“We found him, and the car is here. Why haven’t we left yet?”
“He hasn’t agreed.”
Zhou Xingzhou works for “Vanguard,” a crisis-response network operating across multiple regions. It helps people who have gone missing or found themselves in danger overseas evacuate, get medical care, and find a safe place to stay.
This time, they found Gu Yan.
The driver had arrived, the accommodation had been booked, and the people receiving him were waiting. Every arrangement was compliant, and the records even said “handover complete.”
But Gu Yan had never agreed to this route, and no one had asked where he actually wanted to go.
Zhou Xingzhou initially thought it was just a clerical error, until he found three more unfamiliar names after Gu Yan’s.
The four people didn’t know one another, and their situations were all different. Yet their tickets, accommodations, and next destinations had all been arranged before any of them had said a word.
Worse, no one had forged anything, and no one admitted to hurting them. On the contrary, these arrangements had genuinely helped in the past, and everyone involved believed they were saving people.
Zhou Xingzhou had to find out who had turned temporary help into a destination no one could refuse.
Because the real danger isn’t that no one comes to pick you up.
It’s that everyone knows where you’re supposed to go, except you.
