Their apartment in Sham Shui Po felt unusually still when they walked in. Kai kicked his shoes off and dropped his bag near the couch while Lian locked the door and set the chain. The living room held its usual clutter: two open laptops on the table, a half folded blanket, a pile of clothes Kai kept promising to move. Nothing dangerous. Nothing out of place. Yet it felt heavy, as if the walls were carrying the residue of the night.
Kai went straight to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of water. “Want one?” he asked.
Lian shook her head. She leaned against the kitchen counter and took a long breath through her nose, the kind that steadied her but also told Kai she was still carrying all the weight from earlier.
He twisted the cap off and drank half the bottle in one go. “So,” he said, “we are not working tonight, right?”
Lian gave him a look. “You really think I am going to send us out again after the mess we just dealt with.”
Kai shrugged. “I just want to be clear before I open my laptop and start doing something stupid.”
“Doing what.”
“Checking the buyers list again.”
She groaned softly. “You can check it. Just do not start planning a one man infiltration because you found one of their addresses.”
Kai smiled. “You act like I have ever done that.”
“You have done that twice,” she said, and walked to the living room.
Kai followed and flopped onto the couch. Lian sat on the floor with her back against the cushions, stretching her legs out. She rubbed her calves, probably sore from the chase earlier. The two of them stayed like that for a while, letting the quiet settle in.
“You want to talk about it?” Kai asked.
“About what.”
“You know what.”
She hesitated. Then she said, “I do not like the feeling that someone that young is doing jobs for LSK. It makes everything feel worse.”
Kai opened his laptop and rested it on his knees. “I get it. But we cannot change people’s circumstances overnight.”
“That is the problem. Someone recruited him, trained him, and set him up to take the fall if anything went wrong. Most kids his age should be worrying about exams.”
Kai raised an eyebrow. “We did not worry about exams at that age either.”
“That was different.”
He shook his head. “We were still kids. We just never got the chance to act like it.”
She did not argue, which surprised him. Usually she would insist their situation had been unique, that they were not comparable to anyone else. Instead she pulled her hair tie out and dropped it next to her.
“What if he reminds me of you,” she finally said. “You were younger than him when everything happened.”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Kai paused with his fingers hovering above the keyboard.
“I was not alone,” he said quietly. “I had you.”
Lian let out a soft, humorless laugh. “I do not know if that helped or made things worse.”
“It helped.” He reached over and tapped her shoulder. “If you were not around, I probably would have burned something down or ended up doing something way worse than you.”
She gave a small smile, but it faded quickly. “I do not want to see another kid dragged into this world.”
“We did not drag him,” Kai said. “We got him out of a bad place tonight. That counts for something.”
Lian looked down at her hands. “Maybe.”
Kai knew that maybe meant she was still replaying it. He did not push her further.
Instead he changed the subject. “So the buyers list has thirty names. Half of them look like aliases. Some are probably low level handlers. But three have ties to international shipping companies.”
Lian glanced back at him. “The companies or the people.”
“The people. They work as consultants. Mostly logistics and supply chain mapping. Nothing huge.”
Lian pulled her knees in and hugged them loosely. “Then they are probably points of contact.”
“That is what I thought.” Kai typed a few lines and scrolled through the data. “I can start running background checks tomorrow.”
Lian nodded. “Not tonight. Get some sleep.”
Kai lifted his head. “You are going to sleep?”
“No. But you should.”
He snorted. “You say that like I do not sleep better when you do.”
She rolled her eyes. “Kai, we are not doing some emotional bonding moment about sleep.”
“We could.”
“No.”
He laughed and leaned back into the couch cushions. “Fine. But for the record, you look like the one who needs sleep more than I do.”
“Do not start.”
“I am just saying. You get that look when you are tired. Your eyes get sharper.”
“My eyes get sharper?”
“Yes. Like you are trying to cut the room in half with your stare.”
She breathed out slowly. “You are impossible.”
“And yet you keep me around.”
She shook her head but did not argue. That was good. It meant she was softening.
Kai closed the laptop but kept it within reach. Lian leaned her head against the edge of the couch cushion and let her eyes rest for a moment. Not closed, just resting.
“You know,” Kai said, “we should take a day off.”
Lian opened one eye. “A day off from what.”
“From everything.”
“We cannot.”
“Not even for one day.”
“No.”
Kai sighed dramatically. “Then at least a morning.”
“We will see.”
That answer was not a yes, but it was not a flat no either. He would take it.
Lian shifted and pushed herself to her feet. She walked toward the small window and pulled the curtain aside slightly. The street outside was quiet. A taxi rolled past. A woman walked her dog. Nothing suspicious. Nothing that required immediate action.
“It feels normal out there,” she said.
“That is good.”
“It feels strange.”
Kai nodded. “Normal always feels strange for us.”
She turned back to him with a tired expression. “I am going to shower.”
“Go. I will handle the rest of the checking.”
She stepped toward the hallway, hesitated, then said, “Do not stay up all night.”
“I will not.”
“You always say that.”
“Then trust me for once.”
A faint smile crossed her lips. “I do trust you.”
Then she disappeared down the hallway, and Kai sat there with the warm glow of the living room lamp and the soft hum of the city leaking through the walls.
He opened his laptop again. The buyers list glowed on the screen.
He did not feel the rush of adrenaline from earlier. Instead he felt something steadier.
Lian’s shower started running.
Kai typed.
