Beijing Capital International Airport was busy at three in the afternoon.
Nobody paid attention to the man walking through arrivals.
Nobody, that was, except the twelve men in black who materialized around him the moment he cleared the gate, falling into formation with the quiet efficiency of people who had done this many times and required no instruction.
Xue ShangYan walked through the airport like it was a corridor in his own house.
He was in his early forties, slight in build, with the kind of face that people remembered as gentle because that was the first thing it offered. Soft features, quiet eyes, an unhurried quality to everything he did. When he spoke, which was always deliberately and never carelessly, his voice was the kind that made people lean in without knowing they were doing it.
Xue ShangYan had a face one would remember even if they had memory loss, and a presence that was hard to miss.
