Chapter 5 - The Sunday Dinner Audit
The Lin family home in the West District was an old courtyard house that had been squeezed between two concrete apartment towers until its roof tiles were permanently covered in soot. Inside, the air was thick with the smell of braised pork belly, cheap liquor, and the sharp, vinegar-scented steam from the kitchen where Xia’s aunts had been arguing since three o'clock.
Lin Guorong sat at the head of the circular wooden table, his face red from his third glass of Erguotou, his fingers tapping against his gold-plated watch.
"Xia is late," Guorong grunted, spitting a bone onto the floor. "Typical. She spends all her time at that design firm for six thousand yuan a month, and she can't even show up on time when her grandmother cooks. Her father is sitting up there in the hospital wasting money, and she’s out here playing the big shot."
"She’s here, Uncle," Lin Feng said, looking up from his phone. He had been nervous all day; the internal memo at Dami Tech had grown more urgent, with three vice-presidents being recalled from vacation for an "emergency audit."
The courtyard door creaked open.
Xia walked in first, her hair neat, wearing a simple cream wool sweater that she’d bought with her own money three winters ago. But it wasn't Xia that made the room go silent; it was the man who walked behind her.
Ethan Vance had left his Maybach two blocks away. He wore a simple navy blue overcoat over a dark sweater—no labels, no logos—but the way he stepped over the high wooden threshold made the old house look suddenly very small, very fragile, and very dirty.
"Grandmother," Xia said, walking straight to the old woman who sat in the corner with a blanket over her lap. "This is Ethan. My husband."
The entire table stopped chewing. Lin Guorong’s glass froze halfway to his mouth.
"Husband?" Guorong barked, his eyes scanning Ethan from his leather shoes to his clean collar. "What do you mean, husband? You didn't have a wedding. You didn't send the traditional gifts. Who is this guy? What does his family do?"
"I work in operations, Mr. Lin," Ethan said, his voice perfectly polite, yet carrying that low, vibrating frequency that made people in boardrooms sit up straight. He didn't wait to be invited; he pulled out a chair for Xia, waited until she sat, and then took the seat next to her. "I specialize in restructuring underperforming assets."
Lin Feng stared at Ethan’s face. His hand began to shake, his phone slipping an inch through his fingers. No, Feng thought, his heart slamming against his ribs. It’s impossible. The Chairman is in Zurich. The internal memo said he was in Zurich. But the jawline, the cold, charcoal eyes, the small pale scar on the left wrist—it was the man from the top floor of the tower.
"Operations?" Guorong sneered, leaning across the table, his breath heavy with alcohol. "That’s just a fancy word for a clerk. Let me tell you something, young man. This family has deep roots in the logistics sector. My son works at Dami Tech—the biggest firm in the province! If you want to make it in this city, you need connections, not just a clean shirt."
"Is that so?" Ethan said, reaching out to pick up his chopsticks. He handled them with an old, traditional elegance that didn't belong in a West District kitchen. "I’ve looked at the logistics sector in this district, Mr. Lin. The margins are shrinking. Most of the small operators are running on high-interest credit lines from local cooperatives. For example, the workshop on Tenth Street... I believe the interest rate is currently twelve percent per annum, compounding monthly."
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Guorong’s face went instantly from red to a sick, mottled grey. His chopsticks slipped from his hand, clattering against the porcelain rim of his bowl. "How... how do you know about Tenth Street?"
"I’m an operations man, Mr. Lin," Ethan said, taking a small bite of the braised pork as if it were a high-grade truffle. "I look at the numbers before I enter a room. And right now, your numbers are very short."
