The top trending topic had a scarlet "Exploding" tag beside it. Clicking on it brought up a video less than fifteen seconds long.
In the video, his younger brother, who had been sent to the countryside to reform, was lying on a stranger's back, his eyes curved with laughter and a wild fruit held between his teeth, its juice staining his lips red.
The man supported the bends of his knees as he walked steadily along a field ridge. The black T-shirt on his back was soaked with sweat and clung to his body, his profile tracing a cold, hard outline beneath the setting sun.
Pink hearts in the scrolling comments covered the entire screen.
The secretary stood beside him, wiping the sweat from his temples again and again.
He had been debating whether to show President Jiang this trending topic for days, and in the end, he had made his decision.
Rather than let President Jiang discover a high-definition picture of his own younger brother riding on someone else's back in a pop-up ad on a financial news site, he might as well hand it over himself. At least he might be left with an intact corpse.
Jiang Huaixiao watched the video over and over.
On the third viewing, he pressed pause, freezing the image at the moment Jiang Xun reached for the fruit on a tree, his fingers fair and slender, their tips glistening with dew from the mountains.
Jiang Huaixiao handed the phone back to his secretary.
"Book a flight."
The secretary froze. "President Jiang, the wrap-up work here-"
"Cancel it."
Jiang Huaixiao turned toward the elevators, the hem of his black shirt swaying slightly with his steps.
As he passed a trash can, he tossed in the cup of ice water he had taken only one