CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX – THE MAN WHO CAME BACK
Rain returned without warning.
It slid down the windows of Xinyue's apartment in thin silver lines, blurring the skyline into a trembling watercolor. She sat cross-legged on the bed, laptop open, the blue glow reflecting faintly in her eyes. Her systems were quiet — not idle, but waiting. Like a held breath.
Then a name appeared on her private channel.
Liang Wei.
Her fingers stilled.
The name was not new. It belonged to a man who had once believed he owned her future.
Years ago — long before Horizon Gate, before phantom networks and digital labyrinths — Liang Wei had tried to recruit her when she was still operating on the edges of the underground. He had smiled too easily, spoken too smoothly, and promised protection in exchange for loyalty. When she had refused, he had tried intimidation. When intimidation failed, he had tried to quietly erase her from certain systems.
He had failed.
She had dismantled his access routes, frozen his accounts, and left him professionally ruined — alive, but diminished.
And now, he had returned.
The message was simple.
We need to talk.
You're standing where you don't belong.
Her pulse remained calm, but her instincts sharpened. People did not come back from quiet ruin unless they believed they had found leverage.
She typed slowly.
You've always had poor judgment about territory.
His reply came almost immediately.
Meet me. Or I speak to Horizon Gate.
So that was it.
She closed her laptop gently.
They met beneath a pedestrian overpass where street vendors crowded the edges of the sidewalk, steam rising from metal carts and mixing with the damp air. It was public enough to prevent violence — and loud enough to swallow secrets.
Liang Wei stood near a pillar, hands in his coat pockets, posture relaxed in the practiced way of men who enjoyed pretending they were harmless.
"You look well," he said.
"You look desperate," Xinyue replied.
His smile tightened.
"You've built something impressive," he continued. "A maze that's swallowing very powerful people."
"Then you should be grateful," she said. "It's keeping them busy."
"You're destabilizing agreements that keep certain markets… comfortable."
"Comfortable for who?" she asked softly.
His gaze darkened.
"You took things from me," he said. "You humiliated me."
"You tried to erase me," she replied. "We're even."
He leaned closer.
"I know you're building fault lines inside Horizon Gate's infrastructure," he murmured. "I know about your phantom supplier. And I know where you started it."
Her expression didn't change.
"And what do you want?"
"To step inside your maze," he said. "As a partner."
She laughed quietly.
"You wouldn't survive my maze," she said. "You'd trip your own shadow."
His jaw tightened.
"Then I become your leak."
"You already are," she replied.
She turned to leave.
"Xinyue," he called sharply. "You think you're untouchable. You're not."
She paused only long enough to glance back.
"I've already been untouchable once," she said calmly. "You're just late to notice."
And she walked away.
That night, she accelerated her timeline.
She introduced subtle pressure into Horizon Gate's secondary channels — small delays, mild accounting discrepancies, tiny access failures that were quickly "resolved." Nothing alarming. Just enough to create internal questions.
She wanted them nervous.
Liang Wei was now a loose thread.
Loose threads were dangerous.
So she did what she had always done best.
She wove him into the maze.
By dawn, three anonymous reports flagged him as a possible internal liability. Not accusations — just enough smoke to invite quiet investigation.
He would feel eyes on him soon.
She leaned back in her chair, watching the city wake.
The man who had once tried to own her future had come back for revenge.
Now he would learn the cost of returning to a world that had already moved beyond him.
And Horizon Gate?
They were still building their invisible city — unaware that old ghosts were now walking its streets.
And ghosts, when ignored, always found a way to speak.