When Xu Zhihan woke, it was already the next morning.
He opened his eyes and first saw Lu Wenchuan sitting beside him, leafing through documents.
A stack of files sat on the table beside a cup of cold coffee. There were faint shadows under Lu Wenchuan's eyes. He looked as though he had stayed up all night again.
Xu Zhihan watched him for two seconds.
"Don't you have somewhere to sleep?"
Lu Wenchuan looked up and smiled. "Trying to kick me out the moment you wake up?"
Xu Zhihan pushed himself upright. The golden mark on his palm was still hot, but it was a little more stable than it had been last night.
"You're an eyesore."
Lu Wenchuan handed him a file. "This eyesore found something."
Xu Zhihan took it.
The first page was an old contract for underground construction at the Xu Family Old Residence.
It had been signed fifteen years ago.
The stated purpose of the work was to renovate the old residence.
But among the actual notes was an item someone had crossed out in black ink. After the Special Investigation Bureau's Technical Team restored it, a few words emerged.
Reinforcement of the underground gate chamber.
There were two signatories.
Xu Chengyuan.
Zhou Qiliang.
When Xu Zhihan saw Xu Chengyuan's name, his expression barely changed. Only his fingertips paused on the paper.
"This contract was recovered from the remaining archives after the ground beneath the old residence collapsed," Lu Wenchuan said. "Xu Chengyuan didn't just know about it back then. He was involved in building the underground gate chamber."
Xu Zhihan turned to the second page.
It was a payment record.
A large sum had been transferred from a Xu Holdings account to a shell company. They had been unable to identify who actually controlled the