"Father!" Her voice echoed through the empty hall calling for him desperately, "Father, where are you?"
She pushed open the doors to his study room. It was all empty. The desk was clean, his computer gone. She ran to her stepmother's bedroom. The perfumed air lingered, but the room was dark and still.
It seemed like they hadn't been around.
A growing dread tightened her in her chest. She rushed to Yueling's suite, throwing the doors open. The walk-in closets were half-empty. The vanity, usually cluttered with expensive creams and makeup, was bare, and nothing showed she had been around.
"No," she whispered, her breath coming in ragged pants. "No, no, no..."
She ran through the entire west wing, her panic rising with each empty room. The mansion felt like a beautiful, hollow shell, like she was the only one present.
Finally, she found Mrs. Lan, the head housekeeper, in the kitchen, quietly polishing the silverware.
"Where are they?" Shuyin demanded, her voice shaking uncontrollably gazing at her, "Where is my family?"
Mrs. Lan looked up, her face a mask of pity. "Miss Shuyin... they... they left this afternoon."
"Left? Left for where?"
"The private airport," Mrs. Lan said softly, unable to meet her eyes. "They said they were taking a five-day vacation at the Island Zua. They said you... You would understand."
The Zua Island. The words hit her like a physical blow. It was the Lu family's private island resort, a place with no public access, shielded by layers of security and vast stretches of ocean. A place she couldn't reach.
"The phones," Shuyin gasped, recalling the existence of phones, she got the house telephone, "I'll call them."
She dialed her father's number first. It went straight to a generic voicemail, notifying her that the number was out of service. Then her stepmother's. Then Yueling's. All the same. She tried the house landline, the numbers for their personal assistants. Nothing.
It was a complete blackout.
She stood in the center of the vast, silent kitchen, the reality of the situation crashing down on her. They hadn't just betrayed her. They had abandoned her. They had orchestrated this entire humiliation and then fled to an island fortress, leaving her alone to face the ruins.
They had taken everything, her fiancé, her family, her future, and left her with nothing but a cancelled wedding and a scandal that would break at dawn.
Her legs gave way. She slid down the cold kitchen cabinet, the polished floor cool against her skin. The beautiful, delicate doll was shattered.
The world had shrunk to the cold kitchen floor. Shuyin curled into herself, the sobs wracking her body so violently that she could barely breathe. The polished tiles were the only solid thing left in a universe that had just collapsed.
A soft, shuffling sound came from the doorway. "Xiao Yin? My little swallow... what is all this noise? What has happened?"
The voice was frail, weathered by age, but to Shuyin, it was the most familiar sound in the world. She looked up, her vision blurred by tears, to see her grandmother leaning heavily on her walking frame, her face etched with concern.
Of everyone in the Lin family, her grandmother was the only one who had never seen her as a tool for social climbing. She was her sanctuary.
"Popo..." Shuyin choked out the childhood name. The dam broke. She scrambled across the floor and clung to her grandmother's thin legs, weeping uncontrollably as the whole, sordid story tumbled out of her mouth: Zeyan's call, Yueling's pregnancy, the family's betrayal, and their escape to the island, leaving everything for her to handle.
Her grandmother listened, her wrinkled hand stroking Shuyin's hair. As the story unfolded, her comforting strokes slowed. Her breathing became shallow and ragged.
"This... this cannot be," she whispered, her voice thin with disbelief and a dawning horror. "My son... my own son would not..." She clutched at her chest, her face turning a frightening shade of grey. "It's... it's so tight..."
"Popo? Popo!" Shuyin's own grief was instantly eclipsed by terror. She grabbed her grandmother as the old woman's knees buckled, her walking frame clattering to the floor. "HELP! SOMEONE, PLEASE!"
Her screams echoed through the mansion. Within moments, the head housekeeper, Mrs. Lan, and the head butler, Mr. Feng, came rushing into the kitchen. Their eyes widened at the scene.
"Call an ambulance!" Shuyin shrieked, cradling her grandmother's head. "Now!"
"No time," Mr. Feng said, his voice tight but calm. "The city traffic will delay them. We'll take her in the car. It will be faster that way than waiting for the ambulance..."
With practiced efficiency, he gently lifted the old woman. Shuyin scrambled to her feet, her legs like jelly, and followed him to the garage, Mrs. Lan supporting her. They laid her grandmother across the backseat of the luxury sedan, and Shuyin climbed in, holding her hand, whispering frantic pleas as Mr. Feng sped through the night.
"Popo... Popo..."
"Please hold on...."