Zhang Wei scrolled to the next item on his tablet.

"The Xue family has begun making inquiries." he said. "They have hired a private investigator. Low tier, by the look of it, but active." He paused. "Also Master Xue met with someone yesterday morning at the restaurant three streets from the mansion."

He looked up briefly. "Fu Pei. Twenty two years old, Omega. Goes by 404_MoralCompass on the black market. One of the better independent informants operating in the city currently, cheaper than most but with a cleaner track record than people twice his price." Another pause.

"Based on the duration and nature of the meeting it appears Master Xue is hiring him as an informant."

Liuxian said nothing for a moment.

He thought about Guiying sitting in his lap in this very office, eating braised pork with focused irritation, telling him the ten million was for investments.

Broad sense of the word indeed.

He smiled.

Then he leaned back in his chair.

"The Xue family wants to find him," he said. "Let us help them."

Zhang Wei looked up from the tablet.

"Let us give them a map to follow," Liuxian continued. "A very thorough, very convincing, completely useless map. Start them in Harbin. Make it look like Guiying passed through there two days ago. Hotel booking, a transit record, something that holds up under basic scrutiny. By the time they get there, move the trail to Chengdu. Then Kunming. Then wherever else feels appropriately inconvenient." He paused. "Blur all of Guiying’s details in any searchable database. Photo records, ID registrations, civil affairs documentation. I want him effectively invisible to anyone without the right clearance."

Zhang Wei was already typing. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

"And the marriage certificate?" he said.

"Already handled, don’t ask stupid questions." Liuxian said. "But run another sweep. I want to be certain."

"Understood." Zhang Wei finished typing and looked up. "How long do you want the chase to run?"

Liuxian considered it.

"Until they run out of money or patience," he said. "Whichever comes first."

Zhang Wei nodded.

"It will be a very long chase," he said.

"Good," Liuxian said, and reached for the next document.

Guiying closed the laptop, pushed back from the desk, and went to get ready.

The suppressants had been delivered during the heat and were sitting on the nightstand where Liuxian had quietly placed them at some point during the last three days. He took one, then reached for the pheromone blocker beside it. With both working together he would be essentially undetectable as an Omega, no scent, no heat traces, nothing that would flag him to anyone paying attention in a crowded restaurant.

He went to the wardrobe.

Different fit today. He had enough options now to be deliberate about it. He pulled out a white fitted long sleeve, dark straight leg trousers, and a pair of clean white sneakers. Simple, put together, nothing that would draw the eye or linger in the memory.

He sat down at the mirror.

The blonde wig went on first, adjusted until the hairline sat naturally. Then the contact lenses, a warm hazel that replaced his distinctive brown entirely and took the most recognizable thing about his face off the table. Light makeup after that, reshaping the nose slightly, softening the jaw, the same careful and unhurried work he had done before.

He stood back and looked at himself.

Xue Guiying was not in this mirror. The person looking back was pleasant looking, forgettable in the best possible way, the kind of face that people passed on the street and did not retain.

Nobody in the Xue family would recognize him. Shen Zihao, who had never once laid eyes on him in this lifetime, would have nothing to work from even if he walked directly past him.

He reached for the ring on the nightstand.

He looked at it for a moment.

Liuxian had not said anything about wearing it. He had not needed to. Guiying had spent enough time around the man to know that coming home without it would produce a reaction he did not particularly want to manage. He slid it onto his finger, looked at it sitting there against the hazel contacts and the blonde wig and the deliberately unremarkable outfit, and decided it was the most incongruous thing in the entire disguise.

He was also not taking it off.

He picked up his phone and opened the messaging app.

Guiying:Available to meet today?

404_MoralCompass: When and where.

Guiying pulled up the map and searched for something different this time. His eyes landed on a pho restaurant twenty minutes from the mansion. He had been thinking about pho for three days, which was apparently what his body wanted after surviving a heat and a nightmare and an inadvisable amount of emotional honesty.

He sent the link.

Guiying:One hour.

404_MoralCompass: See you there.

He picked up his card, his phone, and nothing else, and headed downstairs.

Wang Chengli was near the entrance as always, with the composed readiness of someone who had simply assumed a car would be needed and had arranged it accordingly.

"Ready when you are, Master Xue," he said.

Guiying did not need to call Liuxian this time. He was not going far, he was unrecognizable, he was medicated, and he had a butler who reported everything anyway.

He got into the car.

Outside the window, the city moved past in the late morning light, and Guiying thought about what 404 had sent him, the information that had made him put his phone down and pick it up again, and what it meant for the next move.

He was three steps ahead.

And he intended to stay there.

The pho restaurant was small and unpretentious, the kind of place that had been in the same location for twenty years and had no intention of changing anything about itself.

It smelled exactly like Guiying had been hoping it would smell for three days. He was shown to a corner table, ordered immediately, and had his first mouthful of broth before 404 arrived.