4. 分赃算法

The highway stretched like a black ribbon under the bruised sky, and He Zhenguo's sedan weaved through the holiday traffic with the desperate grace of a fish escaping a net. He had lost the taxi, but he had not lost his instinct. He called the airport police and ordered them to hold all departures for the next hour—not a full lockdown, just a "random security check" that would delay every passenger without raising official suspicion. He knew Lin Wanqing was too smart to carry a fake passport, but she was also too smart to board a plane that had been mysteriously delayed. She would sense the trap and double back, and when she did, he would be waiting.

He arrived at the airport at 7:03 PM, just as the first wave of frustrated passengers began to cluster around the departure boards. The terminal was a cathedral of fluorescent light and recycled air, filled with families hauling bulging suitcases and business travelers clutching cellphones the size of bricks. He scanned the crowd with the practiced eye of a man who had spent twenty years picking faces out of chaos. He did not see Lin Wanqing. He saw a hundred women in black coats, a thousand variations of pearl earrings, but not the one brooch that mattered.

His phone rang. It was the surveillance team leader, a wiry sergeant named Hao who had once been a track star. "Detective, we lost her at the airport parking garage. She switched vehicles—got into a white minivan with tinted windows. We have the plate, but the van is registered to a rental company that went bankrupt in '94. It's a ghost car."

He Zhenguo swore under his breath. "What about the driver?"

"Male, tall, wearing a cap. Couldn't get a clear face. But we did get this." Hao sent a grainy photo to He's pager—a rear view of the minivan pulling out of the garage, its back window smudged with dirt, but partially revealing a silhouette in the passenger seat. The silhouette was not alone. There was a second figure, larger, hunched forward as if in pain or hiding.

He Zhenguo stared at the image. The larger figure had a shaved head. Liu Tieshan. The two most dangerous members of the five had joined forces, leaving A Biao and Shen Mingyuan as loose ends. But why would Lin Wanqing, who despised Liu's brutishness, accept him as a partner? Unless she had no choice. Unless Liu had something on her—the same burgundy fiber, the same cold storage key, the same memory of a marriage she had tried to erase.

He drove back to the station, his mind churning through the permutations. At 8:15 PM, he sat in his cramped office, surrounded by stacks of case files and a half-eaten box of fried rice that had gone cold. He spread the evidence across his desk like a deck of cards: the morgue photo of Mouse, the recovered email, the tape of Shen's confession, the torn deposit slip, the burgundy fiber, the rental agreement for the cold storage unit. He arranged them in chronological order and tried to see the shape of the story they told.

The timeline was clear: May 1995—Shen records the audit video, naming five suspects. September 1995—Mouse joins CyberSafe and is hired to install the security system at the Overseas Chinese Mansion. October 1995—Lin Wanqing begins to cultivate Mouse, feeding him details about the foundation's finances. November 1995—The five meet for the first time, at a private room in a hotpot restaurant. Mouse proposes the digital split. December 1995—The embezzlement is executed, 500,000 Green Bills diverted to Starfish Trading Co. January 29, 1996—Mouse sends the warning email to Shen. January 30—The funds are split; Mouse disappears. February 2—Shen is murdered; Mouse is murdered; Chen is arrested.

The missing link was the period between January 30 and February 2. What had happened in those three days? Why had Mouse waited until the 29th to warn Shen, if he had known about the embezzlement since November? He Zhenguo pulled out Mouse's phone records and began to cross-reference them with the police database. At 11:47 PM on January 29, Mouse had made a call to a number that was not in his contacts—a landline registered to a guesthouse in the Eastern District, near the cold storage unit. The guesthouse was owned by a woman named Gui Xiuqing, the sister of Lin Wanqing's ex-husband.

He Zhenguo felt the pieces clicking together like tumblers in a lock. Mouse had not gone to the guesthouse as a guest. He had gone there to meet Lin Wanqing's former sister-in-law—someone who still held a grudge against Lin for the divorce, someone who might have kept a record of Lin's old habits, old keys, old secrets. The burgundy fiber had likely come from a scarf that Lin had left behind at the guesthouse years ago, a scarf that Mouse had somehow retrieved as leverage.

He made a note to interview Gui Xiuqing the next morning, but his attention was diverted by a commotion in the hallway. A uniformed officer rushed in, breathless. "Detective, the detention center just called. Chen Xiaobing is asking for you. He says he has something to trade—a name that will 'explain everything.'"

He Zhenguo grabbed his coat and drove to the detention center, a squat building on the outskirts of the city that had been a colonial-era prison and still retained its aura of grim finality. Chen Xiaobing was in a holding cell, his wrists cuffed to a metal ring, his face pale and streaked with dried tears. He looked even younger than eighteen—a frightened boy who had stumbled into a nightmare and could not find the exit.

"You want to talk," He Zhenguo said, pulling up a plastic chair. "I'm listening. But I need the truth, not the script Lin gave you."

Chen swallowed hard. "She told me to say I acted alone. She said if I kept my mouth shut, she would get me a good lawyer, a reduced sentence, maybe even parole in ten years. But I saw the news. They found Mouse. And I know what happened to him." He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a whisper. "There's someone else. Someone who planned it all. Lin took orders from him. She said he was 'the architect.' I never met him. I only know his code name: 'Old Master.'"

He Zhenguo felt his pulse quicken. "Old Master? Is that a person or an organization?"

"I don't know. Lin mentioned him twice. Once when she gave me the knife—she said, 'Old Master wants it clean.' And once when she told me to call her from a payphone after the job—she said, 'Old Master will handle the rest.' I thought she meant the money. But now I think she meant Mouse."

The boy broke down, sobbing into his hands. He Zhenguo waited until the tears subsided, then asked the question that had been burning in his mind: "Did you ever hear a name? A description? Anything that could identify this 'Old Master'?"

Chen shook his head. "Just one thing. When Lin talked about him, she always touched her brooch. Like a salute. Or a prayer."

He Zhenguo left the cell and walked to the duty room, where he stared at the wall map of Gold Harbour City. The name "Old Master" was not in any file, not in any database. It was a ghost, a construct, a shadow that Lin had used to manipulate a boy into murder. But He Zhenguo had learned one thing from his years on the force: shadows always have a source. And the source was someone who had access to Lin Wanqing's past, her ex-husband's family, and the cold storage unit where Mouse had died.

He pulled out the guesthouse address and dialed the number. It rang seven times before a woman's voice answered—hoarse, elderly, with the accent of the southern coast. "Gui Xiuqing speaking."

"Madam Gui, this is Detective He Zhenguo of the Gold Harbour City Police. I need to ask you about a young man named Wu Shujie—Mouse. Did he stay at your guesthouse on the night of January 29?"

There was a long pause, filled only with static and the faint sound of a television. "He did. He came looking for information. He said he was a journalist. He asked about Lin Wanqing. About the scarf she left here years ago. I gave it to him. I don't know why he wanted it."

"Do you still have the scarf?"

"No. He took it. But I have something else." Another pause, longer this time. "He left a letter. Addressed to the police. Said to give it to you if anything happened to him. It's been sitting in my drawer for three days. I was afraid to call."

He Zhenguo's hand tightened on the receiver. "I'll be there in thirty minutes. Do not open it. Do not show it to anyone."

He hung up and sprinted to his car, his mind racing ahead of him. A letter. A dead man's letter. This was the thread that had been missing—the one piece of evidence that Lin Wanqing could not delete, because she did not know it existed.

The drive to the Eastern District was a blur of red lights and honking horns. He parked illegally outside the guesthouse, a two-story building painted a cheerful yellow that clashed with the grimy street. Gui Xiuqing met him at the door, a wiry woman in her sixties with silver hair and shrewd eyes. She handed him a plain envelope, unsealed, with his name written in neat block letters: "DETECTIVE HE ZHENUO."

He opened it with trembling fingers. Inside was a single sheet of paper, covered in Mouse's cramped handwriting. The letter was dated January 30, 1996—the day he had disappeared. It read:

"Detective He, If you are reading this, I am dead. I knew they would come for me the moment I sent that email to Mr. Shen. But I had to try. The money was never the point—the point was that Lin Wanqing has been running this foundation like a personal bank for three years. Mr. Shen was the only honest man in the building, and she knew he was close to discovering the full scale of the fraud. The 500,000 Green Bills was just the tip. She siphoned over three million through shell companies, fake contracts, and overseas accounts. The others were pawns—including me, until I realized what I had done.

I have attached a list of every account, every transfer, every forged signature. I hid a copy on the secondary server, protected by a password that only I know: 'GOLDENOCEAN1982.' It's the year she married into the seafood family. Use it.

One more thing: 'Old Master' is not a person. It's a system. It's the name she gave to the offshore holding company that receives the bulk of the stolen money. The company is registered in a neighboring territory, under the name 'Vermilion Holdings.' The director is a man named Gui Yunsheng—her ex-husband. He is the real mastermind. She was just the front.

They will kill me for this. But at least you will know the truth.

—Mouse"

He Zhenguo read the letter three times, his eyes burning with a mixture of fury and admiration. Mouse had been a coward, a cheat, and a thief—but in the end, he had been a whistleblower. He had paid for it with his life, but he had left behind a trail that would bring down an empire.

He looked up at Gui Xiuqing, who was watching him with a knowing expression. "You knew," he said. "You knew about the embezzlement."

She nodded slowly. "My brother Gui Yunsheng is a bad man. He divorced Lin because she was too ambitious, but he never stopped using her. She was his eyes, his ears, his hands. When the young man came asking, I saw a chance to clear my conscience. I gave him the scarf, the letter, the password. I am old. I do not fear death. I only fear dying with secrets."

He Zhenguo folded the letter and placed it in his breast pocket, next to his badge. He had the password. He had the account list. He had the name of the real mastermind. But he also had a problem: Gui Yunsheng was a wealthy man with connections in the judiciary, the customs service, and the press. Bringing him down would require more than a letter—it would require a coordinated operation, a raid on Vermilion Holdings, and an arrest warrant that would have to survive the scrutiny of a dozen senior officials.

He thanked Gui Xiuqing and walked back to his car, his mind already drafting the operation plan. But as he reached for the door handle, his pager buzzed. A message from the IT specialist: "SECONDARY SERVER ACCESS GRANTED. ACCOUNT LIST CONFIRMED. BUT THERE IS AN ANOMALY: THE TOTAL STOLEN AMOUNT IS 3.2 MILLION GREEN BILLS, BUT ONLY 2.7 MILLION CAN BE TRACED. THE REMAINING 500,000 HAS BEEN WITHDRAWN IN CASH OVER THE PAST 48 HOURS. THE WITHDRAWAL RECORDS ARE TIED TO A SAFE DEPOSIT BOX AT THE EASTERN DISTRICT BANK—BOX NUMBER 088-17-395. THE BOX WAS ACCESSED AT 2:00 AM, FEBRUARY 2. THE ACCESSOR WAS NOT LIN WANQING. THE ACCESSOR WAS GUYUNSHENG HIMSELF."

He Zhenguo read the message and felt the ground shift beneath him. Gui Yunsheng had taken his share and run—but he had not left the country. The airport police had no record of him. He was still in the city, probably holed up in a luxury apartment or a private club, waiting for the heat to die down. And he had 500,000 Green Bills in cash, ready to fuel a new life, a new identity, a new crime.

He started the engine and pointed the car toward the Eastern District Bank, but he knew it was too late. The money was gone, the box was empty, and Gui Yunsheng was already three steps ahead. But He Zhenguo had one thing that Gui did not: Mouse's letter, with its detailed list of shell companies and forged signatures. That list would not bring back the money, but it would bring back the justice—if he could keep it out of the hands of the corrupt officials who had been protecting the Gui family for years.

He drove through the neon-lit streets, his face illuminated by the flickering signs of karaoke bars and massage parlors, each one a monument to the city's endless appetite for vice. He knew that the next 24 hours would decide the entire case. He would raid the bank, seize the records, and issue a warrant for Gui Yunsheng's arrest. But he also knew that Gui would have allies, lawyers, and possibly even men with guns. The fight was just beginning.

As he pulled into the bank's parking lot, his phone rang. It was the station chief, a portly man named Superintendent Lam, whose voice had the smoothness of well-aged whiskey. "He Zhenguo, I hear you're about to make a move on the Gui family. I'm telling you now—stand down. There are political implications. The Gui family has donated to the mayor's campaign. This case is to be handled quietly, through diplomatic channels."

He Zhenguo gripped the phone, his knuckles white. "Sir, with all due respect, I have a letter from a dead man, a list of stolen funds, and a direct link to a murder. I'm not standing down. I'm going in."

There was a long silence on the other end. Then Superintendent Lam spoke, his voice colder than before: "If you go in, you go in alone. No backup. No warrant. No official recognition. You understand what that means?"

"I understand," He Zhenguo said, and hung up.

He stepped out of the car and walked toward the bank's entrance, his hand resting on the holster at his hip. The night air was cool and smelled of rain. In the distance, a firework exploded in a shower of gold and red, celebrating a New Year that had already claimed three lives and would claim at least one more before it ended.

He pushed open the bank's glass door, and the security guard looked up with a start. He Zhenguo flashed his badge and said, "I need to see the safe deposit box register. Now."

The guard hesitated, then nodded. As they walked toward the vault, He Zhenguo felt a strange calm settle over him. He was alone, unsupported, and walking into a labyrinth of power and money. But he had the truth, and the truth, he believed, was still stronger than any lie—even the lies that were written in gold.

The vault door swung open, and he stepped inside, ready to confront whatever waited for him. But what he found was not a stack of cash or a document. It was an empty box, a single business card, and a note that read: "You are late, Detective. But I am generous. Come to the Golden Ocean Club, and we will talk. —G.Y."

He Zhenguo picked up the card and read the address. The Golden Ocean Club was a private establishment on the waterfront, known for its dim lighting, expensive liquor, and clientele of businessmen who preferred to operate in the shadows. Gui Yunsheng was not running. He was inviting. He was setting a trap, and he knew He Zhenguo would walk into it—because that was what honest men did.

He put the card in his pocket and walked out of the bank, his footsteps echoing in the empty lobby. Outside, the rain had begun to fall, a soft drizzle that glistened on the pavement like a thousand tiny mirrors. He looked up at the sky and whispered to himself, "Old Master, I'm coming for you."

And somewhere, in a penthouse overlooking the harbor, Gui Yunsheng raised a glass of cognac and smiled. He had waited a long time for this dance. And he knew every step.