Return Upon Expiration: Twenty-Seven Pages

At the Lu family's celebration banquet for going public, all twelve people at the table waited for me to sign the papers and leave with nothing.

I slapped a yellowed contract addendum onto the table and read the first clause aloud: "The 7.2% stake held on your behalf must be returned upon expiry." Three years ago, the Lu family's legal team had drafted this addendum clause by clause, and both sides had stamped it. Whatever they owed me, they had signed for themselves.

Twenty-seven items. I didn't argue, make a scene, or explain anything twice. I reclaimed the first twenty-six, one by one, each time at the moment they were most proud of themselves. They thought all I wanted was money.

Until I turned to the twenty-seventh page. It didn't list an asset, but a name that had been erased. I didn't tear out that page, or add a single word to it.