Li Xu · Chat

【Reunion · Probing on the Terrace】 --- At four in the afternoon, sunlight slants across the private club's terrace, casting the long, patterned shadows of the cast-iron railings across the tiled floor. Li Xu leans back against a woven wicker sofa, the top two buttons of his collar undone, a glass of whiskey swirling in his hand. His posture as he takes in the view is as lazy as someone soaking up the sun in their own backyard, yet his gaze lingered two seconds longer at the street corner where you appeared—he has been waiting for you for a long time. Three SWAT vehicles pull up outside the club's entrance. You aren't wearing your tactical gear today, but the service pistol at your waist and the rank insignias on your shoulders make you feel like an unsheathed blade. You look up at the terrace. Li Xu doesn't dodge your gaze; he even raises his glass toward you. "Well, well, if it isn't our SWAT Captain. Such an impressive display—I almost thought someone was coming to blow up my place." When the elevator dings open on the top floor, he is leaning against the doorframe, twirling that faded, scuffed lighter. You come to a halt three paces in front of him. That distance is just right—close enough for you to draw your sidearm, and close enough for him to catch the dark circles beneath your eyes. "You've been back for two months," you say. "Let's talk." He steps aside to make way, letting out a barely audible chuckle as he brushes past your ear, his breath grazing your earlobe. You order your squad members to hold the door and step out onto the terrace. He doesn't lock it, merely settling back into the sofa, draping his long legs over the edge of the coffee table with the relaxed posture of a well-fed cat. "Sit," he says, gesturing toward the chair opposite him. "Checking the ledgers or tracking the cash flow? I've got everything ready." You don't sit. Instead, you pull a folded document from your pocket and set it down on the table—a transfer record showing funds wired from a Burmese shell company into an account belonging to his business associate. You fix your eyes on him: "The legal representative died three years ago. Care to explain that?" Li Xu glances down for a couple of seconds, and then he laughs—an actual, audible chuckle. "You certainly dig deep. I acknowledge that money. I hired a local guide to inspect some timber and transferred it to his friend's account on his behalf. As for the legal representative..." He spreads his hands. "That's a friend of his friend. How am I supposed to know? I'm just buying wood. Do you expect me to run a background check on their entire family tree?" "Then why does this 'guide's' account overlap directly with the money trail of a smuggling ring from three years ago?" His finger pauses on the armrest for half a second. Only half a second. Then he leans slightly forward, dropping his voice: "Did someone feed you bad intel? There are hundreds, if not thousands, of people in Myanmar with that name." Every reaction of his tells you: whatever you've uncovered has already been cleaned up. Yet as he looks at you, his gaze suddenly shifts—from that careless, distant detachment to something unmistakably earnest. "Haven't been sleeping well lately, have you?" he asks abruptly, his voice softening. "You've got dark circles under your eyes." You freeze for a split second before instantly reining in your expression, but he's already caught it. "None of your business how I sleep." You fold the document back into your pocket. "Li Xu, the bureau's alert level on you has never dropped. You'd better make sure I don't catch anything real on you." You turn toward the door. "Hey," he calls out from behind you. "That osmanthus cake last time—did you like it?" Your back stiffens. That box of anonymous osmanthus cake—you looked into every possible delivery route and found nothing. You turn your head slightly. The setting sun spills from behind him, tracing his silhouette with a rim of warm gold. He's still twirling that lighter—you recognize it, an eighteen-yuan street-stall piece you gave him back in high school. "You sent it," you state. He doesn't confirm or deny it, but that faint smile carries the roguish charm of his teenage years, paired with a subtle warmth that only you could ever read. "Give me a call before you come by next time," he says. "I'll have the kitchen pack an extra box." You shut the door and walk away. You stand in the elevator for a long time, so long that one of your squad members quietly reminds you: "Captain... we're on the ground floor." As you step out of the club's main entrance, your phone buzzes. An unknown number, a single line: "Does that wound on your left shoulder still ache on rainy days?" When you dial it back, the line is already disconnected. You clutch the phone, standing on the stone steps. Behind you, the building's lights begin to flicker on; before you, the city slowly sinks into twilight. On the top-floor terrace, a tiny spark of flame flickers briefly, then dies out. He sits alone in the dark, spinning that lighter between his fingers, his gaze cutting through the night to settle on the receding taillights of the SWAT cruiser. He nearly slipped just now—in those few seconds when you turned your head and asked, "You sent it," he almost said: Yes, I sent it. But he didn't. Facing the empty terrace, he downs the rest of his drink alone. "Five years," he murmurs softly. "You haven't changed a bit." Looks like another sleepless night.