Chapter 24: Smoke in the Hallways
The air inside the administrative building felt heavier than usual.
Chen Rui stood by the office window, watching workers return from lunch, each carrying their blue factory badge clipped to their breast pocket.
Any one of them could be the leak.
Any one of them could be working for his enemies.
The Whisper Network
That afternoon, Xu Lian delivered a flash drive to Li Wei.
"I compiled all outgoing email traffic from the last three months," she said. "Mostly clean, but a few strange patterns."
Li Wei opened a folder labeled "Access Outside Work Hours."
Three names popped up.
One was a night shift supervisor.
One was a clerk in procurement.
And one… was Deng Kai, a mid-level operations assistant with access to production timelines, logistics manifests, and vendor agreements.
Li Wei's heart sank. Deng had seemed harmless. Always the first to clock in, always smiling, rarely speaking up.
Too quiet. Too smooth.
That evening, Chen Rui called a meeting in the upstairs office.
Only four people were present: Chen Rui, Li Wei, Xu Lian, and Deng Kai.
"Deng," Chen Rui said calmly, "we've noticed a few inconsistencies in our records. Would you be willing to walk us through your access logs?"
Deng looked up, startled. "Me? I—I just compile reports."
Li Wei placed a few printed emails on the desk. They had timestamps. External addresses. File attachments. One of them even contained a production delay summary sent the night before a sabotage incident.
Deng froze.
Chen Rui didn't blink.
"Who are you working for?"
There was a long pause.
Finally, Deng whispered, "…Liang Zemin."
The name hit the room like cold steel.
Haotian Motors. A local rival with money, connections—and no hesitation about playing dirty.
Loose Ends
They didn't call the police. Not yet.
Deng was suspended indefinitely, escorted out of the building. The guards were told not to let him near the premises again.
"We can't afford a public scandal," Chen Rui said. "Not during this inspection window."
But in private, the real conversation was darker.
Li Wei asked, "Do you want to retaliate?"
Chen Rui didn't answer right away. He walked to the window again, watching the sun slip behind the smokestacks.
"We're not there yet," he said. "But we will be."
The Old Man's Warning
That night, Chen Rui visited his father's apartment. Chen Jianhua, once the factory's general manager during its state-owned days, sat in the courtyard smoking under a dim bulb.
"You look tired," the old man said, without looking up.
Chen Rui sat down. "There's a snake in the factory. We found him."
"Just one?"
Chen Rui went quiet.
His father took a drag of the cigarette, then said:
"A factory isn't made of steel or gears, Rui. It's made of people. And people break in more ways than one. Especially when they don't feel ownership."
"You think the mole did it for money?"
"I think he did it because he didn't believe in you," Chen Jianhua said. "Fear is useful. But belief? That's power."
Chen Rui said nothing for a long while.
Then he stood up and nodded.
"I won't let this place fall."
"You'd better not," his father said, flicking the cigarette into the ashtray. "I gave it to you already half-dead. You're the one keeping the corpse warm."