Tao Jun poured a cup of tea and placed it on the table in front of Li Feng.
"Mr. Li, thank you for coming on such short notice," he said politely.
Li Feng nodded but didn't reach for the tea. His eyes moved slowly around the office. Large windows overlooked the logistics yard below. Trucks moved in and out of loading bays in steady rhythm. Workers shouted instructions while forklifts carried cargo across the concrete floor.
He finally picked up the cup and took a small sip.
"Your branch has good operational discipline," he said calmly.
Tao Jun let out a faint sigh of relief. "We try our best." He placed a stack of documents on the glass table, then walked to his desk and turned the monitor so Li Feng could see. "Most of the records are digital. Transaction logs, shipment records, supplier payments, warehouse inventory — everything is stored in the internal system. The files here are just summaries."
Li Feng nodded once. "That's fine."
Tao Jun logged into the system and opened several folders. Rows of spreadsheets, reports, and transaction records filled the screen. "Three years of operational data. If you need anything else, I can have the accounting department pull it immediately."
Li Feng leaned forward slightly, scanning the screen. Numbers. Dates. Shipment IDs. Supplier contracts. Thousands of entries neatly organized.
Tao Jun hesitated. "Mr. Li, I won't hide it. For three years, we've had problems with the accounts. Numbers that don't line up, adjustments that don't make sense. We hired auditors before — twice. They checked the records, asked their questions, and in the end they signed off. No fraud, no errors they could prove. But the problems never stopped. Every quarter, something feels wrong."
Li Feng set the teacup aside. "Then I'll start where they failed."
Tao Jun, standing nearby, studied him quietly. *Why is he so calm after hearing all this?* If he was being honest, he wasn't sure Li Feng would be any different from the previous auditors. Li Feng looked too young. On his own, Tao Jun would never have accepted someone like him. But his wife had praised Li Feng again and again, insisting he was different. In the end, Tao Jun had no choice but to trust her judgment.
---
Tao Jun opened the accounting department door. Everyone turned, standing and giving a small bow.
"Good morning. Please sit," Tao Jun said firmly. He gestured toward Li Feng. "Everyone, listen up. This is Mr. Li, the new auditor. He will be working with you directly. Give him your full cooperation, understood?"
"Yes, sir," they replied.
"I'll leave you to it, Mr. Li." Tao Jun stepped out, closing the door behind him.
The room fell silent. The staff exchanged glances, some smirking. He looked too young.
Wang Jin, the senior clerk, stepped forward with a small bow, a smile already on his face. "Welcome, Mr. Li. I am the senior clerk here, Wang Jin. If you need anything, don't hesitate to ask."
Li Feng gave a small bow back. "Thank you for having me." He nodded pleasantly and took the prepared summaries from Wang Jin's hands. "These will do for now."
The staff visibly relaxed. A few exchanged satisfied glances.
*See? Just like the others.*
Li Feng smiled to himself. People are the same everywhere — just like grandfather always said.
"Never show weakness at the start. If you do, you'll spend the rest of your life crawling to take it back."
Li Feng settled into the empty chair at the end of the long table, set the summaries flat in front of him, and opened the first page. The room returned to its quiet rhythm — keyboards clicking, papers shuffling. Nobody paid him much attention anymore.
He read without speaking for several minutes.
Then, without looking up:
"Your Q3 supplier payments — who authorized the split disbursements in August?"
A pause.
Wang Jin answered smoothly. "That would go through standard approval. Department head signs off."
"Which department head?"
A beat too long.
"Mr. Zhou. He handled procurement at the time."
Li Feng turned a page. "Mr. Zhou left the company fourteen months ago. These payments were processed eleven months ago."
Silence.
He finally looked up, expression unchanged. "So again — who authorized them?"
Wang Jin glanced at a colleague. The colleague suddenly found her monitor very interesting.
Li Feng moved on without waiting for an answer, as if he was simply making a note. "Shipment IDs 4471, 4472, and 4480 — they're logged as delivered to Warehouse C. But your inventory records show Warehouse C was under renovation during that entire period. Where was the cargo actually held?"
Another clerk, younger, shifted in his seat. "There may have been a temporary relocation—"
"To where?"
"I... would need to check."
"Please do." Li Feng's voice stayed even. "Also check why the relocation cost doesn't appear anywhere in the operational expenses for that quarter."
He turned another page. "Your fuel reimbursements for the fleet — the average per vehicle looks reasonable at first glance. But three specific trucks claimed reimbursement on days the logbook shows them offline for maintenance. Small discrepancy. Easy to miss." He paused. "Unless you're looking for it."
The room had gone completely quiet. No keyboards. No shuffling papers. Every eye was on him, though no one wanted to be caught looking directly.
Wang Jin straightened. "Mr. Li, some of these are administrative oversights. Minor recording errors. Nothing that indicates—"
"I haven't indicated anything," Li Feng said simply. "I've asked questions. The records have answered them."
He set the summary down and folded his hands on the table. "I've been in this room for twenty minutes. These are questions from the first twelve pages." He let that land. "I have three years of records waiting for me. So I'd suggest" — his eyes moved slowly across the room — "that when I ask something, you think carefully before you answer. Because I will find the correct answer eventually. The only question is whether you helped me find it, or whether I found it around you."
Nobody smirked now.
Wang Jin straightened his tie and cleared his throat. "Mr. Li, with respect, some of these are simply—"
"Every record." Li Feng's voice didn't rise. Didn't need to. "Transaction logs. Shipment files. Supplier contracts. Expense reports." He closed the folder. "Three years. All of it."
Wang Jin blinked. "That's... a considerable amount of—"
"Within the hour."
The room didn't move.
Li Feng looked up slowly, eyes moving across every face. "Is there a problem?"
Chairs scraped. People moved. The room that had dismissed him twenty minutes ago was now jumping at the sound of his voice.
Wang Jin lingered half a second too long.
Li Feng met his eyes and held them. "You too, Mr. Wang."
---
Across the city, in a small neighborhood mart —
"Slow down, Xian!" Zhao Lihua called.
Li Xian was already moving between the aisles, darting from one shelf to the next, eyes wide with excitement. "Mummy. Mummy." She tugged at Zhao Lihua's sleeve, pointing to a roll of chips. "This one."
She hugged them to her chest, then immediately spotted something else on the next shelf. "This one too, Mummy."
Zhao Lihua laughed softly, dropping it into the cart without argument. She pushed the cart slowly down the aisle, glancing at what was already inside. Vegetables, rice, cooking oil, a few cuts of meat. Enough for the week.
She had checked her account that morning. ¥20,000. More than she had expected.
She found herself wondering again — what kind of job had Li Feng landed exactly?
Kids. Such wonderful creatures."
Zhao Lihua turned. A middle aged woman stood across from her, smiling warmly at Li Xian, who was already halfway down the aisle refusing to stay in one place.
"Yes, she is," Zhao Lihua answered, smiling back.
She straightened up and held out her hand.
"Come on, Xian."
Li Xian came running, slipping her small hand into her mother's. They walked together toward the counter.
Zhao Lihua was setting the groceries down when Li Xian tugged at her sleeve again.
"Mummy. Mummy."
Zhao Lihua tilted down toward her.
Li Xian was pointing at a chocolate bar sitting on the small rack beside the counter. She looked up at her mother with complete seriousness.
"Xian wants this for Daddy."
"Your husband is really lucky," a voice said from behind her. "Such a cute little thing."
Zhao Lihua glanced back at the line forming behind her and smiled politely.
Li Feng had said they could get things for themselves. But wasn't this getting too much she thought, looking at the full cart. She looked down at Li Xian who stared back up at her, still pointing at the chocolate bar on the rack beside the counter.
Xian insisted.
Zhao Lihua let out a sigh. She reached over and picked up three bars, placing them on the counter.
"Yay!" Li Xian threw her hands up.
The groceries were packed into bags. Zhao Lihua picked them up and they walked out of the mart together, Li Xian skipping beside her.
---
The accounting department door swung open. Tao Jun stepped inside, eyes moving across the room.
"Mr. Li," he said. "You certainly get to work quickly."
A large pile of files sat in front of Li Feng. He moved through them slowly and steadily, one page at a time. Around him the entire staff was busy, heads down, pulling records, cross-checking documents.
Li Feng looked up. "To find the problem, I can't wait around."
Tao Jun nodded. But his eyes moved around the room again. Everyone was working. No one was idle. He couldn't help but wonder how Mr. Li had managed that so quickly.
The door opened behind them.
"Manager Tao." A man walked in, giving a small bow. "I didn't know you were here."
Tao Jun nodded. "Good timing. Come, let me introduce you." He gestured toward Li Feng. "This is Mr. Li, our new auditor."
The man looked at Li Feng. Something flashed briefly across his face before a smile replaced it. "Mr. Li." He extended his hand. "I am Assistant Manager Guo Tian. Welcome."
Li Feng stood and shook it. "Assistant Manager Guo."
Guo Tian looked around the office, eyes moving across the busy staff and the pile of files on the table. "Mr. Li sure doesn't wait around," he said with a smile.
"No," Li Feng replied simply. "I don't."
Li Feng closed the file in front of him and stood, gathering a few folders under his arm. "Unfortunately I'll have to continue this tomorrow. I'll present some of my findings then."
Both men nodded.
"I hope you prove different from the other auditors," Guo Tian said, stepping forward and tapping Li Feng lightly on the shoulder with a smile.
Li Feng's hand came up and held his. "You usually won't be disappointed," he replied.
For a moment neither man moved. Tao Jun could feel the hostility hanging in the air between them. "Yes, yes, Mr. Li," he said with a laugh, stepping forward. "Tomorrow it is."
Li Feng gave a small bow and walked out.
---
The apartment door had barely swung open when Li Xian came barreling down the entrance.
"Daddy!"