We sat down and ate in silence for a while, making appreciative noises because the food was that good. Lingyi was buying organic now that we had the funds, and it tasted vastly different from what we were eating on a mei person’s budget. But to get untainted meat and produce cost a premium, one that the majority of meis simply couldn’t afford. These days, if a food product was recalled—if they even bothered—the meis simply hoped that they got no worse than vomiting and diarrhea. If your immune system was compromised and you were unlucky, you might shit to death.

What happened to Lao Yang? someone might ask.

He ate too many of those pork chops.

“Have you started to look at Jin Corp’s security system?” Arun asked, leaning back after he had finished eating.

“Not yet,” Lingyi said. “I’ve been focused on establishing Zhou’s identity online. But now I’m ready to tackle their building security.”

Lingyi’s father, founder of Fortune Securities, had fled to China three years ago when his past criminal activities as the infamous “xiaoshu” hacker came to light. “Little mouse” might seem an innocent enough moniker, but there was no building security system that Lingyi’s father, as a teen living in Shanghai, couldn’t break through once he targeted it. He was the one who cracked Apple’s high-security warehouse in Shenzhen three decades ago in protest of the corporation’s labor and wage disputes in China. The warehouse was swarmed and dozens made out with hundreds of brand-new Apple products before the building was secured.

But her life had changed as fast as mine did, the daughter of a prominent millionaire most sought after for his expertise in building and cybersecurity, who fled Taiwan in the dark of night with Lingyi’s mom and younger brother. Lingyi remained and survived by freelancing her own skills picked up from her father. Or “researching” for the greater good, as she liked to say. Her hacking abilities would make her father proud. Or make him deny all culpability.