Chen Zui called at one-thirteen in the morning.
Lin Wan had already been awake, seated on the floor beside her bed with Zhao Ming's notes spread around her and Xu Yifan's name written three times in the margin of a legal pad.
The screen lit up.
Unknown number.
She knew before answering.
"You ruined my life," Chen Zui said.
No greeting.
No slur this time.
Which meant he had not been drinking long, only enough to make anger louder than caution.
Lin Wan leaned back against the side of the bed.
"Interesting," she said. "You seem to remember my number."
"You think this is funny?"
"No."
"Then stop acting like you've won."
The word hung in the room like a bad smell.
Lin Wan kept her voice even.
"You called me."
There was a sharp exhale at the other end.
In the background she could hear music, distant and ugly, and the muffled sound of male voices trying not to sound nervous.
He wasn't alone.
Good.
That made him weaker, not stronger.
"You think a recording changes anything?" Chen Zui asked.
"It changed enough for you to be talking to me after midnight."
"Delete it."
"No."
"Do you know what you're doing?"
"Yes."
"You don't."
His voice rose.
Then it dropped again, as if someone near him had signaled for him to lower it.
Lin Wan smiled without meaning to.
"Is someone helping you with this conversation?" she asked.
Silence.
Then: "You should be very careful."
"I've heard that before."
"My brother won't let this go."
"No," Lin Wan said. "Your brother won't let you keep making it worse."
The silence that followed was immediate and complete.
There.
She had stepped on the right nerve again.
When Chen Zui spoke, his voice had gone rough.
"You think you know something about him."
"No," she said. "I know enough about you."
He cursed under his breath.
Then, more quickly, "What do you want?"
Lin Wan looked down at the papers around her. Xu Yifan. Han Li. Internal designation. External review.
Pressure points.
"What were you told to remember from that night?" she asked.
He laughed once.
A dry, ugly sound.
"You think I'm going to help you?"
"No. I think you're going to panic."
He inhaled sharply.
"And when you do," she continued, "you'll either call me again or do something stupid enough for your brother to clean up in public."
"You crazy bitch."
"That's twice now," Lin Wan said. "You should expand your vocabulary."
He hung up.
She set the phone down and waited.
Three minutes later, another call came in.
This one was from Chen Jin.
Of course.
"You need to stop answering him," he said.
Lin Wan looked at the ceiling.
"You need to stop letting him use phones."
"I'm serious."
"So am I."
"He is unstable tonight."
"Then that sounds like your problem."
"It becomes yours the second he stops acting alone."
Lin Wan sat up.
There was no alarm in his voice. That was what made the sentence sharper.
"What does that mean?"
"It means my brother is not disciplined enough to stay frightened in private."
She was quiet.
Rain tapped faintly against the window.
In the pause, she could almost hear the machinery around him—people moving, calls being made, someone probably already out looking for Chen Zui before he embarrassed the family in a way that could not be repaired with paperwork.
"You're cleaning up after him again," she said.
"Yes."
"How often do you do that?"
Chen Jin did not answer.
That answer was large enough on its own.
Lin Wan lowered her eyes to the legal pad on the floor.
"What is he to you?" she asked.
The question came out before she decided to say it.
On the other end, the silence changed.
Not longer.
Harder.
"My brother," he said at last.
"That isn't what I asked."
"No," he said. "It's the answer you get."
That should have ended it.
Instead, Lin Wan found herself saying, "He doesn't sound afraid of you."
"He is."
"Not enough."
This time when Chen Jin spoke, his voice was colder.
"That is exactly the problem."
The line stayed open.
Lin Wan did not know why neither of them hung up.
Maybe because anger was easier to end than this.
This strange, sharp-edged moment of mutual clarity, where both of them were looking at the same weakness from opposite sides of the same family.
At last, Chen Jin said, "If he contacts you again tonight, don't respond."
"Why?"
"Because he's looking for an audience now."
"And if I give him one?"
"You won't control what he does with it."
There was no point arguing.
She knew he was right.
That annoyed her enough to keep her silent.
When she did not answer, Chen Jin went on.
"I'll deal with him."
Lin Wan stared at the dark window.
"What does that mean in your family?" she asked.
Another silence.
Then: "It means he won't call you again tonight."
The line went dead.
At two-oh-six, a message came through from the same unknown number Chen Zui had used.
Only three words.
Forget my number.
Lin Wan looked at it for a long time.
Then deleted nothing.
She archived the screenshot, backed it up, and wrote one new note across the top of Zhao Ming's page.
Chen Zui is not the wall. He is the break in it.
The next morning, Zhou Yu called while Lin Wan was leaving a convenience store with bad coffee and a pack of gum she did not want.
"You look dead," Zhou Yu said by way of greeting.
"You can see me?"
"No. You just sound like someone who forgot how sleeping works."
"That's fair."
Zhou Yu was quiet for a second.
Then: "Chen Zui caused trouble at Lattice last night."
Lin Wan stopped on the sidewalk.
"What kind of trouble?"
"The kind that gets covered before dawn if the family has money."
"Tell me."
"I don't have all of it," Zhou Yu said. "But he threw a glass. Hit someone in the shoulder. Started shouting about betrayal and women recording him. Security removed him. Two men came after. Not club security."
Lin Wan's grip tightened on the coffee cup.
"Your friend heard this?"
"My friend saw it."
Of course, he had.
Chen Jin had been right.
"Are you still there?" Zhou Yu asked.
"Yes."
"Lin Wan."
"What?"
"Whatever game you think you're playing, his brother is playing a bigger one."
Lin Wan looked out over the street, over the buses and wet pavement and people walking with their collars up against the wind.
"I know," she said.
That was the problem.
She knew.
And she was still walking deeper into it anyway.