"My baby," her mother sobbed. "My baby ca back for ."
And Shuyin held her mother’s hands and cried with her, the grief of fifteen years finally finding release.
Shuyin’s mind was racing.
Her mother. Alive.
Qiao. Alive.
Both of them were hidden here, chained, for years.
This wasn’t just fraud.
This was kidnapping. False imprisonnt. Possibly attempted murder.
This was evidence that would completely destroy Lin Feng.
Even though she wasn’t the woman’s biological daughter, even though Kailani’s soul inhabited this body, she could feel the original Shuyin’s overwhelming emotions bleeding through. The grief. The rage. The desperate love for a mother who’d been stolen.
She couldn’t let them continue staying in such a place. Not for one more day. Not for one more hour... Even though she knew Lin Feng would know, her plans were getting compromised.
"Call Ting Fei over," Shuyin instructed Lu Yuze, her voice hard and certain. "Now."
Lu Yuze pulled out his phone imdiately, but Shuyin was already on the move. She knelt in front of the hidden room, her hands beginning to trace patterns in the air, intricate, precise movents that left faint trails of silver light in their wake.
Her lips moved silently, forming words in a language that predated this world.
A sleeping spell.
The magic settled over both won like a gentle blanket. The mother’s eyes, which had been locked on Shuyin with desperate hope, slowly drifted closed. Her breathing evened, deepened. Qiao followed monts later, her body relaxing against the wall as unconsciousness claid her.
"What are you doing?" Lu Yuze asked quietly, watching the silver light fade.
"They need rest," Shuyin said. "And I need them unconscious while I work."
She raised her hands toward the chains.
More magic. Different this ti. Sharper. More focused.
The manacles holding the won glowed briefly, hot white light that made Lu Yuze step back instinctively, and then they simply... opened. The locks disengaged without keys, without force. Just pure magical will overriding physical chanisms.
The chains fell away with a tallic clatter.
Both won slumped forward, no longer held upright by the restraints. Shuyin caught her mother before she could hit the ground, cradling the older woman’s frail body with a gentleness that surprised even her.
So light. Like holding a bird. Fifteen years of minimal food, minimal movent, minimal everything had wasted her away to almost nothing.
Shuyin’s jaw tightened.
She reached into her pocket, where she’d stored the remaining magical pearls from earlier, the ones ford from her tears of exhaustion. She had three left.
She pressed one against her mother’s lips, tilting the woman’s head back slightly so the pearl could slide into her mouth. The mont it touched her tongue, it dissolved, flooding her system with concentrated healing magic.
Color began returning to the woman’s cheeks. Her breathing strengthened. The worst of the malnutrition would be addressed, at least temporarily.
Shuyin did the sa for Qiao, placing another pearl in her mouth and watching it dissolve.
Two pearls left.
Soon, footsteps sounded in the hallway, quick, purposeful.
Ting Fei appeared in the doorway of the study, his expression professionally neutral despite the scene before him. He’d seen many things in his years working for Lu Yuze. This was just one more.
"Sir. Miss Shuyin." He didn’t even blink at the open secret room, the unconscious won, the broken chains. "You called?"
"We need to move them," Lu Yuze said imdiately. "Discreetly. And we need to clean any trace that we were here."
Ting Fei nodded once. "Ah Ying and Ah Ling?"
"Get them. Now."
Within minutes, the three security personnel were working with practiced efficiency. Ah Ying carried the mother, so light he barely seed to strain. Ah Ling took Qiao. Ting Fei thodically swept through the hidden room, collecting the discarded chains, checking for any evidence of the won’s presence.
Shuyin watched them work, her hands still glowing faintly with residual magic.
"We need to erase the magical signature too," she murmured, more to herself than anyone else. She stepped into the hidden room and pressed her palms against the walls.
A pulse of energy, clear and cleansing, washed through the space. Any lingering traces of her magic, any residue that might be detected by soone sensitive to such things, burned away like mist under sunlight.
When she was done, the room looked exactly as it must have for the past fifteen years. Empty. Clean. A perfect prison.
She stepped out and turned the wall lamp back to its original position.
The bookshelf ground closed, hiding the room once more.
"Let’s go," Lu Yuze said quietly.
They moved quickly through the darkened mansion. The servants were all asleep or in their quarters. No one saw the strange procession, two unconscious won being carried through hallways by n in dark suits, followed by Lu Yuze and a woman with glowing hands.
They reached the garage where the sedan waited.
Ah Ying and Ah Ling carefully placed both won in the back seat, making them as comfortable as possible. Shuyin climbed in beside them, positioning her mother’s head in her lap.
Lu Yuze took the passenger seat. Ting Fei slid behind the wheel.
"City General Hospital," Shuyin said.
"No." Lu Yuze’s voice was sharp, imdiate. "We can’t go to City General."
Shuyin looked at him. "Why not?"
"Your father will be there. With Lin Yueling. The mont they see you walk in with two unconscious won, with your mother who’s supposed to be dead...." He shook his head. "Lin Feng will know imdiately. He’ll destroy evidence. He’ll work through the situation. We’ll lose everything. And you don’t want to co face to face with him right?"
Shuyin’s hands tightened on her mother’s shoulders. He was right. She knew he was right.
But the thought of waiting, of delaying dical care.....
"I have access to private facilities," Lu Yuze continued, his tone gentler now. "dical centers I own. Fully staffed. Completely discreet. We take them there. Get them treated properly. And Lin Feng never knows."
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