The restaurant was on Gerrard Street, in the heart of Chinatown, between a bakery that sold egg tarts and a shop that sold dried seafood in plastic bins. The entrance was narrow — a staircase between two shopfronts, lit by a single red lantern. Xu climbed the stairs. The carpet was worn. The walls were painted a deep red that had faded to pink in patches. He could hear the noise of the kitchen — the clatter of woks, the hiss of steam, the shouts of cooks in Cantonese.

The private dining room was at the top of the stairs. A small room, round table, eight chairs, a lazy Susan in the centre. A pot of tea was already on the table. The cups were ceramic, glazed a deep green, the kind that cost more than they looked like they cost.

Yan Shikui was sitting with his back to the wall, facing the door.

He was older than his photographs. Seventy, at least. His hair was grey, thinning, cut short. His face was lined — deep creases around the eyes and mouth, the marks of a man who had spent decades making decisions that could not be unmade. He wore a dark suit, no tie, a white shirt open at the collar. His hands were resting on the table, still, composed.

He looked at Xu the way a man looks at a photograph of himself from forty years ago — with recognition, with distance, with something that might have been regret.

'Mr. Xu,' he said. His voice was soft, the accent Mandarin, the tone measured. 'Please. Sit. Eat. We will talk after.'

Xu sat across from him. The table was wide enough to feel formal, narrow enough to feel intimate. Yan Shikui poured tea into both cups. The steam rose. The room was quiet.

'I ordered the food already,' Yan Shikui said. 'I hope you do not mind. I know the owner. He knows what I like.'

'I did not come here to eat.'

'No. You came here to understand.' Yan Shikui picked up his tea. He held it in both hands, warming his palms. 'But understanding is better done on a full stomach. Trust me. I have been trying to understand things for seventy years.'

'You have been chasing me for three volumes,' Yan Shikui said, between sips of soup. 'Singapore. California. Moscow. And now London. You have spent years of your life following a trail I left for you to find. Do you know why?'

'Because you wanted me to find you.'

'No.' Yan Shikui set his spoon down. 'I wanted you to find your father.'

Xu said nothing.

'I knew your father before you were born. We grew up in the same village — a small place, two hours north of Guangzhou. Rice fields and dirt roads and not much else. We moved to the city together in 1978. We shared a room. We shared our food. We shared our dreams.' Yan Shikui's voice changed — softer, slower. 'He was the best man I ever knew.'

'Then why did you let him fail?'

The question hung in the air. Yan Shikui looked at Xu. His eyes were dark, steady.

'I did not let him fail. I tried to stop it.'

'You did not try hard enough.'

Yan Shikui put his hands on the table. He leaned forward.

'In 2002, your father's business was dying. The market had shifted. The banks had stopped lending. He was bleeding money faster than he could earn it. I offered to help. I had money. I had connections. I told him: "Let me invest. Let me save the company." He refused.'

'Why?'

'Because he was proud. Because he was stubborn. Because he did not want to owe me anything.' Yan Shikui's voice hardened. 'I told him: "This is not about debt. This is about friendship." He said: "Friendship is exactly why I cannot take your money. If I take it and fail, I will resent you. If I take it and succeed, I will owe you. Either way, we lose the friendship." '

Xu stared at him. The words sounded like something his father would have said. The stubbornness. The pride. The refusal to be saved.

'So he hid the money instead.'

'Yes. He took out a life insurance policy — the only asset the creditors could not touch. He named Michael Chen as the beneficiary. He told Michael to go to London and hold it for you. And he never spoke to me again.'

Yan Shikui picked up his tea. He drank. He set the cup down.

'I tried to find him. I sent letters. I called. He would not answer. He died without speaking to me. And I have spent twenty years wondering if I could have done more.'

Xu looked at the food on the table. The steam had stopped rising. The dishes were growing cold.

'You have been following me,' Xu said. 'You tried to infiltrate my company. You sent Vostok after me.'

'I watched you,' Yan Shikui said. 'I needed to know if you were worth it. If you were the kind of man your father was.'

'And what did you decide?'

Yan Shikui met his eyes. 'You are more than he was. You built something he could not have imagined. You fought battles he would not have known how to fight. But you carry the same wound — the same refusal to let anyone help you.'

Xu said nothing.

'I am not your enemy, Mr. Xu. I am the man your father refused to let help him. And I have spent twenty years wondering if I could have done more.' Yan Shikui reached into his jacket. He pulled out a business card. He slid it across the table. 'If you need me, call this number. It will reach me anywhere in the world.'

Xu looked at the card. No name. Just a number.

'The money moving east,' Xu said. 'Fifty thousand pounds to Moscow. Was it you?'

Yan Shikui shook his head. 'No. I did not move the money. I do not know who did. But I know that someone is trying to destroy the trust — to erase the evidence of where the money came from. If I were you, I would find out who that is before the hearing tomorrow.'

Xu picked up the card. He held it between his fingers.

'Why are you telling me this?'

'Because your father was my friend. And I failed him. I will not fail his son.'

Xu looked at the card. He put it in his pocket.

'Thank you,' he said. The words came out harder than he intended.

Yan Shikui nodded. 'You do not have to forgive me. You do not have to trust me. But I want you to know the truth. Your father was not a thief. He was not a victim. He was a man who made a choice — a choice to protect his family at the cost of his own reputation. And he made that choice because he loved you.'

Xu stood. He walked to the door. He paused.

'Did he ever forgive you?'

Yan Shikui looked at him. His eyes were wet.

'He never had to. There was nothing to forgive. He did not push me away because he was angry. He pushed me away because he knew I would have given everything to save him — and he did not want me to lose everything for his sake. That was the kind of man he was.'

Xu looked at him for a long moment. Then he walked out.

He took out his phone. He called Shen Yan.

'The money moving east — it is not Yan Shikui. It is someone else. Someone who wants the trust to disappear.'

'Who?'

'I don't know yet. But I'm going to find out.'

He hung up. He walked through the crowded streets, past the red lanterns and the gold characters and the fish tanks in the windows. He put his hand in his pocket. He felt the envelope. His father's letter. The wax seal, still intact.

*Not yet*, he thought. *Not yet.*

He walked toward the tube station. The sky was dark. The rain had stopped. The streets were wet, reflecting the lights of the city.

He thought about Yan Shikui. The man he had been chasing for three volumes. The man who was not his enemy. The man who had loved his father and had been pushed away.

He thought about his father — the stubbornness, the pride, the refusal to let anyone help him. The same stubbornness he saw in himself every time he looked in the mirror.

*I have been chasing a man who was never running from me*, he thought. *He was waiting for me to arrive. They were all waiting. Michael Chen. Katherine Shaw. Yan Shikui. They were all holding pieces of a truth that was mine to find.*

He stopped walking. He was standing in front of a shop that sold souvenirs. Postcards. Key rings. Miniature red telephone boxes.

He looked at his reflection in the window. The face of a man who had spent three volumes chasing shadows — and had finally found the man behind them.

*I am not running anymore*, he thought. *Tomorrow, I go back to court. Tomorrow, I fight. But tonight, for the first time in twenty years, I am not running.*

He walked into the tube station. The train took him east, toward his hotel, toward the letter that was waiting to be opened, toward the truth he had been avoiding for twenty-two years.

[~4,025 words — Chapter 10]