Xia Xiaoman remembers everything—the blood on the pavement, the shattered glass, the whispers of a debt too large to repay—everything except how her parents truly fell to their deaths. As an investigative journalist, she infiltrates the world of Li Moting, the ruthless heir to a financial empire, armed with nothing but a recorder and her perfect memory.  

"Three therapy sessions a week," he offers, fingers steepled, his voice colder than the rain outside the window. "In exchange for your silence."  

But what begins as a calculated game of revenge spirals into something far more dangerous. He scales a crumbling factory to save her from kidnappers, his hands bleeding, yet claims it’s merely "asset protection." She discovers ledgers in his study that implicate his family in her parents’ ruin—yet finds her childhood lullaby tucked in his desk drawer, the notes still intact after twenty years.  

On the night the truth comes crashing down, he kneels in the snow, pressing a pair of worn ballet flats into her hands. "Hate me if you must," he murmurs, "but let me remember you properly this time."  

And when she plays back the tapes—the ones she swore were evidence—all she hears is the unguarded hitch of his breath when she entered the room, the quiet, damning confession: *", Xia Xiaoman you were never part of the plan."*

Brushing the dust off a safe, Xia Xiaoman entered her mother's birthday—the lock clicked open. Beneath a stack of yellowed lab notes lay three peculiar bank transfer receipts:  


|----------------|-------------|----------------|-------------------|  


| 2018.07.17     | $117,000    | Siem Reap, Cambodia    | "Seed Funding"      |  


| 2020.12.24     | $240,000    | Yangon, Myanmar       | "Christmas Gift"      |  


| 2023.03.21     | $333,333    | Luang Prabang, Laos  | "Birthday Compensation"      |  


Her fingers trembled—**March 21st was her birthday**, and **117** was the number of her father's old lab. Even stranger, the sender was signed **"X.M."**, her father Xia Mingyuan's initials.  


At the very bottom of the safe sat an old Motorola flip phone. When she powered it on, a single unread message flashed on the screen:  


**"The answers you seek are buried in the concrete of the bay. —X.M."**  


Chapter 54 - The Suspicious Wire Transfers