Chapter 24: A WILD GOOSE CHASE FROM BOTH SIDES

404 walked in looking exactly the same as the last time. All black. Hair covering his eyes. Dark circles that had not improved. The general atmosphere of someone attending an event they had not agreed to enjoy.

He sat down across from Guiying, looked at the hazel contacts and the blonde wig for a moment without commenting, and ordered tea.

"Different eyes?" he said.

"Contacts," Guiying said.

"Mm." 404 pushed his hair out of his face, achieved nothing, and folded his hands on the table. "You read the report?"

"I read it twice," Guiying said. "Tell me about the investigator."

404 reached into his jacket and produced a slim folded document which he slid across the table without ceremony.

Guiying opened it.

The investigator’s name was Lao Tiejun. Fifty one years old, former police, disgraced and quietly removed from the force eight years ago following an internal investigation that had been buried before it reached any public record. He ran a small private investigations firm out of a rented office in the eastern district, mid tier clientele, unremarkable output. The Xue family had hired him four days ago for a flat fee that suggested they were working with a tighter budget than their reputation implied.

Guiying turned the page.

His eyes stopped moving.

He read the paragraph again.

Then he looked up at 404.

"This is verified?" he said.

"Everything in that report is verified," 404 said, with the mild offense of someone whose professional standards had just been questioned. "Lao Tiejun has been running a secondary operation out of the same office for the last six years. Selling client information to third parties. Every case he takes, both sides pay him. Whoever hired him and whoever that client is looking for." He picked up his tea. "The Xue family think they have an investigator. What they actually have is someone who will sell their search parameters, their budget, and their current leads to anyone willing to pay more."

Guiying looked back down at the document. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

"Which means I know everything the Xue family knows before they act on it," he said slowly.

"Exactly," 404 said. "And for the right price, their next move before they make it. Their leads before they follow them." He set his tea down. "You also have enough documented evidence of his secondary operation to end his career and potentially his freedom if he does not cooperate."

Guiying closed the document.

He sat back in his chair and picked up his chopsticks and ate a mouthful of pho and thought about Lao Tiejun sitting in his eastern district office, taking the Xue family’s money with one hand and preparing to sell their information with the other, completely unaware that he had just become the most useful person in Guiying’s entire operation.

"I want him flipped," Guiying said. "Not shut down. Flipped. He keeps working for the Xue family, reports everything to me, and in exchange I sit on what you find."

404 looked at him for a moment.

"Have you done this before?" he asked.

Guiying picked up his chopsticks and ate another mouthful of pho without answering.

"Set up the meeting," he said.

404 pulled out his phone and sent what he needed to send. Then he put it down and looked across the table at Guiying.

"Is this enough?" he said.

Guiying looked up from his pho.

"Enough for what?"

"The payment," 404 said. "The first month. You said you would pay after you saw evidence of the work." He pushed his hair out of his face. It fell back immediately. "Do you trust the work now?"

Guiying looked at him for a moment.

Then he looked down at the folded document sitting beside his bowl.

Three days of thorough, detailed, verified intelligence on five separate targets delivered ahead of the agreed timeline.

A private investigator identified, profiled, and handed to him with enough leverage to flip him completely.

All of it clean, all of it actionable, all of it exactly what he had asked for.

He reached for his phone.

"Account details.." he said.

404 slid a card across the table.

A plain white card with nothing on it but a string of numbers.

Guiying looked at it.

Then he opened his banking app, entered the details, and transferred the first month’s payment without further discussion.

404’s phone buzzed on the table.

He glanced at it, then put it back down with the composed expression of someone who had expected this outcome and saw no reason to make a production of it.

"Same time next week?" he said.

"I will message you," Guiying said, and picked up his chopsticks.

404 finished his tea, stood up, pushed his hair out of his face one final time, and walked out.

Guiying sat alone with his pho and the folded document and thought about Lao Tiejun, and the Xue family running in circles chasing a trail that did not exist.

He finished his bowl, folded the document carefully into his jacket pocket, and signaled for the bill.

There was a hospital appointment this afternoon.

He needed to be back before Liuxian came to pick him up.

He left a tip for the server, picked up his phone, and walked out into the afternoon light.

Wang Chengli was waiting outside the restaurant when Guiying stepped out, the car already running.

The drive back was quiet and unhurried, the city moving past the windows in the late morning light.

Back at the mansion Guiying went straight upstairs, peeled off the disguise, showered, and changed into his indoor clothes.

He sat at the desk for a while, transferring the relevant information from the folded document into a private folder on his laptop, cross referencing it with what he already knew, thinking through the next steps with the methodical patience that came naturally to him when the picture was becoming clearer.

By the time he was done his eyes were heavy.

He had not slept properly in three days.

The heat had been exhausting in ways that went beyond the physical, and the nightmare before it had left something at the edges of his rest that had not fully cleared yet.

He lay down on top of the covers, intending to close his eyes for twenty minutes.

He was asleep at four.

He did not hear the front door.

He did not hear the footsteps in the corridor or the quiet knock that went unanswered or the door opening softly.

He did not hear any of it.

Liuxian stood in the doorway of Guiying’s room at one in the afternoon and looked at his husband, deeply and completely asleep on top of the covers in his indoor clothes with one hand tucked under his cheek and his hair still slightly damp from the shower.