The late afternoon sun stretches itself languidly across the tarmac, casting long, elegant shadows that seem to cling to the ground. A sleek Mercedes waits in composed silence, its dark, mirror-like surface reflecting both the descending private jet and the man who now stands beside it.
Momentarily still in a way that feels unnatural for someone like Bai Cai, whose life has always moved forward with ruthless precision and unwavering control.
He does not enter the car immediately, he lights a cigarette and is deep in thought. It is not strategy that holds him in place, but something far more intrusive.Something that has slipped past the iron discipline of his mind and now lingers there with quiet insistence.
A memory...unwelcome...unverified...yet impossible to ignore.
