The rain did not stop. It fell on Hong Kong for three days, a weeping grey shroud that matched the desolation settling in Kai's soul. The typhoon had passed, but the storm inside him raged on. He avoided his apartment, the silence there now accusatory. He spent his days in the Kwun Tong office with Fast Talk Chau, burying himself in the numbing monotony of financial crime, and his nights walking the slick, neon-streaked streets, trying to outpace his thoughts.
He had not reported the failure with To Kwok-wai. He had sent a brief, coded message to his handler, Inspector Chan, detailing the assignment and his deliberate inaction. The response had been a terse, single line: *Acknowledged. Maintain cover. Assess Wong's reaction.*
They saw it as a data point. A strategic calculation. They didn't see the photograph of the girl, Siu-wah, with the ribbon in her hair. They didn't feel the weight of the decent, stubborn life he was protecting. To them, it was a variable in the long game. To Kai, it felt like the last stand of his humanity.
On the fourth day, the summons came. Not to the tea house, not to the penthouse, but to the Red Lotus Mahjong Parlour. The heart of the beast.
When he entered, the usual clamour was subdued. The players glanced up, their eyes flicking from him to the back room door with a new, wary respect. The story of Lok's rescue had been woven into the legend of Jin Kai, the Red Pole whose influence reached into the White Paper Fan's inner sanctum. They didn't know the cost.
Sai Lo was not at his post by the door. The back room was occupied.
Kai pushed the door open. Wong sat at the desk, the green-shaded lamp casting its judicial glow. Sai Lo stood to his side, a mountain of silent, glowering fury. The air was thick with unsaid things.
"Jin Kai," Wong said, not looking up from a sheet of figures. "The fisherman, To. Report."
This was it. The moment of judgment. He could lie, invent a progress report, buy more time. But Wong's web of informants was vast. A lie would be discovered, and the consequence would be far worse than failure.
"He refused the offer," Kai said, his voice flat. "He will not cooperate."
Sai Lo made a sound deep in his throat, a guttural noise of pure contempt. "I told you," he growled at Wong. "He talks, but he has no teeth. He is a paper tiger. He does not understand the language of force."
Wong slowly lifted his gaze. The magnified eyes were unreadable. "You delivered the terms? You explained the consequences of refusal?"
"I did."
"And yet, the fisherman's business continues. His wife still goes to the market. His daughter still goes to school." Wong tapped the paper with his pen. "Why?"
Kai met his gaze. He had no good answer. No answer that would satisfy the ledger. "The approach was flawed. Threatening his family would have made him a martyr, not a partner. It would have drawn attention. The Independent Commission Against Corruption has been sniffing around the smaller shipping outfits. Creating a tragedy would have brought them to our doorstep."
It was a desperate bluff, woven from half-truths and his knowledge of police priorities.
Sai Lo snorted. "Excuses! You are soft!"
But Wong was silent, considering. He looked from Kai's resolute face to Sai Lo's furious one. The tension in the room was a physical force.
"A flawed assessment requires a correction," Wong said finally, his voice soft as falling silk. "Not of the target, but of the assessor." He turned his head slightly towards Sai Lo. "The 18K. The men who took Lok. The ones who escaped my… inquiries. They are a lingering embarrassment. They hide in a warehouse in Fo Tan, thinking we have forgotten them."
He looked back at Kai. "Sai Lo believes you lack conviction. Prove him wrong. Go to Fo Tan. Cleanse the embarrassment. Leave no questions. This is not a task for a philosopher. This is an execution."
It was a direct order for a mass killing. A test of his ruthlessness. A command to wash his failure with To in the blood of the 18K.
Kai's blood ran cold. He could not do it. He could not walk into a warehouse and murder multiple men in cold blood. But to refuse was to declare himself a traitor to both Wong and the mission. He was trapped.
"Understood," he heard himself say, the ghost's voice firm and sure.
Sai Lo's lip curled in a sneer, but he said nothing. Wong gave a slight, approving nod and returned to his figures, the audience clearly over.
Kai walked out of the parlour, the city's noise rushing back to fill the void in his ears. He had bought himself a reprieve, but at what cost? He was now tasked with an atrocity.
He went to the clinic. Lok was sitting up in bed, staring at a television showing a mindless game show. The physical wounds were healing, but the emptiness in his eyes remained.
"The doctors say you can leave soon," Kai said, standing by the door.
Lok didn't look away from the screen. "And go where?"
"I have an apartment. It's safe."
"Is it?" Lok asked, the question laden with a meaning that went beyond physical safety.
Kai had no answer. He changed the subject. "Wong has given me a new assignment."
This time, Lok turned his head. The fear was back, bright and sharp in his eyes. "What kind of assignment?"
"The kind that proves I'm not soft," Kai said, the words tasting bitter.
Lok stared at him for a long moment, then slowly, deliberately, turned back to the game show. The dismissal was absolute. He was withdrawing from Kai, from the life, from everything. The brotherhood was broken.
Leaving the clinic, Kai felt a desperate, clawing need for a tether to his real life. He needed to hear a voice that wasn't layered in deception or fear. He drove to a pre-arranged dead-drop location—a rusty locker in a multi-story car park in Hung Hom. He retrieved a clean, encrypted phone and dialed a number from memory.
Inspector Chan answered on the first ring. "This line is for emergencies only."
"It is one," Kai said, his voice raw. "Wong has ordered me to execute the 18K cell that took Lok. He's testing me. If I do it, I'm a mass murderer. If I don't, I'm dead and the operation is over."
There was a pause on the line. He could almost hear the cold calculus happening. "The operation is the priority. The lives of a few triad foot soldiers are an acceptable loss for the intelligence we stand to gain."
The words were like a physical blow. "Acceptable? Chan, they're human beings."
"They are criminals engaged in a war. Your sentiment is a liability, Officer Jin." Chan's voice was hard, devoid of any empathy. "You knew the stakes when you went in. Complete the assignment. Maintain your cover. That is a direct order."
The line went dead.
Kai stood in the gloom of the car park, the phone hanging limply in his hand. The last tether had snapped. The police, his own side, saw him as a tool to be used, his conscience a malfunction to be ignored. Wong saw him as an investment to be hardened. Lok saw him as a monster.
He was utterly alone, adrift in a sea of moral compromise, ordered to commit an atrocity to prove his worth to monsters. The ghost had consumed everything. There was no Kai Jin left. There was only Jin Kai, the Red Pole, standing in the dark, with nowhere left to turn and a warehouse full of blood waiting for him in Fo Tan.