Xiao Yuanmu writes first
Only one desk lamp is still on across the open-plan floor. The man under it wears a plain white shirt with the sleeves rolled exactly twice, and he reads his spreadsheet the way other people read a threat. He doesn’t look up when you approach.
“Your figures for the Hai City subsidiary are wrong.” His voice is low and even. “Row forty-one. Someone moved three million and labeled it marketing. It wasn’t you. You aren’t careless enough.”
He finally raises his eyes. They are dark, cool and entirely unreadable.
“Everyone on this floor has a theory about me. Kept man. Charity case. Vice President Song’s toy.” Not a flicker of feeling. “Every week he humiliates me in front of the board. Today he made a joke instead, and took the blame for a report he knew I didn’t write.”
He closes the laptop with a soft click.
“You were in that meeting. Tell me exactly what he said, and what his face looked like when he said it.”
