You're a US police officer, what are you thinking about going back to the East for?

Chapter 243 First Meeting in the East - Part 1 (8k)

In San Francisco, the clouds hung low in the Sunset District. Light brown blinds hung on the windows, and thin beams of light from the streetlights outside shone through the slats, casting long streaks of light onto the opposite wall.

The office is small, about ten square meters, and is furnished like the room of a middle-level manager in an ordinary foreign trade company.

Inside was an old-fashioned elmwood desk with a dark green writing mat on the surface. Next to it was a potted green ivy with slightly wilted leaves, probably because it hadn't been watered for a few days. A world map hung on the wall.

An old man in his early sixties was sitting behind the table.

He wore a light gray V-neck sweater, the stiff collar of a white shirt peeking out from the neckline. He was rather thin, with shoulders that were neither broad nor narrow. After sitting for a while, he leaned slightly forward, like an old accountant looking at ledgers.

The old man had very short hair, graying temples, a round face, small eyes with single eyelids, low cheekbones, a low nose, and a habitually tucked-in mouth, making him appear very plain. He didn't have any particularly distinctive features on his face.

It's the kind of face that makes you pause when someone asks you, "What did that person look like?" after you've had a twenty-minute face-to-face conversation with them.

Eastern intelligence recruiters call this a "street face".

When he was selected twenty years ago, a computer performed a facial feature analysis, which showed that he had no significant features and was suitable for fieldwork.

This analysis remained in the archives for twenty years, shielding him from countless random street checks.

His name is Lu Henian, and he is currently a senior business representative at Starshine Trading Co., Ltd. in San Francisco.

Xinghui Trading deals in the import and export of electromechanical parts. Its accounts are as clean as a pot of plain water, with no suspicious logistics records. It pays every penny of tax to the San Francisco City Hall every year, and even the decimal points on its tax returns can withstand scrutiny from IRS auditors with a magnifying glass.

He held this position for ten years, with a Social Security number, driver's license, and credit card spending records all readily available. Occasionally, he would travel between several cities on the West Coast under the guise of visiting clients. In the CBP and FBI systems, he was no different from any other elderly Chinese man who came to the United States to retire.

But his true identity is not that of a businessman.

He is a senior field evaluator directly under the domestic intelligence headquarters, codenamed "Judge".

He is not responsible for lower-level reconnaissance, surveillance, or maintenance of dead mailboxes.

Lu Henian's only job was to personally fly to the region where a high-value potential asset was located before headquarters decided to make formal contact with it, and to complete the final reliability assessment through face-to-face talks.

He has completed five similar missions in the United States over the past decade.

Of these five instances, only three assets were successfully orchestrated or recovered by headquarters after he signed off on them.

He advised giving up on one of the other two at the last minute, and stopped the meeting of the other person after only two minutes of meeting. He did not tell the person why he stopped the meeting.

His conclusion in his subsequent briefing to headquarters was that it was unreliable.

Headquarters trusted his judgment because he hadn't made a single mistake in the previous few attempts.

It was later confirmed that the person who was refused entry had indeed taken money from Western institutions, nearly dragging the entire transportation line down with him.

Beside Lu Henian was a cup of tea that hadn't been drunk much; the tea stems were at the bottom of the cup, and the surface of the water remained still.

There was a knock on the office door twice. He had just answered when the door opened a crack and someone walked in.

The man was around forty years old, wearing a dark blue suit, a white shirt, and no tie. His hair was neatly combed, and he was holding a five-centimeter-thick sealed kraft paper file bag. The bag was sealed with red wax, and there was a stamp on the wax seal.

He walked to the table, placed the file folder next to the old man, then stepped back half a step and stood with his hands at his sides.

"Mr. Lu," he said, "they just arrived from headquarters this afternoon. The encrypted data was sent over via a dedicated line, and we've printed and packaged it. You're the only one who can see it in person."

Lu Henian raised his eyes and glanced at him, then picked up his teacup, took a sip, and put it down.

"How many?"

Page 47.

"Are there any attachments?"

"Yes, there are. Several photos are attached."

Lu Henian grunted in acknowledgment, and the young man turned and left, closing the door behind him. His shoes made almost no sound as they stomped on the carpet.

Lu Henian reached out and took the file folder, then dug his fingernail into the edge of the wax seal and forcefully pried it off, splitting the wax seal in two.

He pulled out a stack of neatly bound A4 papers, weighed them in his hand to gauge their weight, and then turned to the first page.

The first page is the cover, with the words "Archives - Confidential" printed in the upper left corner, and the words "Strategic Asset Assessment Task Book" in smaller print below.

Below that is a line of bolded code.

"Returning Geese".

Lu Henian read the two words once and raised his eyebrows slightly.

Archives—Returning Geese.

He realized that the code name in the file was obviously given by some scholar in the country, which was consistent with the style of official letters.

He turned the cover over.

The second page contains basic information about the target, along with a five-inch color photograph.

In the photo, a white male in a dark blue police uniform is stepping out of a Ford police car.

He was very tall, with his right hand resting on the car door frame and his left hand hanging naturally at his side. He had distinct features, short dark brown hair, and steel-gray eyes that showed no extra emotion. His police uniform had a badge pinned above the left breast pocket and an arm patch with "SPD" sewn on the right side.

Below the photo is a brief text message with basic information.

"Leon Vance is 188cm tall and weighs approximately 90kg."

"Currently serving as the leader of the Crime Investigation Unit (ACU) of the West Precinct of the Seattle Police Department (SPD), with the rank of Constable Class 3."

"His publicly known identity is that of a registered police officer with the Seattle Police Department, and his social connections include West Precinct Chief Victoria Sterling."

The city council's public safety committee, etc.

Lu Henian rubbed his nose.

He recognized the name Lyon.

He had known about this person from television long ago.

Last month, while changing channels in his San Francisco hotel room, he happened to catch a Fox News report. The footage showed a white male in a police uniform walking out of the rubble of a building billowing smoke, his face covered in dust, with a pile of yellow police tape behind him.

The host used the term "Seattle counterterrorism hero" at the time.

Lu Henian only watched for less than ten seconds before switching channels to watch ESPN's baseball game.

He had seen too many "anti-terrorism heroes," with the American media creating several every year and then tearing them apart. He never imagined that this anti-terrorism hero would become his own target today.

Lu Henian turned the page.

The third page is a summary of the results.

"A gunfight occurred in the industrial area in mid-October."

"ACU engaged in a firefight with a Blood Gang transport convoy in the West End, killing Blood Gang's number two leader, Darlis, and several other armed men on the spot, and seizing a batch of weapons and drugs."

"Two ACU personnel died in the incident. FBI agent Hayes attempted to intervene afterward but was filmed engaging in inappropriate behavior and was subsequently suspended."

After turning a few more pages, Lu Henian stopped.

The title of this page is "Technology Asset Transfer Records".

The following are three items. The first item is "Asset-001, former outsourced engineer for Raytheon's inertial navigation system".

The second item is "Asset-002, former senior materials engineer at Boeing".

The third item is "Assets - 003, former Pfizer researcher".

Each item has a status update.

Asset 001: The hard drive data it took out of the United States has been analyzed and is now in the laboratory reproduction stage.

Asset 002: Arrived in China and is currently adjusting to the new environment. Background verification and further arrangements will be made after recovery.

Asset 003: Currently under protective medical observation, during the recovery period, the individual has proactively requested to connect with the domestic scientific research system as soon as possible, and has entered the next stage of the approval process. The core patents and data acquired during their time at Pfizer are being supplemented by the individual and transferred to the internal system.

Lu Henian stared at the words "Hard drive data parsed" and read the page again.

"The hard drive of a former Thor engineer," he muttered to himself, his voice very soft.

"We didn't have inertial navigation systems or missiles a long time ago."

He pulled his gaze back and continued scrolling down.

This page contains an assessment report on personality and political leanings, written by Professor Zhou, an intelligence analysis expert at headquarters. It is longer than any of the previous pages.

The very first sentence is: "Comrade Lyon Vance has a clear class stance —"

Lu Henian stared at the sentence for several seconds, then turned the file upside down and placed it on the table. He leaned back in his chair, placed one hand on the folder, and pinched the bridge of his nose with the other.

"Professor Zhou," he muttered to himself, frowning. "Why is it you again?"

"The more you write, the more you include the word 'comrade.' Don't go back and copy all that theory from school."

He reached up and rubbed his temples.

Professor Zhou is an intelligence analysis expert with an academic background. He has an amazing knowledge base, solid theoretical knowledge, and is good at putting any behavior into those frameworks.

It's easy to use, but it has one flaw: it's overly focused on adding value.

Lu Henian had never met Professor Zhou directly, but he had heard a joke at headquarters that Professor Zhou had assigned class backgrounds to the undercover comrades enough to open a Marxist college.

Some words were used repeatedly in the file, such as "comrade" and "class". Lu Henian didn't have any objection to the theory, but he felt that these things were a bit excessive even when said among his own people. However, Professor Zhou obviously didn't care about these things.

However, he did not throw the page away immediately, because although Professor Zhou had the problem of exporting values, he was not stupid.

Although this person's analysis may sometimes be biased, without sufficient supporting facts, the higher-ups would not have given him this information.

He reopened the document and continued reading. The document contained an excerpt of intelligence recently transmitted via Dead Mail by an intermediary codenamed "Pink Balloon."

He read very slowly, pausing each time he came across a passage, tilting his head slightly as if imagining the scene through those few lines.

"I require an English paperback edition of the anthology," he repeated, then paused for a moment before continuing to read.

"Used to rethink Pastor Thomas and transform him into a long-term, usable logistical force in Seattle."

He read the sentence again.

Then there's Lyon's management skills demonstrated in his street charity work, which are documented in fairly detailed records:

RayFong was a front for Lyon to establish a homeless community in Seattle. The external support came from building materials supplied by gang leader Big T. Inside, a former Boeing welder served as a junior manager. A mosque provided religious cover, and police officers set up checkpoints on the perimeter to maintain order and ensure that the chaos did not spread.

This may not seem like much on paper, but Lu Henian, who has done intelligence assessments for twenty years, knows all too well what the lower classes in America mean.

He didn't want to be too harsh, but a significant portion of America's lower class is indeed apathetic, uncontrollable, and disorganized in their current situation.

This may not be a human problem, but it is unavoidable under this kind of education and social atmosphere.

Getting them to line up for meals according to the rules isn't difficult, but picking out the capable people from among them and getting them to follow instructions isn't so easy.

But the people Lyon chose had already started working for him.

A photo was attached to the back of the file.

Inside, Leon, dressed as Ray Fong, stands next to a food truck, with a two-meter-tall black security guard beside him.

Lu Henian stared at the photo for several seconds, then pushed it aside and his finger landed on another line of text.

"Lyon is establishing a highly exclusive gray order in Seattle's West Side by controlling the homeless community."

""

"If this community is functioning stably, he can make clear demands on this basis, requesting to join or establish a political organization on his own, and use collective power to fight for his own interests."

"Once a loose community becomes a programmatic group, its nature is completely different."

Then, the file added another clue in the footnote below this line: in American history, there have been many instances of gang leaders using their connections with the police to protect their own power and eventually growing into a significant socio-political force.

Lu Henian's gaze paused for a moment.

He didn't need anyone to write notes for him about how the Irish developed in New York in the early 20th century, how the Italians gained prominence in Chicago, or how the Tammany Society in New York started.

What Lyon is doing now is, to put it bluntly, like the early stages of a gang's development, but with a few differences.

Because Lyon has a political cover. He is not only Ray Fong, but also the ACU team leader and an anti-terrorism hero. As a political symbol of the mayor and the chief, even the local television station in the West End does not dare to question him casually.

In other words, this is equivalent to doing underground things under an official identity. As long as these two identities are not exposed, his control over the West District will become stronger and stronger. In the end, he may have the kind of power that even headquarters can hardly assess.

"This organizational structure and mobilization method is not something an ordinary Seattle patrol officer could come up with out of thin air."

"He has his own understanding of how to organize the grassroots, how to allocate resources, how to select talent, and how to use contradictions to win people's hearts."

"Although it may not be as effective as when we were doing mass work in the base areas back then, there are still some similarities."

He picked up the page. "Lyon Vance revealed that Victor, a senior security executive at Raytheon who was investigating Asset-001, became a potential contact for him after he came into contact with him."

"This connection originated from the personal information of Victor, who was forcibly removed from the FBI's database, which was previously obtained by the Eastern Headquarters through another intelligence line."

"The analysis at the time concluded that Lyon's possible follow-up contact had the potential to influence Victor's behavioral decisions."

Then he picked up the pen that was lying next to him and wrote two words on the white paper next to him.

"Comrade?"

After he finished writing, he looked at the two characters, paused for a moment, and then added a few more characters below them.

"Where did it come from?"

He put the pen back on the table, then turned the paper upside down on the table and leaned back.

"The middleman confirmed the handover of the dead email account; the assets have arrived safely, and the lab has reproduced the data from the hard drive."

Lu Henian muttered to himself, "These signs indicate that the intelligence is highly credible. The 'pink balloon' operation was carried out according to regulations, and there were no interruptions or contamination during the intelligence transmission process."

He started going through the files again.

When you turn to page 42, this page is marked "Comprehensive doubts and items to be verified".

The first requirement is "Chinese proficiency".

"Guiyan possesses fluent spoken and written Chinese. She not only uses idioms and proverbs, but also demonstrates a deep understanding of the operational details of grassroots society in the East, such as schools for the children of coal miners, through numerous conversations with the middleman."

"This knowledge extends beyond that of the average Chinese person or learner of Chinese; it is closer to that of an individual who has actually lived in an Eastern society. According to the investigation, his parents passed away early, and the information is unavailable."

The following is the second analysis.

"Currently, the background checks on 'Returning Geese' cover educational records, driver's license files, immigration records, and Social Security payment records for all levels of school districts across the United States."

"No traces of residence related to Dongfang were found. Considering her age, if Guiyan had lived in Dongfang for more than a year, her entry and exit records could not have been completely blank."

Then comes the third one.

"The author, 'Guiyan,' made no attempt to conceal his Chinese language skills and knowledge of Eastern culture."

"In the last message delivered via the dead mail, the middleman mentioned that Guiyan, in a private conversation with the middleman, used the phrase 'domestic' to refer to his life in the East, and his tone was natural, not like he was lying."

"Conclusion: Guiyan's credibility is currently high. Intelligence indicates that Guiyan wishes to abandon his status in the United States and settle in the East, which is consistent with his personal behavior."

"But doubts still exist about him, especially since there is a natural contradiction between his Chinese origin and his status as a formally registered police officer in the United States."

"The above questions need to be properly resolved by the assessor during the meeting."

"If the other party's identity can be trusted, we can discuss the follow-up operation of the homeless community, respecting his wishes and not forcing him to continue to hide in the United States."

"His contributions are enough to earn him a decent resettlement in the country."

Lu Henian read this passage twice from beginning to end.

"He doesn't hide his Chinese, and even actively uses 'domestic' to refer to the East," he muttered to himself.

Lu Henian put the pages aside, tapped his fingers twice on the table, and then pulled out the last page, which contained a meeting instruction and corresponding intelligence supplement.

Mission instructions: "Tomorrow at 12:00 noon, in the private room on the second floor of Yue Lai Xuan Restaurant in Chinatown, West Seattle."

The top half is a simplified map of Chinatown in Seattle's West Side, with the location of the restaurant "Yue Lai Xuan" marked in pencil and its specific private room number attached.

In addition, the distances and walking times between each prominent building were marked in very small print, with the handwriting being extremely neat.

The bottom half shows the specific arrangements: At noon tomorrow, Leon Vance will enter the second floor of Yue Lai Xuan alone as "RayFong," wearing a gray windbreaker, a mask, and a baseball cap.

The attire described by the middleman is consistent with the appearance when the Psychedelic Cat stronghold appeared.

The host was instructed not to send out any external scouts or set up any mobile sentries, and the restaurant itself had to remain in normal business operations to avoid any unusual activity that might attract the attention of the locals.

"Headquarters has a conflicted attitude toward this person."

Lu Henian sighed deeply. "I hope he stays in his current position as a mole, because his current foothold in Seattle is too advantageous. The value assessment section lists at least three points: he can mobilize police forces, he has a base of operations, and he has deep connections with the authorities."

"But at the same time, it was also said that in principle, if he insists on leaving, he should not be forced to stay, because he has already proven his sincerity, and forcing him will leave a rift, which is not worthwhile and should not be done."

He pushed his chair back slightly, picked up the landline phone next to him, and dialed a number.

"Book me a flight to Seattle." He paused, "Arriving tomorrow morning, no need for the company account."

At 3 a.m., the night shift police officers were patrolling outside. As ACU was about to close for the day, the office door was pushed open from the outside. The door was pushed open very slowly, and the person pushing the door seemed too lazy to even press the handle down.

A fat man wearing a black oversized hoodie walked in.

He hadn't taken off his hoodie, which was piled on his messy hair. The shadow of the hoodie's brim covered most of his face, but it couldn't hide his two bluish dark circles under his eyes.

He was carrying a cardboard folder and looked like an ordinary citizen reporting a crime at the police station, but his expression was anything but ordinary. His face was tense, his lips were downturned, and every step he took seemed to be accompanied by a sigh.

Alex took a few more steps forward, stopped, glanced towards Lyon's workstation, then raised his hand and waved it towards the break room with the hand that held the folder.

"Team leader, I need to talk to you about the bodies we just collected a few days ago."

Lyon stood up from his workstation, carrying a mug with the SPD logo, and walked toward Alex.

As Leon passed Mia's table, he placed his cup on the corner of her table and said, "Refill my cold cup." Mia took the cup, glanced in Alex's direction, and then stood up to go to the break room.

Lyon pushed open the door to the lounge, where Alex was already leaning against a locker with a folder on the side.

"Close the door," Alex said.

Lyon closed the door. The lounge was small, and the two of them stood facing each other, separated only by a narrow countertop with a coffee machine and microwave.

Leon leaned against the wall by the door, arms crossed, sizing up Alex.

"So, what brings you here this time?"

The Seattle Police Department's break room was not monitored, a fact confirmed by Leon. So, Alex would sometimes use his client acquisition business to exchange intelligence with Leon there.

"Sigh—" Alex's voice was weaker than usual. "Today I even had to hang up on a few clients who called."

He raised one hand and rubbed his eyes, pressing his palm against his eye socket and rubbing it around. Then he rubbed it again, and when he put his hand down, there were several red blood vessels on the whites of his eyes.

Leon didn't urge him, but just watched him quietly.

Alex sighed again, this time even longer than when he came in, his shoulders slumping. Then he reached into his pocket, pulled out his phone, glanced at the screen, and put it back in his pocket.

"Alright." As if he had finally made up his mind, he looked up at Leon, then leaned closer and lowered his voice, "Let me be frank with you."

"Tomorrow, oh no, it's already this late, it should be noon today, Chinatown, Yue Lai Xuan Restaurant, second-floor private room, 12 o'clock sharp, RayFong dressed."

He pronounced the words one by one, very slowly, pausing after each word.

"Didn't you always want to leave? — Now it's time."

Alex's tone was flat, but after he finished speaking, the corners of his mouth turned down a little more, and his gaze drifted from Leon's shoulder to the frosted glass window behind him.

Leon leaned against the wall, his arms still crossed over his chest, and said nothing.

After a while, he spoke, his tone slightly teasing.

Why are you so nervous?

"I'm not fucking nervous," Alex retorted immediately.

"You were either rubbing your eyes or sighing just now." Leon tilted his head. "You've always been like this, but it's been more frequent today, which is unusual for you."

Alex opened his mouth as if to refute something, but in the end he just closed his mouth and shook his head.

"I just—" His voice trailed off, and he slid down a little from the locker, "It feels a little unreal."

"I've been in the US for a while now. During that time, I've collected hundreds of corpses, stuffed intelligence into the cracks between bricks, transported dead bodies in the backyard of a funeral home, and even made mutton soup for a bunch of homeless people."

He sighed again as he spoke, then raised his hand and waved it in front of him. "Including today, we've been here for ten days without anything happening. Don't you think things are going a little too smoothly?"

Leon's lips curled up slightly.

Are you worried about something unexpected happening today?

"That's not the case."

Alex thought for a moment, then found a sentence that summed up his feelings at that moment.

"I just felt like, in the last few hundred meters of a marathon, my legs were a little weak."

Leon chuckled. It was a short, sharp hum, coming out of his nose.

"It's not like you're going for a job interview, why are your legs going weak?"

"Why not?"

Alex propped his shoulders up from the locker, looked at Leon, and spoke in a tone that was half teasing and half serious.

"If I introduce you to them and you fail, it's because I, Alex, had poor judgment."

"When have you ever had any good taste? You certainly didn't seem to have any good taste when you named me RayFong."

"At least you look a lot like Ray Fong now."

Alex put the folder down, put his hands in his hoodie pockets, and sighed.

After he finished speaking, the two fell into a brief silence.

The refrigerator compressor hummed twice more, and through the frosted glass, the faint sounds of Chloe and Ward arguing over something could be heard from the office area.

Alex spoke first, "You're going to see them today. What are your thoughts?"

Lyon looked at the back of his hand, then looked up again.

"What can I think?"

"Having been in this lousy place for so long, every day I wake up to patrolling, gunfights, looking at corpses, and dealing with corrupt cops."

He put his hands in his pockets, leaned his shoulders against the wall, and looked as lazy as could be, with not a trace of a smile in his eyes.

"I've waited so long, I can't just not answer."

"What if they think you're not good enough?" Alex asked.

"What if they doubt your identity, or think that what you've done—blowing up unfinished buildings, taking in homeless people, and running shady communities—is too outrageous, and they don't want you?"

Lyon remained silent for a few seconds.

Then he tilted his head back, rested the back of his head against the wall, and looked at the fluorescent light tube on the ceiling.

"Then let's continue being American heroes," he said, his voice raspy, only he could hear it.

"Continue being my counterterrorism star, and then wait for the next opportunity."

Alex paused for a moment.

"Don't you dare."

Alex broke the silence with a listless tone.

"If you stay here any longer, am I supposed to keep collecting your corpses?"

"You're not happy about it?"

"I'm so tired, boss."

Alex covered his face with his hands, his fingers spread wide, revealing two dead fish eyes through the gaps.

"Do you even know what's going on with your mutton soup shop right now?"

Leon moved his head off the wall and looked at him.

Alex started counting on his fingers.

"My stall was originally just meant to be a simple charity soup distribution, a quick and easy way to give out the soup and then close up shop. And now?"

"What have you turned it into now?"

"Your current team includes a former Boeing welder who is now a construction foreman, several construction workers who are demolishing walls in a nightclub, a building materials supply chain, and police officers who have set up checkpoints around the perimeter."

"Do you know what that old man who calls himself MacArthur said to me when I went to take a look yesterday?"

Alex would bend one finger for each short sentence he spoke, and when he ran out of fingers, he simply spread his hands out.

"He said this is the beachhead!"

"This is going to attract a lot of attention right now, you know?"

"Yes, I know." Leon nodded.

"You know?" Alex repeated, his eyes wide and lifeless. "You know, so why aren't you being careful?"

"Why should I take it easy?"

Alex opened his mouth.

"because----"

He choked for a moment, then pressed his hand to his chest and said in a weary tone.

"Because the organization is going to evaluate you in Chinatown today. You're making such a big fuss right now. What if the organization thinks you're hard to control, or that you're too ambitious and will devour people?"

Lyon stared at him for a while, then a slight smile appeared on his lips.

Alex.

"what?"

"Everything for the East."

Alex paused for half a second. Then he lowered his hand from his chest, his lips moved, and finally he squeezed out a long, weak "Ugh—" from his throat before leaning back against the locker.

"Fine, whatever you say, whatever you fucking say."

He sighed again. "Anyway, that's what I came here to tell you. It's noon today, in the private room on the second floor of Yue Lai Xuan. You decide what to do."

Lyon nodded.

Alex reached into his pocket for his phone, but couldn't find it after a couple of tries. He then patted the front pocket of his hoodie before finally pulling it out, glancing at the time, and then putting it back in.

"There's one more thing."

"Um?

""

"I'm not going to the stall for a while. Regardless of whether I put any money in there at first, I won't go to that place again."

He raised his eyelids to look at Lyon, "Now, every two days someone in the entire West End is talking about RayFong. I'm standing right next to the lamb hotpot, sooner or later someone will link your identity to mine."

Lyon nodded.

"It's good that you disappeared; it'll make things easier for me now that you're gone."

Alex rolled his eyes.

"You old bastard think I'm in your way?"

"Yes, you're almost useless anyway."

95

"You fucking—"

Alex cursed for a moment, then laughed at himself, shook his head, and pushed open the door to the lounge.

He took two steps away, and then Leon spoke to his back in a very low voice.

"Alex, no matter how it ends today."

"Thanks," Leon said.

Alex paused for a moment, then left without looking back.

Leon leaned against the door frame, watching the large, fat man in a black hoodie walk through the office corridor before returning to the ACU office area himself.

He stood by the table, outside the window were the clouds of Seattle in the dead of night, the sunlight had long since sunk behind the buildings, and the fluorescent lights in the office area hummed overhead.

This afternoon.

The second floor of Yue Lai Xuan.

He repeated this message to himself several times.

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