She hadn’t ntioned the other reason. The darker current running beneath her carefully chosen words. Vengeance had teeth, and she’d tasted blood on her tongue, taphorically speaking, since understanding what had been done. To Shuyin. To herself.
Her reflection stared back, unblinking. Sowhere in the depths of those borrowed eyes, sothing ancient stirred. Sothing that rembered the weight of scales and the freedom of endless ocean, sothing that had been torn from its proper place and thrust into flesh and bone and the suffocating limitations of human form.
One month to settle affairs.
One month to honor the dead.
One month to make certain people pay for what they’d done.
Shuyin stood there for a mont but she heard footsteps echoing, insinuating that a person was coming.
By the ti the door opened, she was simply washing her hands, just another office worker taking a brief break.
The coworker offered a polite nod before heading to one of the stalls.
As the water ran over her fingers, Kailani, Princess Long Junyao, wearing the face and life of a human woman nad Shuyin, felt the weight of both her existence. She had a month to finish what this body’s original owner had started, to honor the life she’d inherited before she could return to the sea and her family.
It would have to be enough.
Drying her hands, she straightened her shoulders and headed back to face those mountains of paperwork. After all, even a sea princess could learn to navigate the peculiar challenges of human office work.
Though she sincerely doubted her brothers would believe that when she told them.
The office settled around her like a second skin as Shuyin returned to her desk, the leather chair exhaling softly beneath her weight. The monitors glowed with patient expectation, files waiting to be read, secrets waiting to be uncovered. She pulled up the first docunt, her eyes scanning rows of data that Shuyin would have understood instinctively but that she had to piece together like a puzzle written in a foreign tongue.
The door opened without warning.
Ting Fei stepped inside, his movents economical and precise, carrying himself with the quiet confidence of soone who knew exactly where he stood in the hierarchy.
His expression remained professionally neutral, the kind of careful blankness that executive assistants perfected after years of navigating corporate politics, but his eyes betrayed him. They held satisfaction, the particular gleam of soone who’d accomplished exactly what he’d set out to do.
"Everything is arranged, Missus.." he reported, closing the door behind him with a soft click that restored their privacy.
Shuyin looked up from the monitor, giving him her full attention. In the days since she’d awakened in this body, she’d learned to read the subtle tells of human communication, the micro-expressions, the shifts in posture, the weight of words left unspoken. Ting Fei was pleased with himself, which ant he’d navigated the bureaucratic maze successfully.
"Your IT access will be activated within the next ten minutes," he continued, ticking items off with the efficiency of soone who lived and breathed logistics. "The Chen Company shareholders have been notified of tomorrow’s eting. Most have already confird attendance." He paused, consulting sothing on his tablet. "The Riverside Hotel has a suitable conference room available, large enough for all parties and appropriately... neutral ground."
The last two words carried deliberate weight. Neutral ground. Not Chen Company territory, or in a building where loyalties and alliances could complicate things. Smart.
"And?" Shuyin prompted, catching the hesitation, the way his carefully controlled expression flickered with sothing that might have been amusent if he wasn’t so ticulously professional.
Ting Fei’s lips twitched, threatening a smile he wouldn’t quite allow. "There’s an ergency board eting being called. Now, as we speak."
The air in the office seed to sharpen, crystallize around those words. Ergency board eting. Nothing good ever ca from that particular phrase, not in the human corporate world where such things were weapons wielded with surgical precision.
"One hour from now," he continued, his tone remaining carefully neutral even as his eyes danced with suppressed satisfaction. "Main boardroom. Mandatory attendance for all directors and senior executives." He tilted his head slightly, and there, there was the ghost of that smile, quickly suppressed. "Including you, as Special Executive Advisor to the President."
For a mont, silence hung between them. Then Shuyin’s lips curved into sothing that wasn’t quite a smile, too sharp, too full of teeth, carrying the dangerous satisfaction of a predator that had just scented blood on the wind.
"Perfect timing," she said, her voice smooth as silk over steel. "I was getting bored with paperwork anyway."
She stood, smoothing her clothing carefully, checking her reflection in the window glass.
She looked professional, polished, and utterly in control, expensive without being flashy, confident without appearing arrogant, dangerous in a way that was impossible to quite pin down.
Exactly the image she wanted to project.
"Yuyan, Chen Xiao, you’ll stay here with Ting Fei," she instructed, moving to where the children sat by the windows, busy with their drawings while watching the tablet tutorials.
She crouched down to their level, her expression softening.
"I have a boring eting to attend. It might take a while before I get back here. Will you be alright here?"
"We’ll be fine, Mother, you go ahead and do what you need to do..." Yuyan assured her seriously.
"We have tablets and snacks and each other. Don’t worry about us."
"It’s normal to worry," Shuyin replied, surprising herself with how much she ant it.
She ruffled Chen Xiao’s hair gently.
"Be good. Listen to Ting Fei. Don’t wander off. Stay in here all the ti until I’m back..."
"We won’t," Chen Xiao promised solemnly.
Shuyin straightened, turning to her three enforcers.
"Tank, Blade, Razor, you’re with . Ti to et the board and establish exactly where everyone stands in this new hierarchy."
As the door closed behind her, the quiet clicked into place like a lock.
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