Chapter Two: The Man Who Heard Secrets

WHEN YOU HEAR A SECRET, YOU RELEASE A DESIRE. DO NOT LISTEN A THIRD TIME. On the back, she had drawn a clock tower with a door at its base. Minglan waited in her study at nine. Sunlight through the blinds striped a background report: Shen Yan's debts, his mother's hospital records, his bar work, even the reason he had left university. His life had never looked so orderly. "Did you know Shen Qinghe?" he asked. Her hand stopped. Only for an instant, but it was enough. "Your mother," she said. "The report identifies her." "The Nightingale played her composition last night." Minglan closed the file. "That piano made no sound. The camera recorded only you and Han."