“How long would that take?” I ask.
“Well, here is the thing.” He pauses, and I hear the frown in his voice when he says, confused, “Strangely enough, someone’s drowned out the top result already.”
“Like, there was another scandal?” I ask.
“No,” he says firmly. “It must be the work of bots. The number of clicks, the speed at which the new articles have risen to the top, and the nature of the comments all suggest thatsomeone had paid for it. Organic engagementsimply doesn’t work this way.”
“Maybe it was my mom’s agency,” I say.
“Maybe,” he allows. “If that is the case, then they’re doing an excellent job. Still, if there’s anything I can help with—”
“You can,” I tell him. This seems to be all that I’m doing nowadays. Asking for things from people, pleading, close to begging. “There’s a man in the vision. Long Ge. He’s going to be here, when my house burns down. And I might have just found his phone number.”
A drawn breath. “How?”
“He gave it himself. Apparently he reached out to my mother right after he heard the news about the divorce. Sent her this giant gift box that he likely ordered online. If I give you the phone number, delivery date, and the gift box brand, would you be able to help me track down the sender’s IP address?”
“Yes, not a problem,” he says, and I’ve never felt so grateful to be friends with one of Beijing’s most accomplished tech prodigies. “Leave it to me.”
16
Ares
Ares had naively believed the week couldn’t get any worse.
He thought he’d already hit his lowest point at school, when Chanel had accused him of selling her out. He can see it even now. The distrust in her eyes, the bitterness in her tone, just when he was starting to believe he meant something to her, something real. And as if the whiplash from the accusation wasn’t enough, she’d grabbed his arm right over his newest wound, and he’d felt the hastily done stitches rip, an awful, tearing sensation that made him shudder. Had barely a second’s chance to react before he hurried out of the room, determined not to let her see the extent of his injuries. He was bleeding through his school uniform by the time he reached the bathroom, trying to staunch the flow with paper towels.
His arm still burns right now.
But the pain pales in comparison when he remembers what day it is. The day everything went wrong, the day that marks three years exactly since he last saw Luke.
Three years since they all went out to eat at Luke’s favoriteburger restaurant. It was always Luke who told their father what he craved, and that was always the place they went. Ares simply followed, like he was doing now, two steps behind his father and his brother as they headed toward the entrance, where the menus were plastered to the glass doors, advertising their newest chicken-salt curly fries and cheeseburgers in several sizes.
The dog had bolted out of nowhere.
That’s how it seemed, anyway. Just a blur of dark and brown fur, a snarl that echoed down the street, and then the dog’s hot breath on his wrist before the creature sank its fangs in. It happened so fast that he barely had time to register the pain, only a horrible, bone-crushing pressure.
He didn’t scream.
He was too stunned, almost incredulous—he had just beenwalking, hadn’t he? He’d been deliberating whether to buy the double or triple cheeseburger. How could he be bleeding because some wild creature had attacked him? Why hadn’t anyone stopped the dog?
Then his survival instinct kicked in, and he jerked back from the animal, gasping. The animal appeared to have lost interest anyway; it licked the fresh blood on its chin and sniffed the air, its ears perking up. Then it bounded off in the direction of the roast-pork store opposite the restaurant.
“Are you hurt? How are you feeling? Look at me.” His father’s voice, trembling with worry.
Ares collected himself, determined to put up a brave front and assure his father he was fine, but when he lifted his head, his father wasn’t even looking his way. He had pulled Luke to the side to protect him, and was now crouching down in frontof his little brother, scanning his perfectly unscathed face while Ares stood there alone, blood trickling down from his fingertips.
“Don’t be scared, erzi. The dog’s gone now,” his father said, squeezing Luke’s shoulder, still without even a glance at Ares.
Now the pain was really here, pulsing like white-hot electric shocks through his arm. He didn’t know if he was supposed to wrap something around the bite or leave it alone or try to clean it. A lump pushed against his throat. He wanted, embarrassingly, to burst into tears, but he hadn’t cried since he was a little kid. He wasn’t going to start now.
“I think Gege’s injured,” Luke whispered, and only then did his father turn around.
His father frowned over at him, and Ares strained to detect some glimpse of genuine concern. Pity would be fine too; that wasn’t asking so much, was it? You could even pity a stranger in pain, or a movie character on a screen. But his father’s jaw was set, his face hard. “You should go to the hospital to stitch that up,” he said at last. “Wouldn’t want to get rabies.”
“Right. Yes,” Ares said. He felt somewhat lightheaded, like when you were only running on three hours of sleep but pushing your brain to work anyways.
“You can call yourself a DiDi, can’t you?” his father said. It wasn’t really a question. “We’ll meet you after lunch.”
