EPThttp://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?id=408029
Sometime in 2001
This time, Shenghan stopped to knock.
Xia Yilin's hand was still delicate, but the fingers no longer trembled - they no longer needed to. They puppeted Shenghan into a couch overlooking a brand new mahogany coffee table. On it was a single black notebook.
"I guess you never believed me."
Shenghan's statement failed to put her off balance. Yilin measured out a thin smile.
"Not all the way, no - but I do believe you'll do the right thing. That's why I brought you here."
"I came here on my own."
Yilin put a black heel on the table, ground it into the mahogany. "You're not that stupid, are you?"
Shenghan rolled his shoulders and sighed. "I guess you know why I'm here."
Yilin's put on a mask of mock innocence. "And what's that?"
"To look for Xuan Yifeng."
"You know, I just figured it out, too." Yilin moved to the safe on the wall behind the couch, closed the brushed steel door with a soft squeak.
"He never told you?"
"Would you believe me if I said he didn't?" Shenghan averted his gaze. Yilin picked up the notebook, propped it atop steady fingers, an offering. "I found this in the safe. You deserve it."
Shenghan flipped pages; the clock ticked off ten minutes above them; long fingers traced lines, ticked off traces of bank accounts. "Christ, these ledger entries are huge - that's 40 million in the first row - and they go back years. All the way to '94."
"I know. And that's when I knew you couldn't have started this."
"You read my employment history?"
"Everyone did." She produced a newspaper clipping from somewhere beneath her black sweater. "Hometown hero, Nangang District valedictorian, Zhang Shenghan, outwitted those American--"
Shenghan recoiled as if he'd been slapped.
"Not so fun when I'm the one digging into your past, is it?"
"I'm- I'm sorry."
"It doesn't look like you're used to saying that."
"I should be, shouldn't I?"
"Should you? How deep are you into this, Zhang fuzong?"
Shenghan leaned back against the couch. "I don't know. None of this makes any sense. Your fiance worked for Gu Zhenlun, right? Why would he set up throwaway bank accounts - whole shell companies, in fact - across five Chinese provinces and Hong Kong to move money into Jia Li Group?"
"I could care less, since he's not my fiance anymore."
"Huh?"
"I brought you here so we could cash out his bank accounts and leave."
"What? I thought - "
Yilin smiled with a look of placid sadness. "I never did tell you what I figured out, did I?"
"I guess not."
"The combination to his safe was Zhengzhou girl's birthday."
Shenghan blinked. "You're awfully petty."
"No, I'm just learning from you."
"Then let me teach you something."
Neither the guard nor the nurse were on duty; Doctor Zhao softly snored into the back of her blueblood hands. Shenghan leaned forward, whispered into her ear. No response. Shrugging, he eased the key from her white coat, treaded towards the door marked Patient Room No. 1. Yilin followed him into the room, their footsteps falling in sync.
The room was decorated in the style of a Western hospital; soft blue wallpaper, potted azalea. Yilin's eyes fixated upon a bed with a single white-haired man, his chest softly rising and falling in rhythm with the chirp of a heartbeat monitor. His face looked familiar, but she could not place it - until Shenghan coughed, and she glanced over in a quick double-take.
"Is this..."
Shenghan nodded.
Yilin stammered for a moment. "I'm sorry. I really am."
"We're even now, so don't be."
A beat. Shenghan broke the silence, began rambling.
"He was... he was so proud when we met in Boston. We had dinner, Greek salad on this rooftop garden... he said he wanted me to stay abroad forever. Then, two weeks later, the stroke hit... and..."
From behind, Yilin put a hand on Shenghan's shoulder. He ignored it, instead picking up a bottle of pills.
"You see this? This bottle costs 3000 RMB." He set it down, picked up another one. "This one comes from Hong Kong - it's 5000 every week. This one, Japan - 10000 a week. Switzerland, 25000. This is what my Harvard MBA pays for, I guess."
Shenghan stepped forwards, took his father's hand in his own.
"At first, he was in a coma, but when he woke up, he thought he was still with me, abroad."
"And you've been lying to him ever since?"
Shenghan nodded, then swallowed, a pair of teardrops rolling down his weatherbeaten cheeks. "I even got them to redecorate this place - he never noticed, not with the way the stroke wiped out half his brain."
"Why can't you just take him with you?"
Shenghan shook his head, hard. "A trans-Pacific flight would kill him. And given your own parents, you should know how hard it is to find a decent hospital in our beloved country. If I quit, Baosen kicks him out of here. He doesn't have to say it, but I know."
Yilin turned him around, knocking over the tray of pills in the process. She held him close, felt tears on her forehead. "I'll pay the cash back to your company."
Shenghan smiled weakly, kissed her, then bent to gather up the contents of the tray. Suddenly, he froze. Yilin nudged him.
"What?"
"Do you have - do you have the accident log I gave you that night we - that night we, uh -"
Yilin smirked, pulled it out of her purse. Zhang Shenghan held one of the prescription bottles up close, trying to read the minuscule font under the flourescent lighting. He spoke again. "Get Doctor Zhao."
"Why?"
"Just get her."
Shenghan's face had turned friendly by the time Yilin walked the doctor into the room, but his eyes had hardened into little chips of ice.
"Is something the matter, Shenghan? Is your father alright?"
"Yes, yes, he's fine, thank you. Doctor, tell me - what happens if you mix this ephedrine with hydrochloric acid and... and..."
Yilin finished his sentence. "Red phosphate."
"Yeah, what happens?"
Doctor Zhao showed a puzzled smile. "Nothing. I mean, you'd need iodine for that, and even so, you'd probably wind up dead."
"For what? And why would it kill you?"
The doctor looked nervous. "Ice. Crystalline Methamphetamine. If the batch process doesn't kill you, the government will. Why do you ask?"
