It started with a nightmare.
Lin Yuyan woke in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat, her chest heaving. It wasn't the flashing cameras or headlines chasing her this time. It was a whisper. A name she couldn't quite hear. A voice from the shadows.
She pushed the covers off, unable to sleep.
She padded down the hall barefoot, the apartment too large, too silent. Everything inside Zhao Luchen's penthouse gleamed with cold luxury, but none of it felt like home.
Except one place.
One door, always locked.
She'd passed it a dozen times. It didn't match the sleek, modern aesthetic. The door was old. Wooden. Hand-carved. Worn around the edges like it had been opened a thousand times—before it was sealed shut.
Tonight, it was cracked open.
Yuyan froze.
Curiosity battled with caution, but caution had been burned out of her weeks ago.
She pushed it open slowly.
It wasn't a room. It was a shrine.
Photos lined the shelves—of a young boy, maybe eight years old, smiling beside a woman with warm eyes. Of two boys, identical but distinct, one always standing slightly behind the other. Of a man in a military uniform. There were papers too—medical records, therapy notes, newspaper clippings.
"Don't touch that."
She turned fast.
Zhao Luchen stood in the doorway. He wasn't dressed for bed. His sleeves were rolled up, collar loose. Eyes shadowed.
"I thought you were asleep," she said quietly.
"I don't sleep much."
She took a breath. "Who are they?"
He didn't answer immediately. Then he walked past her, picking up one of the framed photos.
"My mother. My brother. My father. The life that happened before people like you started watching."
She watched him carefully. "Lemin said your father died in a car accident."
His fingers tightened around the frame.
"He lied."
She waited.
Luchen finally met her eyes. "He killed himself. After our mother died. After the scandal. After the company nearly collapsed. I watched it happen. I was thirteen."
Her throat tightened. "I didn't know."
"Of course not. Because no one asks what came before the empire."
He looked around the room, suddenly tired. "This is the only place they exist anymore. I keep it locked so I don't forget them. Not even when everything else turns into a lie."
"And I walked right in."
He shrugged. "You're already inside everything else. Why not this too?"
She stepped closer. "Is this why you're so... relentless? Why you cling so tightly to control?"
His expression darkened. "Because control is the only thing that doesn't leave."
Yuyan's voice softened. "People aren't assets, Luchen."
His gaze flicked to her. "No. But they betray like assets. And fall like stocks."
She felt the air shift between them.
Not warm. Not safe. But real.
"I should go back to bed," she said.
He nodded once. "Leave the door open."
"Why?"
He turned away, placing the frame back on the shelf.
"So I remember that not everything I touch disappears."
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