Lu Zeyan’s Office – Earlier That Morning
Lin Shuyin took a small step closer, and damn, she was good at this.
Her jade eyes went all misty with tears that caught the sunlight streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows just right, making her look like so tragic heroine straight out of a period drama. The kind of character audiences fell in love with, the kind they’d defend to their dying breath.
When she spoke, her voice was soft and broken, like glass that had shattered and soone had carefully glued the pieces back together, but you could still see all the cracks, still feel the fragility of it.
"They took everything from , Zeyan." The words trembled out of her, each syllable carrying the weight of a few weeks’ worth of suffering. "My na, my reputation, my freedom... my future."
She paused, letting that sink in, letting the silence stretch just long enough to be aningful.
Her voice cracked in exactly the right place, at exactly the right mont. "But they could never take my mories of you. Those were the only things that kept warm in that cold, horrible place. Thinking about you, about us, about what we had, that’s what kept alive through three years of hell."
Lu Zeyan’s jaw went tight. A muscle jumped under his skin like it was trying to escape, betraying the emotion he was fighting to suppress.
Perfect.
She was hitting all the right notes, nostalgia, victimhood, and most importantly, that pathetic, unwavering devotion that made n feel simultaneously guilty and powerful.
She wasn’t positioning herself as a threat, wasn’t coming at him with accusations or demands. No, she was sothing far more effective: a living, breathing guilt trip with legs, one that sohow, impossibly, still worshipped the ground he walked on despite everything he’d done to destroy her.
This was what all n loved..
Lu Zeyan dragged a hand through his perfectly styled hair, completely destroying the careful work his personal stylist had probably spent twenty minutes perfecting this morning. His other hand gripped the edge of his desk hard enough that his knuckles went white, the tendons standing out like cables under the skin.
"You can’t stay here," he said, but god, he sounded weak. Like he was trying to convince himself more than her, like the words were hollow even as they left his mouth.
"Where else would I go?"
Shuyin’s voice cracked beautifully on the question, the vulnerability in it almost musical. "Where do you want to go?"
She moved forward again, closing the distance between them by another careful incrent, and now actual tears were starting to slide down her cheeks.
Were they real?
Hell no.
But they looked real, caught the light perfectly, traced paths down her face that seed utterly genuine, and that’s what mattered. Perception was everything.
"My family disowned , Zeyan." The words ca out raw and wounded. "My own father won’t even say my na out loud anymore. He refers to as ’that daughter’ when he has to acknowledge my existence at all. My friends?" She laughed, and it was bitter and hollow, the sound of soone who’d learned the hard way that loyalty was a luxury. "They vanished the second the judge read the verdict. Not a single letter from anyone in these weeks. Not one visit. Nothing. It was like I’d died, like I’d simply ceased to exist."
Her hands spread out in a gesture of complete helplessness that was probably calculated down to the milliter, every finger positioned for maximum effect. "I have no money. No ho. Not a single thing to my na. The whole city thinks I’m a murderer, that I poisoned a helpless old woman for financial gain. Do you know what that’s like? Having everyone look at you like you’re a monster? Having people cross the street to avoid you, having mothers pull their children away when you walk by?"
Her jade eyes locked onto his face and wouldn’t let go, holding him captive with their intensity. "You’re the only person left in my world, Zeyan. The only connection I have to anything resembling a normal life. The only thread keeping tethered to who I used to be."
The silence that followed was heavy, oppressive. You could have cut it with a knife and watched it bleed.
Then Shuyin went for the kill shot, dropping her voice to barely a whisper, forcing him to lean in to hear her: "Or am I no longer your concern?"
And there it was.
The unspoken threat hanging in the air between them, clear as the glass windows looking out over the city skyline: ’If you throw out now, after that circus downstairs, after those videos that are probably already going viral on every social dia platform in the country, public opinion is going to eat you alive. They’ll say you frad an innocent woman, systematically destroyed her life for your own gain, and now you won’t even help her when she has literally nowhere to go. They’ll crucify you.’
Lu Zeyan sank back into his fancy Italian leather chair, the kind that cost more than most people made in six months. It creaked softly under his weight, probably the most honest sound in the room.
He steepled his fingers in front of his face, and Shuyin could practically see the gears turning in his head, spinning and calculating. Weighing options. Running scenarios. Trying to figure out which choice would screw him over the least.
The scandal was already exploding. Those lobby videos were probably racking up millions of views by now, being shared and reshared, dissected and analyzed.
Social dia was going to tear apart every fra, every word, every tear on her face. His company stock would tank by market close just from the association, just from having his na linked to hers again.
If he kicked her out? He’d look like a heartless bastard. Vindictive and cruel. It would confirm every suspicion that maybe, just maybe, she really had been innocent all along. That he’d destroyed her deliberately and now couldn’t even muster basic human decency.
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