beneath the camera.
Then the third man came into view.
Xu Long paused the footage just as the blond-haired man lifted his head toward the lens.
His face filled the screen.
"That," Xu Long said, pointing directly at him, "right there, is Choi Li Sun."
Liu Shan stared at the image.
His expression hardened.
The longer he looked, the harder it was to agree with the assistant.
Xu Long wasn’t aware but they had met Choi Li Sun before.
They knew what the man looked like.
And the person staring back at them through the screen was not him.
That face belonged to Lee Shin.
The man their boss had loved for ten years.
The man whose death had left a wound in Yue Ling that none of them had known how to heal.
The man they had buried three years ago.
"Impossible," Liu Shan muttered.
Xu Long frowned.
"What is?"
"That’s not Choi Li Sun."
"Liu Shan—"
"I’ve seen Choi Li Sun before."
"So have I!"
Lin Hui leaned forward. They had encountered the man in the past, but he had always managed to escape every time.
"Look at his eyes. His nose. The shape of his jaw. That’s Shin."
Qi Li nodded.
"His hair is different, but it’s been three years. He could’ve grown it out."
"And the scar?" Xu Long demanded.
Neither answered immediately.
Xu Long gestured toward the screen.
"You’re telling me that scar doesn’t mean anything?"
Qi Li’s expression darkened.
"People get scars."
"Not like that."
Lin Hui folded his arms.
"Then explain why he has Lee Shin’s face."
Xu Long opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Then stared at the three men.
They stared back.
For several seconds, the living room was filled with an increasingly ridiculous silence.
Finally, Xu Long released a long breath in frustration.
"You three are unbelievable."
Liu Shan frowned.
"Excuse me?"
"You’re so convinced he’s your dead friend that you’re not even looking at what’s right in front of you."
Qi Li’s eyes narrowed.
"Watch what you say."
Xu Long met his gaze. He quickly understood that this man named Lee Shin played a huge part in their lives.
He let out another long sigh and rubbed the back of his head.
"Look. I’m not disrespecting him. I’m just telling you to look properly."
He turned the laptop toward himself.
"Move."
Liu Shan reluctantly shifted aside.
Xu Long enlarged the image.
The man’s face filled most of the monitor.
Despite the surveillance camera’s limited resolution, several details remained visible.
Xu Long pointed toward the man’s eyes.
"Look here."
The three men leaned closer.
"The shape around his eyes. Then look at his nose and jawline."
Liu Shan frowned.
"What about them?"
"They’ve been altered."
Lin Hui’s gaze sharpened.
Xu Long continued.
"That is a face that has undergone surgery."
He pointed out the subtle differences in the contours of the man’s features. The proportions appeared familiar at first glance but did not quite match the face they remembered.
"Someone changed his appearance. Recently, too."
He was no professional but he was observant.
Being Lu Tian’s assistant, he had learned to pay attention to even the tiniest detail.
Qi Li remained silent.
Xu Long moved his finger toward the jagged mark crossing the man’s right eye and extending down his cheek.
"But this..."
His expression grew serious.
"This is what gives him away."
Liu Shan stared at the scar.
Xu Long tapped the screen.
"He may have changed his face, but that scar? I’d recognize it from a mile away."
Lin Hui leaned closer.
His eyes traced the uneven line.
"Lee Shin didn’t have a scar like that."
"No," Qi Li murmured.
He remembered Lee Shin’s face clearly.
Every feature.
Every expression.
There had been no scar.
Lin Hui studied the image for another moment.
"And this doesn’t look recent."
Xu Long nodded.
"It isn’t."
Lin Hui glanced at him.
"How do you know?"
"My boss gave him that scar when they crossed paths."
Silence.
Liu Shan slowly turned toward him.
"Lu Tian?"
"Yes."
Xu Long folded his arms across his chest. A smirk curled on his face as he thought back to that day.
"Choi Li Sun didn’t exactly leave that encounter looking the same."
Qi Li looked back at the monitor.
The scar was unmistakable.
It was not a minor mark that could easily be overlooked.
It cut across the man’s face with an unevenness that suggested an old, deeply healed injury.
And yet the rest of his features resembled Lee Shin’s so closely that all three of them had recognized him immediately.
Or thought they had.
Liu Shan’s brows drew together.
He enlarged the image further.
The more he examined it, the more the initial certainty began to unravel.
There were differences.
Small ones.
The angle of the jaw.
The proportions around the eyes.
Even the shape of the nose, which had appeared identical at first glance, was not quite right.
Lin Hui slowly straightened.
"His face..."
Qi Li finished the thought.
"It’s similar."
Too similar.
But not identical.
Xu Long gave them a pointed look.
"Now you’re seeing it."
Liu Shan leaned back in his chair.
He felt as though someone had poured cold water over his head.
For several minutes, he had genuinely believed that Lee Shin was alive.
That the man they had buried had somehow returned.
And worse, that he had been sitting in a private lounge with Liu Peng.
The implications had been enough to turn his blood cold.
Now, as he stared at the footage again, another detail caught his attention.
"His height."
Lin Hui glanced at him.
"What?"
"Look at him beside the other two."
Liu Shan replayed the moment the three men emerged from the room.
The blond-haired man walked several steps behind his companions.
Even accounting for the camera angle, his proportions were different.
Lee Shin had been taller.
Qi Li studied the image.
Then he exhaled slowly.
"You’re right."
Lin Hui pressed his lips together.
The resemblance had been so overwhelming that none of them had thought to examine anything else.
They had seen the face.
And everything that came with it had returned.
Ten years of Yue Ling’s life.
Liu Shan had to break the news to her when Shin lost his battle.
A funeral they had attended.
A grave they knew existed.
Three years of grief.
Three years of watching their boss put on a mask to hide the pain.
For a brief, terrible moment, all of it had been thrown into question.
Xu Long watched their expressions.
His irritation gradually faded.
He understood now that this was not simply a case of mistaken identity.
Whoever Lee Shin had been, he had meant something to them.
And judging by their reactions, his death had left a considerable mark.
However, Xu Long did not press.
Instead, he returned his attention to the screen.
"It’s no wonder those three men from City Z couldn’t find him."
Liu Shan looked up.
Xu Long continued, more to himself than anyone else.
"He underwent surgery to change his face."
His brows creased.
"But why keep the scar?"
He stared at the frozen image.
"If he’d had that removed too, even I might not have recognized him."
Lin Hui glanced at him.
"Maybe he couldn’t."
"Maybe."
Xu Long did not sound convinced.
A man willing to alter his entire face had gone to considerable lengths to disappear.
Keeping such a distinctive scar seemed careless.
Unless there was a reason.
Qi Li’s gaze remained fixed on the monitor.
"Whatever the reason, he didn’t seem worried about being seen."
He pointed toward the man’s eyes.
"He looked directly into the camera."
Liu Shan nodded.
"And smiled."
Lin Hui’s expression darkened.
"Like he knew someone would be watching."
None of them liked that possibility.
Liu Shan was about to resume the footage when something Xu Long had said finally registered.
He turned.
"Wait."
Xu Long looked at him.
"What?"
"Who did you say was looking for him?"
Xu Long blinked.
"Choi Li Sun?"
"Yes. You said three men from City Z are looking for him."
"Oh."
Xu Long shrugged.
"Chief Kim sent three of his men to Imperial to look for him."
Liu Shan went still.
Xu Long continued, unaware of the change in his expression.
"I suppose you could say they’re working with my boss on the case. Imperial is outside their jurisdiction, so they needed someone here to coordinate with."
Liu Shan’s fingers slowly tightened against the edge of the desk.
"Three men?"
"Yes."
"From City Z?"
Xu Long frowned.
"That’s what I just said."
Liu Shan did not respond.
A memory surfaced.
Three familiar faces.
A request for help when he found them.
A man they had been trying to locate.
He had not asked many questions at the time.
They had approached him because of his ability to retrieve information that ordinary searches could not uncover.
But even with his skills, he had found very little.
The man had seemingly vanished.
No reliable sightings.
No recent records that led anywhere useful.
Nothing substantial enough to give them a direction.
Before they left, Liu Shan had made only one request.
’Keep my boss out of it.’
He didn’t want Yue Ling involved.
Not without knowing what the men were searching for.
And now—
His eyes trembled ever so slightly.
Qin Jun.
Song Jing Li.
Kira.
Could it be them?
He slowly turned toward Xu Long.
"Did Chief Kim tell you their names?"
Xu Long’s eyes narrowed.
"Why?"
Liu Shan’s expression remained unchanged.
"Just asking."
Xu Long studied him.
Something about that answer sounded suspiciously familiar.
"Do you know something that I don’t?"
Liu Shan looked back at the screen. He wasn’t too sure if mentioning they knew the three men would cause trouble for his boss.
"I was just asking. If you don’t know then say you don’t know."
"And if I do know their names?"
"Then we’ll check."
Xu Long narrowed his eyes more until they were close to closing.
But before he could question him further, Liu Shan turned toward Lin Hui.
Their gazes met.
Then Qi Li looked at them.
No words were exchanged.
None were necessary.
The same realization had begun forming in all three minds.
Lin Hui slowly looked back at the frozen footage.
Choi Li Sun.
A man who had undergone surgery to resemble Lee Shin.
A man whose old scar had been left untouched.
A man who had apparently disappeared so thoroughly that no one could locate him.
And now he had resurfaced.
Not alone.
But in a private lounge with Liu Peng.
The surviving member of Red Militant.
The man connected to Ji Jingxu’s kidnapping.
The man who should have died alongside Hung Woo.
Lin Hui’s expression turned grave.
"These two weren’t meeting by coincidence."
Qi Li shook his head.
"No."
Liu Shan glanced at the timestamp.
Liu Peng had entered the room without hesitation.
He had known exactly where to go.
He had used a coded knock.
And when Qi Li appeared, five men had emerged from the opposite room at precisely the right moment to intercept him.
A luxury sedan had then arrived at the alley’s entrance to collect Liu Peng.
Everything had happened too smoothly.
Too conveniently.
Someone had been prepared.
Someone had known Liu Peng might need an escape.
Xu Long leaned against the desk.
"So what now?"
Liu Shan did not answer immediately.
His gaze remained on the man staring into the camera.
That smile.
The deliberate way he had lifted his head.
The confidence with which he had walked away.
It was almost as though Choi Li Sun had wanted them to find this footage.
Liu Shan’s fingers moved toward the keyboard.
He saved the recording.
Then he began opening another window.
"We find out everything we can about Choi Li Sun."
Lin Hui pulled his chair closer.
"And Liu Peng’s connection to him."
Qi Li nodded.
"Start with the other two men who entered the room with Choi Li Sun. Then the sedan."
Xu Long looked between them.
"And Chief Kim’s people?"
Liu Shan paused.
He thought of Qin Jun, Song Jing Li, and Kira again.
"Let’s find out what we can first before you contact them."
Although he said this, he knew he’d have to find them again and see how far they’ve gone in their search.
However, he’ll have to do it discreetly.
Xu Long folded his arms.
"And Miss Han?"
Silence settled over the living room.
Liu Shan’s expression darkened.
The question had been lingering since the moment they discovered Liu Peng was alive.
Now it carried an entirely different weight.
He looked at the frozen image.
A face resembling the man Yue Ling had once loved.
A man connected to someone involved in her brother’s kidnapping.
And an unknown reason for bringing those two men together.
If Yue Ling saw this footage without an explanation, there was no telling what conclusions she might draw.
Liu Shan lowered his gaze.
"Not yet."
Xu Long frowned.
"Liu Shan—"
"I know."
His voice was quiet.
"But we need to be certain."
Lin Hui and Qi Li said nothing.
They understood.
It was no longer simply a matter of catching Liu Peng.
Something else was unfolding.
Something that had begun long before they entered that lounge bar.
And as the four men stared at the frozen image, an unexplainable uneasiness settled over the room.
Liu Shan could not shake the feeling that they had only uncovered the edge of something far larger.
A storm was coming.
They simply did not know when it would arrive.