EPThttp://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=403192
+ Show Spoiler [Author note] +
I made a change to the 2001 plot--Zhang Shenghan has now put Gu Zhenlun in a coma (as opposed to simply biting his nose off.)
Sometime in 2001
Zhang Shenghan woke up in what should have been a nuptial bed. He rubbed his eyes, saw Yilin: a nude shape blotted across velvet curtains, sodium streetlamps lighting up midnight clouds heavy with polluted snow, the combined tangerine glow illuminating her strong, wet, thighs.
"Yixian said this town reminded him of hell."
Shenghan smelled smoke, watched her borrow a long drag from one of his Zhonghua filters. The glowing tip traced an arc over a perfect, porcelain, breast. "Most people have never been there," he said.
Yilin looked at him. He could hear, for the first time, a smile in her voice. "And I suppose you have?"
Shenghan said nothing, then stood and walked to the window, circling a hand around her waist. Yilin let out a shivering noise and leaned forward, as if she wanted to melt back onto him. He leaned down close to her ear.
"I never left," he whispered. "And I get paid to drag others with me. But I'm going to take you along for free."
Her response was restrained. "Somehow, I don't think that's much of a favor."
His wasn't. "It is, because I've finally found a way out."
"And what's that?"
"One of these days, I'm going to do the right thing."
He drove back home, the radio going, the passenger seat empty. Shenghan showered, went to sleep, spent the remainder of the night playing out scenes: Zhenlun fucking his ex-fiance on a hospital bed, Baosen crushed with double-entry bookkeeping, Yilin and himself waltzing a nude Matilda across an endless underground lake while being chased by alphanumeric codes.
His pager buzzed. Wang Baosen, calling in a tardy acolyte.
An hour on the new expressway to headquarters--Shenghan parked behind a weatherbeaten blue truck missing a taillight and a bumper. The lobby girl waved him through with a passing look of contempt. Up stairs, then to the right--Baosen's door was closed, which meant someone was already meeting with him. Shenghan was about to wait in his own office when his pager buzzed again. Squaring his shoulders, he twisted the knob, inching it open, and saw a bundle of bandages in a wheelchair hooked to an IV drip marked 'morphine'. The man in it was sober, but only just. Baosen motioned for Shenghan to close the door, so he did. Then he moved a seat next to the disabled man.
It was Gu Zhenlun.
"So glad for you to join us today," Baosen said, pouring out a cup of tea. "Even though our dear comrade Gu remains unable to speak, he expressed his wishes--in writing--to join us today. We have two very important matters to discuss, quite important indeed."
Shenghan sat, caught between confusion, pity, and a curious sense of satisfaction.
"First, the good news: this morning, Xuan Yifeng just began paying off his payables balance. Hualong Bank called this morning. We got a certified check for forty million yuan."
Shenghan glanced at Zhenlun, who was sitting stone-still. Shenghan couldn't tell whether that was from the morphine or some deeper reserve of courage.
"I'll skip the boilerplate about the market strength of Jia Li Group causing our counterparty to pay up. Shenghan, since Zhenlun is still slightly--" Baosen reached for a word "--ill, could you try to get in touch with Xuan, and see when he would like to pay the remainder of his bill?"
Shenghan nodded.
"The other point is less pressing. As you may have heard already, the relevant public safety organs have just informed us that the recent incident in Tucheng may have been caused by human hands. In other words, some son-of-a-bitch might have blown up that particular plant."
Baosen paused, let the news sink in.
"Anyhow, I just wanted to let you know that if--and I mean if and only if--this development proves true, we should consider it proof that our safety measures remain sufficient to avoid industrial accidents, and we should cancel plans to slow down production at our new Zhengzhou facilities."
Shenghan heard Yilin whispering back into his ear.
An hour to the bank--Shenghan parked behind an oddly familiar blue truck. He stepped into the lobby, threading past a few tired guards packing up crates of cash. At the service window, Shenghan flashed identification, flipping the teller from cold indifference to fawning admiration.
"How can I help you?" Her voice reminded Shenghan of one of Old Yao's girls.
"I'm here to take a record of funding transactions involving the following six firms and Jia Li Group." He tore a scrap of paper from a small notepad, scribbled on it, and handed it through the glass partition.
The teller took one casual look at the paper before chuckling. "Oh, you mean the large transaction that someone faxed in this morning. Heard it helped you guys out quite a bit." She hit a key; from somewhere behind her, a dying printer began screeching out pages.
Shenghan sat on a hard plastic seat that seemed injection-molded to fit someone fifty pounds lighter than he was. The transfer records were two pages long and from a total of six companies run by one Xuan Yifeng. The handwriting on the signature looked familiar, feminine, but he couldn't place it.
Then it him. Xuan Yifeng. Feng Yixian. Xuan Yi Feng, Feng Yi Xian. A signature on a clipboard. A pen writing a signature on a clipboard. A hand holding the pen, and a voice, a whisper, asking if he really meant what he said.
Shenghan scraped the back of the truck on his way out, gave the guards loading it the finger, and sped off.
Read part 21 here:
http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?id=403852
