The officers started moving him toward the door, but Chen Haoran could still hear the voices in the room behind him. Families were reacting in different ways. Some were furious. Some were broken by grief. But others—and this surprised him—were already talking about what they would do next.
Where to find real treatment? How to support each other? Which experimental programs had they heard about? They had lost their miracle, but not their will to keep fighting.
As they stepped into the hallway, he saw young Liao Mei, the girl whose fake cancer was supposed to be his grand finale. She was comforting a sick boy about her age, sharing her water and helping him stay calm in the chaos. She didn't know her "recovery" had been a lie.
The elevators were too full of police and equipment, so they took the emergency stairs. Forty-seven floors down, his hands cuffed behind him, SWAT officers on both sides, their expressions set in professional calm. Each floor carried him further away from the role of "Brother Chen."
On the thirty-second floor, Inspector Wu's radio crackled. The financial crimes unit had frozen his accounts and seized his assets. His shell companies and offshore protections had been torn apart with precision. Zhang Lin hadn't just given them his location. She had handed over everything they needed to ruin his escape plans.
Even as the words came through the radio, he remained unfazed. He had contingencies stacked inside contingencies. Insurance wasn't about safety; it was about control after the fall.
By the twenty-first floor, the roar of helicopters grew loud outside the stairwell windows. Probably news crews. He couldn't tell if they were here for him specifically or just for the police activity at a luxury hotel.
Either way, within an hour his face would be on every screen. Brother Chen's last miracle would be his public fall—from beloved healer to exposed fraud, shown live to anyone watching.
On the fifteenth floor, one of the SWAT officers glanced back at him. He was young, barely older than Chen's sister. "My grandmother gave your people her pension money," he said flatly. "She died last month still believing you could cure her diabetes."
Chen thought of replying, but no words came. Apologies would sound hollow, just another performance. Explanations would sound like excuses to a man whose grandmother had died with nothing but false hope.
They reached the lobby. The place was in controlled chaos. Police officers interviewed witnesses. Paramedics checked on patients shaken by the raid. Hotel staff tried to hold back journalists and gawking bystanders.
Through the glass walls, Chen saw the full scale of the response. Dozens of police vehicles. Armored trucks. Snipers on rooftops. A perimeter stretching for blocks.
This hadn't been sudden—it had been planned for months. Zhang Lin's betrayal wasn't impulsive; she had been working with investigators long enough for them to build a perfect case and stage a public arrest.
As they guided him toward the main doors, Chen glanced back toward the elevators. Upstairs, two hundred people were facing the truth. Some would be devastated. Some would be furious. But all of them would have to decide how to rebuild their lives with reality instead of illusions.
And maybe, he thought, he was facing the same choice. His whole life had been built on lies, on feeding off human weakness. Now everything had been stripped away. Without the performance, who was he really?
Outside, afternoon sunlight washed the city. Shanghai's life went on as usual. Millions of people moved through the streets, most of them unaware that one of the country's biggest fraud schemes had just ended nearby.
Inspector Wu paused by an armored transport before opening the door. She spoke quietly. "For what it's worth, Zhang Lin wanted us to offer you immunity if you'd help prosecute the bigger network of fraudsters."
Chen gave her a curious look. "What did you say?"
"That people like you don't change," she answered. "That if we let you go, you'd just find another way to hurt people."
She opened the transport door. Through the crowd of police and reporters, Chen saw Zhang Lin being led to a separate vehicle. She had struck a deal, clearly—minimal punishment in exchange for betraying him. She would vanish and start over somewhere far from Shanghai.
She must have felt him watching. She turned and met his eyes across the chaos. For the first time, he recognized the look on her face. True sorrow for what he had become.
The transport door closed, shutting out the city. Reinforced glass and steel surrounded him. Chen sat in silence as the vehicle pulled away, past streets where he had performed as Brother Chen, past neighborhoods where his victims still lived, past lives he had twisted with false promises.
He closed his eyes and tried to remember the last time he had felt anything real. A child believing his father would survive cancer. A teenager who thought the world made sense. A young man who believed love wasn't just another illusion. Those memories felt like they belonged to someone else.
That person had died long ago, replaced by a man who had learned to profit from the same vulnerabilities that had once made him human.
For the first time in fifteen years, there was no performance to maintain. No one to manipulate. No mask to wear. Just silence—and the question Zhang Lin had asked.
What happens to us?
Oh, Zhang Lin. Now I understand what you were really asking.
She hadn't been wondering about their future plans or exit strategies. She'd been fishing for reassurance about feelings that were never mutual. She'd been hoping he would say something—anything—that suggested their partnership had meant more to him than a convenient business arrangement.
You wanted me to tell you I loved you. You wanted me to promise we'd disappear together, start fresh somewhere tropical, maybe have children and pretend we were normal people who had never exploited cancer patients for profit.
You asked, "What happens to us?" because you already knew there was no 'us.' You were testing me, weren't you? Giving me one last chance to prove I was capable of caring about something other than myself. And when I gave you exactly the answer you expected—cold, transactional and dismissive—you made your choice.
Chen Haoran stared at his reflection in the bulletproof glass, seeing the face that had convinced hundreds of desperate people to trust him with their life savings.
I told you the truth, Zhang Lin. There was never an 'us.' But you... you turned that truth into permission to destroy me. You decided that if our partnership was just business, then business ethics applied. Cut losses. Minimize damage. Preserve assets. Eliminate liabilities.
The bitter laughter that escaped his throat made one of the SWAT officers glance back nervously.
You learned too well from me, didn't you? I taught you that relationships are transactions, that people are resources and that loyalty is just another form of currency. And then you applied those lessons to our relationship. The student became the master.
But what burned most wasn't the betrayal itself—it was the hypocrisy of it.
You spent three years enjoying the fruits of our work together. You wore designer clothes bought with cancer patients' money. You slept in silk sheets purchased with the proceeds from terminal diagnoses. You smiled when we celebrated each successful operation. But the moment consequences arrived, suddenly you developed a conscience? Suddenly you were the victim instead of the co-conspirator?
What happens to us, Zhang Lin? We become what we always were. Predators fighting over scraps when the food runs out. The only difference is that you pretended to be something else right up until the moment you revealed your true nature.
Chen Haoran closed his eyes, feeling something that might have been respect mixing with his rage.
At least I never lied to myself about what I was. I never pretended our victims deserved what we did to them. I never told myself I was anything other than a parasite feeding on human desperation. But you... you needed to believe you were different. Better. More moral. Right up until the moment you proved you were exactly like me, just less honest about it.
The transport was slowing now, approaching what would probably be his final destination. Through the reinforced windows, he could see media vans and crowds of protesters—people whose lives he'd destroyed, demanding justice.
Good. Good. Very good.
You think you are clever. You think you'll walk away clean, flash some crocodile tears and claim you were just another victim. You'll take the deal, testify for a sweet plea bargain, and start over after a year in minimum security. But what did you forget? You forgot who taught you every trick in the book. You forgot that I spent years preparing for the day 'my partner' would turn Judas.
You want to sell me out, Zhang Lin? Go ahead. The moment your statement is filed, those documents hidden in the hidden bank vault will find their way to the prosecution and defense both. Account statements showing your signature on every wire transfer. Messages between you and our most notorious clients—enough to make every handler and prosecutor salivate. The recordings? The "private" conversations about our clients' weaknesses, the best manipulations and the payoffs? I kept backups for every 'accidentally deleted' file. They'll hang you for kingpin, not pawn.
You'll try to play the victim, but my insurance will ruin you. My lawyers know exactly which judges and police commanders are vulnerable to scandal. Someone will leak your messages to the press. Someone will "accidentally" deliver an envelope of evidence straight to your father's employer, your mother's retirement board or your cousin trying to get a UK visa. My contacts in the prison system will make sure minimum security is a shattered dream. You'll beg for solitary.
No forgiveness. Not for a hypocrite who loved to talk about trust right before the knife slipped in. He could already imagine her explaining away her part in their schemes, rehearsing teary apologies—and backing it up with all the plausible deniability he'd taught her.
As the van slowed at a checkpoint, Chen stared at the grimy window, already thinking steps ahead. The world would see Zhang Lin's true face soon enough.
Loyal until tested, principled until threatened, and the first to become a snake when the grass caught fire.
The vehicle turned a corner. Through the window, he caught one last glimpse of the Mandarin Oriental's glass walls shining in the afternoon sun.
He would never see them again.
The transport merged into traffic. Chen closed his eyes. The feeling that came over him might have been peace, or exhaustion, or relief.
He never saw the sniper.
The bullet smashed through the rear window and tore through his skull. Blood and bone sprayed across the walls. His body lurched forward, then slumped to the side, lifeless. His mind scattered in an instant, like shards of glass breaking across dimensions he had never believed in.
His last thought was not fear or regret. It was curiosity.
At least I'll never have to fake faith again.
But even as his body died in the back of that transport, his will was already being pulled through unseen barriers. Forces he had denied all his life were dragging him toward a destiny he had never imagined.
The universe, it seemed, had saved one last performance for him.
And this time, the faith would be real.