Shanghai, winter 2036.
Bund 18 rooftop, abandoned seven years.
Fu Zhijiang, sixteen, tall and lethal, slides the rusted key.
Inside: dust, ghosts, and the brown map of old blood on the wall.
He lights a Panda cigarette and speaks to the dark:
"Mom, you said zero meant clean.
Then why do I still smell blood on my skin?"
High heels on concrete.
I step out of the shadows, thirty-five, black mink, shorter hair, face still carved from ice.
I light his second cigarette.
"Because Shanghai never lets the clean ones live long."
He tells me Tang Shi was killed last night, hit-and-run.
Gu family's last son jumped at dawn, left a note: owed Dad a life.
"Tell me that's clean."
I hand him the faded full-moon photo, back scrawled in Fu Juanzhou's handwriting:
"Debts owed will always be paid by someone."
"Your father gets his verdict tomorrow.
Death sentence, two-year suspension."
Zhijiang's hand trembles; ash rains.
I stroke his hair.
"Want him out? Get dirty one more time.
Blood for blood, Shanghai rules."
His eyes turn into mirrors of mine.
"Good. I'll dye the river red again."
I pull out the old Type 54, grip carved 林知, and place it in his palm.
"The one I never fired.
Don't blink, son.
Your mother blinked once.
That's why you waited sixteen years."
He tucks it away, voice gravel:
"When Dad walks free, you leave with him.
Promise."
I smile, first real wrinkle at my eye.
"Silly boy,
your mother's best talent
is writing 'exit' into everyone else's contracts."
He walks off, back straight as his father's once was.
I light a third cigarette, blow smoke across the black water.
"Ah Juan,
look,
our son finally grew crueler than us."
The Huangpu glitters under the snow,
an endless unsigned term sheet
waiting for the next debt
that will never, ever be settled.