Lin Feng stepped out of the building and into the afternoon sun.

  He checked the time.

  The whole thing had taken less than an hour.

  He pulled out his phone and added the first quarterly payment to his mental to-do list. Twenty thousand yuan. He would wire it tonight.

  One more thing off his plate.

  He hailed a taxi and got in.

  As the car pulled away from the curb, he looked out the window at the city passing by.

  He pulled out a small piece of paper from his pocket. On it was an address. A different kind of address.

  He leaned forward.

  "Driver, could you take me here?"

  He held up the paper.

  The driver glanced at it in the rearview mirror.

  "That area?"

  "Is there a problem?"

  The driver shrugged.

  "No problem. Just not many people go there on purpose."

  Lin Feng leaned back.

  "I have some business there."

  …

  The taxi dropped him off in front of an older commercial building on a narrow street.

  The contrast from the glass tower he had just left was immediate. The facade was weathered, the signage faded. A few small businesses occupied the ground floor - a print shop, a locksmith, a place selling phone cases.

  Lin Feng checked the paper again.

  He walked inside and took the elevator - a rattling thing that made concerning noises - to the fourth floor.

  The hallway was dim. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, one of them flickering intermittently.

  He found Room 402 at the end of the corridor.

  The door was plain. No logo, no decoration. Just a small nameplate.

  Mingshi Information Consulting Co., Ltd.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  He knocked.

  A few seconds passed.

  The door opened.

  A man stood in the doorway. He was stocky, mid-forties, with a weathered face and sharp eyes that immediately assessed Lin Feng from head to toe.

  He wore a simple dark jacket over a collared shirt with no tie.

  "Are you the one who called?" the man asked.

  "Yes."

  The man studied him for another moment, then stepped aside.

  "Come in."

  …

  The office was small but organized. A desk, two chairs, a filing cabinet, and a water dispenser. No framed certificates on the walls. No fancy decorations. Just a map of Zhejiang Province pinned to one wall and a whiteboard with scribbled notes on the other.

  A laptop sat open on the desk beside a half-finished cup of tea.

  The man gestured to the chair across from him and sat down behind his desk.

  "I'm Lao Hu," he said simply. "You said you had a job."

  Lin Feng sat down.

  "I need information on a workplace incident."

  Lao Hu didn't react. He just waited.

  "A worker was injured at his job. The employer claims it wasn't their fault. The family believes it was negligence - a safety violation that management knew about and ignored."

  "When did it happen?"

  "Within the last couple of years."

  "Where?"

  Lin Feng told him the general area.

  Lao Hu nodded slowly.

  "What do you need from me?"

  "Everything," Lin Feng said. "The circumstances of the injury. Whether the employer had a history of safety violations. Whether they had proper insurance. Whether they pressured the family afterward - settlements, threats, anything."

  He paused.

  "And I need to know if anyone else was hurt under similar conditions."

  Lao Hu leaned back and crossed his arms.

  "That's not a small job."

  "I know."

  "It'll require on-site visits. Talking to former employees. Pulling records - or finding people who have access to records."

  "I understand."

  Lao Hu looked at him.

  "How old are you, kid?"

  "Old enough to pay."

  A flicker of amusement crossed Lao Hu's face. It vanished just as quickly.

  "Fair enough."

  He reached into a drawer and pulled out a single sheet of paper - a basic service agreement. Brief, to the point, and deliberately vague in its description of services.

  "Standard terms," he said, sliding it across. "Fifty percent upfront, fifty on delivery. Discretion guaranteed. You don't ask how I get the information. I don't ask why you want it."

  Lin Feng read it over.

  It was short. A few clauses. The kind of document that existed more as a formality than anything else.

  He signed it.

  Lao Hu took the signed copy and placed it in his filing cabinet without looking at it again.

  Then he settled back into his chair and laced his fingers together.

  "So. Let me hear the details."

  Lin Feng reached into his bag.

  He pulled out a thin envelope and set it on the desk.

  Lao Hu glanced at it.

  He picked it up, opened it, and slid the contents out.

  A few pages. Names. Dates. An address. What little Lin Feng had managed to piece together about the incident on his own.

  Lao Hu read through them slowly. His expression didn't change much, his eyes moving with the focus of someone who had done this many times before.

  When he finished, he looked up at Lin Feng.

  Their eyes met.

  Lin Feng reached into his bag again.

  He set a second envelope on the desk.

  This one was thicker.

  Lao Hu glanced down at it. He didn't open it. He didn't need to.

  A slow smile spread across his face.

  He extended his hand.

  "Consider it done."

  Lin Feng shook it firmly.

  …

  Lin Feng stepped out of the building and back onto the narrow street.

  He noticed it was getting late.

  He found a main road and hailed another taxi.

  As he settled into the back seat, he closed his eyes.

  If this worked out, it would help clear Su Yue’s concern and help her focus all her attention on printing money for him. If it didn't work out, well, he tried.

  He didn't tell her specifically because it might not work out. If he raised her hopes up and it didn't work out, it could crash even lower.

  To be honest, it was best if she didn't involve herself with pursuing justice, she could earn money and have her father treated. But she didn't seem like the kind to let herself be bullied. He sighed, so he was going to get ahead of her before she complicates things after getting a little money.

  Now he just had to wait.