"What problem?" Lu Zeyan’s voice was wary, still reeling from the confrontation. He didn’t know how to handle this situation. Lin Yueling was carrying his child while he still wanted to be engaged to Lin Shuyin, because of the internet fans and popularity, and the attention Lin Shuyin was getting.
"Your reception staff." Shuyin’s tone went cold. "I want them fired. All three of them."
"What?" Lu Zeyan blinked, thrown by the sudden topic shift.
"The receptionists downstairs. Fire them. Every single one." Shuyin’s voice was flat, brooking no argunt. "They turned away my employees this morning. Said they didn’t look like workers, didn’t have badges, suggested they try the loading dock entrance like they were deliveryn instead of professionals you personally agreed to hire."
She stood, moving closer to his desk, her presence commanding.
"They treated people with casual discrimination and arrogance. Is that the kind of culture you run here?"
Lu Zeyan’s jaw clenched, trapped between multiple problems with no good solution visible.
"Lin Shuyin, it’s already past 9 AM," he said instead, grasping for any deflection. "This is a professional environnt. We start at 8:30. If your people show up late..."
"We were here at 7:30," Blade interjected coldly, her voice cutting through his excuse. "We’ve been standing in that lobby for over one hour and thirty minutes being treated like criminals."
But then again, they giggled, they were just out of prison and they did look like criminals.
"They looked at us like we were trash," Razor added, her usual sharp features even harder. "Made it clear we weren’t ’their kind’ of workers."
Tank said nothing, but his silence was sohow more damning than words.
Lu Zeyan faltered, the excuse dying on his lips.
He could feel sothing twisting deep in his chest, an uncomfortable tightness. The situation was spiraling out of his control. Shuyin sat before him like a queen holding court, making demands with complete confidence. Yuyan stood beside her with photographic evidence of his affair. His pregnant mistress, or was Lin Yueling his fiancée now? He’d lost track, sat vulnerable and exposed.
"I..." He tried to formulate a response, any response that would let him maintain so dignity but none could be ford.
Shuyin just smiled, watching him struggle, clearly enjoying every second of his discomfort.
"Take your ti," she said sweetly. "We have all day. Don’t we, children?"
Yuyan nodded enthusiastically, still clutching her phone with its damning photos. "All day, Mother. I took plenty of pictures. Would you like to send them to you?"
"Yes, you can.... Those can be useful if they try to play !" Lin Shuyin couldn’t decline her gesture and Yuyan was happy that she could do sothing for her momma.
Chen Xiao, who’d been silent throughout the entire exchange, simply nodded in agreent, his small five-year-old face serious and watchful behind his protective twelve-year-old sister.
And Lu Zeyan realized with sinking certainty that he’d completely lost control of this situation before it had even begun.
The woman he’d betrayed, imprisoned, and discarded had just walked back into his life with witnesses, leverage, and apparently unlimited patience to watch him squirm.
This was going to be a very, very long day...
The silence in Lu Zeyan’s office stretched like pulled taffy, brittle and ready to snap.
Shuyin remained seated in her appropriated chair, one leg crossed over the other with elegance, her jade eyes fixed on Lu Zeyan with the patience of a predator that knew its prey had nowhere to run. Behind her, Tank, Blade, and Razor stood in a loose formation that was simultaneously casual and threatening, the stance of people who’d learned to project danger as naturally as breathing.
Yuyan perched on the edge of the couch Lin Yueling had just vacated, her phone still clutched in both hands like a talisman, silver-white hair catching the morning light streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Chen Xiao pressed against her side, his five-year-old face serious and watchful, absorbing everything with the intensity of a child who’d learned too young that adults were dangerous.
Lin Yueling stood frozen near Lu Zeyan’s desk, one hand still cradling her pregnant belly, her perfectly curated expression of wounded innocence beginning to crack at the edges.
Lu Zeyan himself stood behind his desk like it might protect him, his hands braced against the polished surface, his jaw working as he tried to formulate words that would sohow regain control of the situation.
He failed.
He had failed to contain the situation and the last thing he wanted was a scandal.
"So," Shuyin said brightly, her voice cutting through the tension. "About those job placents. We have business to discuss, and I’d rather not waste the entire morning watching you have an existential crisis of sothing you can solve by words."
She gestured languidly toward Tank, Blade, and Razor. "These three need positions. Good positions. Not entry-level grunt work or whatever degrading assignnt you were planning to stick them with to satisfy the letter of our agreent while spitting on the spirit of it."
Lu Zeyan’s eyes narrowed. "I was going to honor our agreent," he said stiffly. "But there are procedures, Lin Shuyin. Human Resources protocols and you know it. I can’t just....."
"Can’t just what?" Shuyin interrupted, her tone deceptively sweet. "Wave your executive hand and make things happen? Isn’t that literally what executive authority ans? Or have you forgotten how this works since you’ve been too busy playing house with my dear sister?"
The jab landed. Lin Yueling’s face flushed hot red, and Lu Zeyan’s knuckles went white against the desk.
"They need proper vetting," he tried again, grasping for professional authority. "Background checks, interviews, skills assessnts...."
"All of which can be expedited or waived for executive hires," Shuyin cut in smoothly. "Don’t pretend there aren’t fast-track protocols for people with connections. I watched you use them dozens of tis when we were engaged. Rember? When you hired your college roommate’s cousin, who had zero qualifications but an excellent golf handicap? Or that investor’s daughter who spent more ti on social dia than actually working but kept her position for eighteen months because Daddy had deep pockets?"
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