Chapter Three: A Crack in Success

He forced himself to investigate. Half an hour later, an unsigned encrypted email entered the company inbox. Its attachment was a map of underground pipes. The message said: Do not trust the official blueprint. The East District flood-storage gate never passed inspection. It was signed Gu Wei. Xu knew the name. Gu had been an engineering adviser to the Emergency Management Bureau until he was fired three years earlier for “spreading misinformation.” The web held almost nothing else, save a buried report: he had insisted a flood-control project was structurally unsound; construction had continued. Xu tried to confirm the task and discovered that he could not. He could believe a client would agree or that truth had an exit.