Jayden finished his training a little after two in the morning.His muscles screamed in protest as he lowered himself onto the cold wooden bench beneath the old ginkgo tree. Closing his eyes, he let out a long breath in the damp night air. Every breath tasted faintly of sweat and dirt.For a long while, neither he nor Master Wang spoke. The silence between them wasn't heavy.Then the old man finally broke the stillness, his voice barely louder than the dry leaves rustling overhead."Your mind is somewhere else."Jayden opened his eyes and stared into the dark garden ahead."I visited one of Grand Meridian's main suppliers yesterday," he began slowly. "I thought they were sending the hotel inferior products. Cheating us on quality."He paused, running a bruised knuckle over his knee."But they aren't."He laid out the details—the immaculate warehouse floor, the rigorous quality checks, the sealed refrigerated trucks, and the crisp, vibrant vegetables he had personally inspected befo

The air in the room instantly grew still. Without a word, everyone leaned in toward the center of the desk. Papers shifted under the desk lamp. The light caught the edges of the documents and made the numbers stand out more sharply. Cedric adjusted his glasses and frowned. "What is it?" Jayden pulled the supplier's dispatch ticket closer. His finger landed on one line and stayed there. The paper felt thin under his touch. "Yesterday, before the truck left the warehouse, I watched one of the workers lock a plastic seal onto the cargo doors." Amanda looked up from the papers in front of her. Her pen stopped moving. "A seal?" Jayden nodded. "Every truck leaving the warehouse gets one. The seal number is recorded before the truck departs." He pointed at the dispatch ticket. The ink looked fresh against the white page. "Seal number eight-eight-four-one." Cedric immediately grabbed the hotel's receiv

Jayden sat on one of the stools by the kitchen counter, his elbows resting on the cold steel surface as his fingers pressed firmly against his forehead.Twenty-one days.Twenty-one whole days had gone by, yet he still hadn't found the answers he was looking for. Every single clue he uncovered only led to another, and every single trail seemed to end in yet another dead end.For the first time since taking over Grand Meridian, doubt slowly crept into his mind.Normally, he would have gone straight to Cole's office to check the documents and continue tracing the missing shipment. But right now, he couldn't bring himself to step foot in there.He was simply tired.Not physically—Master Wang's grueling training had long taught him how to endure that kind of bodily exhaustion.This was different.It was the heavy, mental kind of exhaustion that came from chasing answers relentlessly and coming up with nothi