Renée's salon smelled of lavender and peppermint and every kind of consolation a woman could need. They called their evenings "pamper nights," but what they really provided was decision space. Hot tea, face masks that smelled faintly of coconut, hands that dispensed compromise like bandage—group care that made choices feel less lonely.
Mei learned to let people help. She let Renée make doctor's appointments, she let a nurse named Sora explain options with the precise kindness of someone who had weathered hard choices before. For the first time since the boardroom, Mei allowed another person to hold the small white object in her palm with reverence—the sonogram.
She was learning the vocabulary of protection: security numbers, temporary names, a plan that meant she could keep this child private until she decided otherwise. The women around her were fierce in a way that had nothing to do with drama and everything to do with logistics.
"Revenge isn't the point," Renée said once, in that exact tone of boundary and fire. "Stability is."
Mei listened. She had not intended to be the center of anyone's plan, but she had become one. She had not chosen the life that was unfolding, only the measures to survive it.
Meanwhile, back in the city, Victor Hsu circulated a rumor that would poison everything: the original documents that established the Liao family line had gaps. A lawyer leaked that the so-called heiress might actually be an authentic Liao—an impossible twist that would change whose hands the knife would find.
Cliffhanger: An anonymous envelope arrives at Renée's salon with a birth certificate that bears a familiar name—one that links Mei and the Liao family in a way nobody expects.