The cigarette smoke hung in the air like a dirty fog, thick and suffocating. The sll of spilled beer and sweat mingled, clinging to the walls and the air itself. The room was a ss. Mahjong tiles were scattered across a worn green table, and empty beer bottles lay on the floor, so already knocked over.
I ignored the stares from the people in the room and spotted an empty wooden stool near the main table. I walked over, pulled it out with a rough scrape against the floor, and sat down.
Beside , a man with a face full of dragon tattoos and silver piercings turned to look at . I didn’t et his gaze; I just stared straight ahead at the fat man on the sofa. He had to be the boss. Wang Lei.
This guy? I thought. The one who’s going to connect to Apple? I doubted it. He looked more like a low-level thug from an old Hong Kong movie.
"Hey!"
The voice ca from the fat man, loud and coarse. He pointed at with his cigar. I didn’t understand the language, but I understood the tone.
Behind , I felt the air turn cold. I didn’t need to turn to know it was Belial. I reached back, my fingers finding the stiff fabric of his suit jacket and giving it a slight, almost imperceptible tug. I kept my eyes on the fat man.
I felt the pull stop. The air returned to normal.
Belial stepped forward. He said nothing, just placed a thick, brown envelope on the table in front of Wang Lei.
Wang Lei’s eyes followed the envelope, his mocking smile faltering slightly.
I felt sothing touch my arm.
I turned. It was the tattooed man beside , offering a foaming glass of beer, its color a murky yellow. He smiled—a strange, genuine smile that didn’t fit his face at all.
I shook my head slowly.
"Don’t drink," I said in English.
He looked confused for a mont, then nodded. He put the glass back down. Then, he picked sothing up from a small plate between us—a soft, white stead bun—and offered it to .
I looked at the bun, then at him. He just smiled again, pushing the plate closer.
I hesitated, then took it. The bun was warm and slightly sticky in my fingers.
I took a bite.
Sweet, but not too sweet. There was a filling inside—savory minced at with a hint of spice. The bun itself was so soft it almost lted in my mouth.
I hadn’t realized I was hungry.
I finished it in three bites.
The tattooed man let out a gruff little laugh. I felt my cheeks get a little hot.
"Alright! Alright!" Wang Lei’s voice bood again, much friendlier this ti. He was opening the envelope, his fat fingers quickly counting the stacks of dollar bills inside. His eyes glittered in the dim light.
He looked up at Belial. "Please, have a seat, Mr. ...?"
"Belial," Belial answered.
Wang Lei nodded. "Mr. Belial. Welco. Forgive my less-than-warm reception earlier." He waved a dismissive hand at his n.
"Just a small misunderstanding."
He looked at again. "And your friend here?"
I didn’t answer. I just looked at him. I wondered if this man could really be trusted. I still doubted it. Very much.
I stood up, placed a hand on my chest, and bowed my head slightly, a gesture I’d learned from the movies.
"Allow to introduce myself."
Suddenly, the air in the room felt heavy. Cold. I could see my own breath, forming a thin cloud of vapor in front of my face. It wasn’t the cold of a broken heater; this was a different kind of cold. A cold that felt... sharp.
In the corner of the room, a man shivered, rubbing his arms. He said sothing in Mandarin, complaining. Wang Lei snapped at him.
I glanced back slightly. Belial stood as still as a statue, his gaze forward and empty. But I knew.
I didn’t say anything. I just turned my attention back to Wang Lei and waited.
A few seconds passed. An unnatural silence.
Then, as quickly as it ca, the cold was gone. The stuffy warmth of the room returned.
The tattooed man next to —Feng Ying, I think that was his na—who had been about to get up to check the heater, sat back down, confused.
"Heater’s acting strange today," Wang Lei muttered, more to himself than to us. He took a slightly deeper drag of his cigar than before.
I looked back at Wang Lei.
"I am Arata Leon," I said in English. I pointed to Belial.
"He works for ." I paused.
"I hear you can help us acquire goods in China."
I sat back down. The wooden stool creaked softly.
Wang Lei studied for a long ti, his small eyes almost lost in the folds of his face. He puffed on his cigar.
"So you’re the boss."
He leaned back, his stomach bulging between his shirt buttons. "You’ve co to the right place, Mr. Leon. In Shanghai, there’s only one na you can rely on for this sort of thing."
He pointed to himself with the tip of his cigar.
"Mine."
He paused, letting the silence hang between us, broken only by the slow tick... tick... tick of the ceiling fan overhead.
"Of course," he continued, a thin, asured smile on his lips, "there’s a fee."
I nodded. I had expected as much.
"You’re just a middleman?" I asked.
Wang Lei laughed, a rough, heavy sound. "Everyone’s a middleman, Mr. Leon. The question is, how close are you to the source."
He leaned forward, resting his fat elbows on the stained mahjong table.
"We take seven percent. No more." He held up seven fingers. "That’s still much cheaper than what you’ll find anywhere else. Much cheaper."
I didn’t answer. I just watched him, trying to read sothing in his eyes. But all I saw was my own reflection in his dark pupils.
"II?"
The voice ca from Belial. I was a little surprised.
Wang Lei fell silent. His smile faded slightly. He took another puff of his cigar.
"Blank," he said finally. "The goods we get are ’clean.’ Before they’re registered. It’s safer that way. For everyone."
I could sense a faint admiration from Belial. Not disappointnt. That was odd.
I leaned toward him, bringing my lips close to his ear.
"What does that an?" I whispered, very softly. I didn’t know what ’registered’ ant, but from Belial’s reaction, it was important.
Belial didn’t turn. His eyes were still fixed on Wang Lei, but I could hear his very quiet, almost hissing reply.
"From what I’ve recently learned of this world, My Lord," Belial began, his voice cold and analytical, "each of these communication devices has a unique identification number called an II. Think of it as its digital soul. Normally, when this device is sold legally in one country and taken to another, that ’soul’ carries a trace of its origin. The destination country’s governnt can detect this trace and demand import taxes. If they’re not paid, they can order the ’annihilation’ of that digital soul, rendering the device useless."
He paused, letting process. I nodded slightly.
"However," Belial continued, his tone now holding a cold respect for Wang Lei,
"’blank’ ans sothing different. It doesn’t an it has no soul. Quite the opposite. Its digital soul is still ’virgin.’ It has never been recorded in any database in the world. They steal it from its birthplace—the factory—before the world has had a chance to give it a na or a purpose."
I was beginning to understand.
"So when we sell it in Arica, and a custor activates it for the first ti," Belial whispered, "in the eyes of this world’s system, the device won’t look like an illegal immigrant from China. It will appear as a newborn baby on Arican soil. It will get its ’birth certificate’ there, no questions asked, no import taxes, no trace of its past. Perfect for smuggling. Perfect for our business."
I leaned back in my chair. I looked at Wang Lei in a new light. This fat man wasn’t just a thug. He was a high-level smuggler.
I could feel Belial’s admiration now. He wasn’t disappointed. He was impressed. He had just found the perfect supplier.
I smiled faintly.
"rlin can handle it if there are any issues," I whispered, this ti more as an affirmation.
I saw a slight change in his eyes. Just a flicker. Then he was calm again. He knew I understood now, too.
"The price," Belial said, his voice flat again, speaking to Wang Lei.
"Can it be reduced?"
Wang Lei looked between the two of us, from to Belial, then back to . He seed to be weighing sothing.
He sighed. The last wisp of smoke from his dead cigar curled up and vanished into the stuffy air. He stubbed it out in an overflowing crystal ashtray. His movents were slow, deliberate.
"I’ll talk to my people," he said, his voice hoarse.
He pushed his large body up to stand. The leather sofa groaned softly. He didn’t look at us. His eyes were on a door at the back of the room.
"Go to the restaurant downstairs," he continued, waving a fat hand toward the stairs in a casual gesture of dismissal.
"Eat sothing. Drink sothing."
He paused for a mont in the doorway, his back to us.
"I’ll call for you later," he said without turning.
The door closed behind him, leaving us in a silence broken only by the tick... tick... tick... of the ceiling fan and the gazes of ten thugs watching our every move.
I got up. The wooden stool scraped harshly on the sticky floor.
Belial was already standing beside . Silent. Like a statue.
I walked away from the ssy mahjong table, past the ten pairs of eyes that followed . Rough faces. Worn-out thug clothes. Cigarette smoke still hung in the stuffy morning air.
Near the back door where Wang Lei had disappeared, I saw a narrow wooden staircase leading down. It was dark.
"Belial," I said as we approached the stairs, my voice low.
"Yes, My Lord."
"When I first saw him... Wang Lei," I paused, my hand on the rough banister.
"I thought he was a fraud."
We started down the stairs. The stuffy air from upstairs was slowly replaced by the warm, sharp scent of food.
"His appearance," I continued, the sound of our footsteps creaking on the wooden steps.
"like a low-level thug. I doubted him. Greatly."
I turned to him. His face was expressionless in the dim light from below.
"It seems I was wrong."
"You are correct, My Lord," Belial said.
"Appearances can often be deceiving."
"You already knew?"
"I had my doubts at first as well," he admitted.
"However, the Shadow Demon brought back interesting information."
We reached the bottom of the stairs. A thin door separated us from the noise of the busy restaurant. I didn’t open it yet.
"The person behind Wang Lei," Belial continued, his voice almost a whisper, competing with the sound of sizzling woks from behind the door, "is a high-ranking official in the Communist Party."
I was silent.
"So, he’s just a front," I said, more a statent than a question. "A face at the front."
"More or less, My Lord."
"In that case, I’m not surprised," I muttered. I pushed the door open.
Warmth and a cacophony of noise imdiately greeted us. The restaurant was small and crowded, filled with custors having breakfast. Steam rose from bowls of noodles.
"For now," I said, looking for an empty table in the crowd, "let it be. Don’t touch them."
I found a small table in the corner.
"Our focus is on Japan."
I looked at him again as we sat down. My eyes t his dark ones, which reflected nothing in the bright light of the restaurant.
"But," I added, my voice now colder than the morning air outside, "if they get in the way... you know what to do."
"Understood, Lord Arthur."
I nodded.
A waitress approached us, carrying two cups of hot tea and a worn-out nu.
I took the nu.
Belial stared straight ahead, watching the entrance.
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