"How did the board eting go?" he interrupted, though there was no real sharpness to it.
He could practically hear her grin through the phone. "Changing the subject already? You’re no fun. But since you asked so nicely, and by nicely I an with your usual charming terseness, the board eting went spectacularly. I now own them. Completely and utterly. They’re so terrified and compromised that I could probably ask them to do interpretive dance in the lobby and they’d comply."
"Interpretive dance?" Despite everything, Lu Yuze found himself almost smiling.
"I was being creative," Shuyin replied airily. "The point is, they’re handled.
"And may have slightly terrified your nephew during a board eting, he would probably go crazy very soon after I get done dealing with him. But all very productive activities, I promise!" Of course, he knew she was after revenge, and could he stop her?
Another pause stretched across the line, longer this ti. Understanding those hidden words. If she said he would go crazy, then he would.
When Lu Yuze spoke again, there was sothing that might have been amusent beneath the cool professionalism. "You terrorized the southern branch board?" He knew his brother was agitated from that call he had made.
"Only a little," Shuyin hedged. "And they deserved it. They were trying to deny my people their promised positions, so I had to... establish paraters, establish my authority."
"Establish paraters." He repeated the words slowly, as if testing their weight. "Is that what we’re calling corporate blackmail now?"
"I prefer ’mutually beneficial transparency agreents,’" Shuyin corrected primly. "Blackmail sounds so crude. I’m not that kind of person..."
A soft sound ca through the phone, sothing that might have been a suppressed laugh. "My brother called just a few minutes ago."
"Ah." Shuyin’s voice lost so of its playfulness, becoming more cautious. "About Yuyan, right?"
"About Yuyan," Lu Yuze confird. "He wanted to know why our daughter was at the southern branch, why she was with you, and what her relationship with you entailed. He was quite... insistent to know what was happening."
"And what did you tell him?" Shuyin was curious. When she had suggested this contract marriage, she hadn’t thought she would get married to Lu Zeyan’s uncle. Now the family dynamics were a bit complicated.
"That it was none of his business." Lu Yuze’s voice went flat. "That Yuyan’s choices are hers to make, and that the family lost their right to question those choices when they decided she was too inconvenient to care about during her illness."
Shuyin felt warmth bloom in her chest, not the calculating satisfaction of a successful manipulation, but sothing more genuine, more vulnerable.
He’d defended her. Protected their arrangent. Refused to expose their marriage even when pressured by his own brother.
"Thank you," she said quietly, dropping the performative brightness. "I know that must have been difficult to hide."
"It was necessary," he corrected. "My brother doesn’t get to use Yuyan as leverage in whatever power struggle you’ve created. She’s off-limits. Always."
"Agreed."
Silence settled between them for a mont, comfortable despite the complexity of everything unsaid.
Then Lu Yuze’s voice ca again, carefully casual: "What exactly happened at the board eting? My brother was... unusually agitated."
Shuyin glanced at Ting Fei, who was still standing nearby, and at Yuyan, who’d looked up from her tablet with interest. She needed to be strategic about this explanation.
"Your nephew tried to relegate my people to aningless middle managent positions," she said, keeping her voice light but letting steel show through. "I corrected his understanding of our agreent. Then the board tried to remove from my newly appointed position. I corrected their understanding of the consequences of opposition. Everyone eventually saw reason."
"You blackmailed the entire board," Lu Yuze translated into a less complicated statent.
"I established mutually beneficial transparency agreents," Shuyin corrected again, but she was smiling now. "There’s a difference."
"Is there?"
"Semantically, yes. Practically, no." She paused, her voice becoming more serious. "I have an executive position now. Special Advisor to the President, with full board access and oversight privileges. Your nephew wasn’t happy about it, but he also wasn’t in a position to refuse."
"Because you have leverage on him." Lu Yuze stated it rather than asked.
"Because I have leverage on everyone," Shuyin corrected. "Including potentially your brother, though I was more subtle about that threat. I’m not trying to destroy the Lu family, Yuze. I’m just ensuring they can’t destroy and they have to pay back." She understood it was still his family related by blood.
Another pause as he processed this.
"Good," he said finally. "You’re learning."
The approval in those two words made sothing flutter in Shuyin’s chest.
"I try to be an excellent student," she replied, her voice taking on playful warmth again. "Though I do have one small concern about my education..."
"What concern?"
"Well," Shuyin drew out the word, "I’m now in debt to you for nearly seven hundred million yuan. Two hundred million for the Chen acquisition and company liberation, plus the previous amount. That’s rather a lot to owe one’s husband, don’t you think?"
"It’s an investnt," Lu Yuze replied calmly. "And considering you’ve already secured yourself an executive position and a profitable manufacturing company within a week of release, I’d say the return potential is acceptable."
"Still," Shuyin pressed, "seven hundred million. At standard interest rates, that would be quite burdenso."
"Are you asking to forgive the debt?" His tone was unreadable.
"I’m asking what the repaynt terms are," Shuyin corrected. "Because I fully intend to pay you back. With interest, if you insist. But I’d like to understand the tiline and expectations."
Silence stretched for several heartbeats.
Then: "Make the Chen company profitable within six months. That’s your first paynt. After that, we’ll discuss additional terms."
" Six months is too soon, since I’m your wife, how about I pay you with my body?"
Lu Yuze did not answer imdiately.
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