Chapter 1

I stared hard at the woman in front of me.

That face, with willow-leaf brows, almond eyes, and a small mole at the corner of her mouth, even the dimple on the right side that was a little deeper than the left when she smiled, was exactly the same.

“What tin box?” I forced down my pounding heart and casually stuffed a wonton into my mouth.

She wiped her mouth and looked completely natural, even with a hint of warmth.

“Did you forget? The year our daughter was five and kept crying at night, we made it up together and buried it under the tree.”

My back was instantly soaked with cold sweat.

Seven years ago, my wife had just been promoted to deputy battalion commander, and our little girl kept crying in the middle of the night.

Sophie made up a story that there was a magical tin box under the old locust tree in our yard, and that it held an important secret.

As long as the child behaved and went to sleep, the box would magically turn into endless candy.

Our daughter believed it and went to sleep obediently. The next day, we took out the candy we had prepared in advance and said the box had made it appear as a reward.

But we had never buried any tin box at all.

No one knew about this, not even our daughter, except Sophie and me. There was absolutely no way a third person could know.

So who was this woman with Sophie’s face?

“Oh, my memory is really bad.” I lowered my head and took a bite of white rice, hiding the coldness in my eyes. “It’s dark now. I’ll dig it up for you first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Dig it up tonight,” she said, lowering her voice a little.

“So urgent?” I asked back.

“The military needs it urgently.” She stared at me, her gaze deep and unreadable. “It concerns front-line secrets. We can’t wait even a minute.”

I met her gaze, my palms full of sweat, but I still grinned. “Fine. After we eat, I’ll go get the shovel.”

She nodded in satisfaction and picked up her bowl to keep eating the wontons.

I stood up and walked into the inner room.

The moment I turned around, my face sank completely.

If she wasn’t Sophie, then where was the real Sophie?

Three months ago, the organization sent word that she had disappeared during a secret reconnaissance mission, with no body found dead or alive.

I had spent night after night unable to sleep, hanging her uniform by the bed and drinking in front of her photo, thinking she really wasn’t coming back.

Now, a fake had taken her face and was sitting here eating wontons, and she even wanted some tin box that “concerned front-line secrets.”

There was only one possibility.

Sophie had been captured.

She had been brutally tortured, and the enemy had been interrogating her for the whereabouts of classified intelligence.

She had kept her mouth shut to the end, and finally made up this nonsense about a “tin box under the old locust tree” to lure the enemy here.

The only thing I didn’t know was whether she was still alive.

Thinking about the suffering she might have gone through, I clenched my fists, my nails digging into my flesh.

I took a deep breath and forced myself to stay calm.

“The water’s hot. Do you want to wash your face first?” I asked casually.

“Okay.” She stood up and walked to the basin.

I handed her the towel.

She took it and, out of habit, wrapped her hair in the towel first, then wiped the back of her neck.

My eyes narrowed.

Even the habit of slightly lifting her pinky finger when wiping the back of her neck was exactly the same.

She took off her old army jacket, revealing the white shirt underneath.

Through the semi-transparent fabric, I could clearly see the black mole the size of a soybean under her right shoulder blade.

Even the faint scar on the inside of her left wrist, burned by the rim of a pot, was in the exact same place.

The disguise was too good.

So good that if it weren’t for that tin box, I never would have recognized this as a fake.

Just how much effort did they put into surgery and imitation to create such a perfect copy?

To get their hands on that so-called “secret,” the enemy really went all out.