Lu Zeyan studied her for a long mont, his analytical mind clearly working through possibilities and probabilities.
Finally, he set his phone down but didn’t move away from the desk.
"Fine," he said, his voice cold and assessing. "Let’s start simple. Where did we first kiss?"
"The east garden of your family estate," Shuyin answered imdiately, pulling the mory from the original Shuyin’s mind. "Under the cherry blossom tree. It was spring, the petals were falling, and you said I looked like a fairy. I was seventeen. You were nineteen."
Lu Zeyan’s expression didn’t change. "What did I give you for your twenty-first birthday?"
"A jade bracelet with silver filigree." She could see it clearly in the mories. "You said it matched my na, Shuyin, aning ’water jade.’ I wore it every day until..." She let her voice break. "Until they took it from when I was arrested."
"What was the na of the project that nearly bankrupted us before it succeeded?"
"CloudSync Alpha." The mory ca with frustration and exhaustion, months of work, sleepless nights. "I spent eight months developing the architecture while you handled investors. We almost lost everything when the first prototype failed. I fixed it by redesigning the core algorithm."
Lu Zeyan’s eyes narrowed. "What did I say to you the night before our wedding was supposed to happen?"
This mory ca with pain, the original Shuyin’s worst mont.
"You said..." Shuyin let her voice drop to barely above a whisper. "You said we needed to talk. That the engagent was over. That you didn’t love anymore. That I’d been useful but now..."
She couldn’t finish the sentence, genuine emotion from the inherited mories flooding through her. The original Shuyin’s heartbreak was so profound that even Kailani, ancient and cold as she was, felt an echo of it.
"You chose my sister," she whispered. "You chose her. And the next morning, they arrested because of Grandma’s death."
Sothing in Lu Zeyan’s face shifted, guilt, perhaps, or recognition that this was indeed the woman he’d destroyed.
But the suspicion hadn’t entirely left his eyes.
"One more question," he said quietly. "What did I whisper to you the first ti we made love?"
Shuyin felt a flash of disgust at having to access this particular mory, but she pulled it up anyway.
"You said..." She t his gaze, holding it. "You said ’You’re mine, Shuyin. Always mine. No one else will ever have you.’"
The irony of those words, spoken by a man who would later fra her for cris and marry her sister, was not lost on either of them.
Lu Zeyan finally, slowly, stepped away from his desk.
"It’s really you," he said, though his voice still carried a note of disbelief. "You’re really Shuyin. But your eyes..."
"The poison changed more than just my eyes," Shuyin said quietly, seizing the opening. "It changed sothing inside . I can feel it. I’m not... I’m not entirely the sa person who went to prison, Zeyan. Weeks of suffering, of being poisoned, of nearly dying... it changes you."
She took a cautious step toward him. "But I’m still . Still your Shuyin. Still, the woman who loved you, who waited for you, who never stopped hoping you’d co for ."
Lu Zeyan stood frozen, clearly torn between residual suspicion and the evidence that this really was his forr fiancée, changed, certainly, but unmistakably her in mories and mannerisms.
And beneath that conflict, Shuyin could see sothing else stirring.
Desire. Want. The sa possessive hunger that had made him whisper those words years ago.
"Co here," he said finally, his voice rough.
Shuyin moved toward him, and this ti when his arms ca up, they did pull her into an embrace, though whether it was comfort or possession or simply an attempt to confirm she was real, even he probably didn’t know.
"I can’t believe you’re here," he murmured against her hair. "I can’t believe you’re really free."
Neither can I, Shuyin thought coldly. And you’re going to regret that I am.
But out loud, she only whispered: "I missed you so much, Zeyan. So much."
And as he held her, as his guard began to lower, as he started to believe that maybe this really was just his old Shuyin returned to him, changed but still devoted, still his, Kailani began planning exactly how she would destroy him.
Slowly. thodically. From the inside out.
Just as soon as she was certain he trusted her completely.
Lu Zeyan’s office was silent save for the faint, rhythmic tapping of his fingers against the polished mahogany of his desk. He had released her from the embrace and retreated behind the massive piece of furniture, putting a physical and symbolic barrier between them. The initial shock was receding, replaced by the cold, analytical calculus of a businessman assessing a new variable, a volatile one.
"The videos are already trending," he said, his voice flat as he scrolled through his phone without looking at her. "#FiancéeReturns. #PrisonerOfLove. The comnts are a circus. They’re calling a monster and you a tragic heroine."
Shuyin stood in the center of the room, allowing a fragile, wounded expression to settle back on her face. She wrung her hands slightly, a gesture the original Shuyin had used when nervous. "I... I didn’t an to cause a scene, Zeyan. I was just so... overwheld. Seeing this building again, knowing you were so close... I couldn’t bear the thought of being turned away."
He finally looked up, his gaze sharp. "You knew exactly what you were doing. That performance in the lobby was masterful. The tears, the trembling voice... ’What have I done wrong?’" He quoted her, a flicker of grudging admiration in his eyes. "You’ve changed. The Shuyin I knew would have been too proud for such a public display."
The Shuyin you knew was a fool who believed in your love, Kailani thought. I am an instrunt of her vengeance.
"Prison strips away pride," she whispered, her voice hushed. "It leaves only the raw need to survive. And all I needed... was to see you again."
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