Zhijiang's first birthday.
Regulators summoned Fund IV.
Anonymous reports: related-party transactions, rat trading, every dirty word in the book.
That night I held the baby in the study while Fu Juanzhou fed document after document into the fireplace.
Firelight painted his face orange and hungry.
I asked quietly:
"Ah Juan, should we run? I still have an offshore account, enough for me and the kid forever."
He looked up, laughed until his eyes bled red:
"Run? I've been fighting in this city half my life just to run tonight?"
He tossed the last file into the flames, walked over, and knelt in front of me, forehead on my knee.
"Wife, if I go inside, raise him strong.
Tell him his old man was no saint,
but I only ever burned the world for two people:
his mother
and him."
I didn't cry.
Just ran my fingers through his hair.
"Idiot.
If I let you rot alone,
I wouldn't deserve the name Lin Zhi."