The atmosphere in the executive office was no longer the cold, clinical silence of a corporate empire; it was a purgatory of Bai Qi's own making.
He sat at the massive mahogany desk, his face buried in his hands, his fingers digging into his scalp as if he could claw out the memories.
Behind his closed eyelids, the television of his mind played a relentless, brutal loop.
He could still hear the jagged, broken screams.
He could still feel the way Shu Yao had shattered beneath him—a fragile porcelain doll crushed by a monarch's insecurity.
Every sob, every gasp for air, vibrated in his ears like a cacophony he couldn't silence.
His jaw clenched with a force that threatened to crack bone. He was suffocating under the weight of Shen Haoxuan's message. Brother.
The word felt like a drop of acid in his veins. He loathed the idea that he shared even a single drop of blood with that bastard.
But then, the realization hit him like a physical blow: What Shen did, and now today, Bai Qi had done the exact same thing. They were, in the most disgusting sense, identical.
The sudden vibration of his phone on the desk made him jump. He stared at the screen through bloodshot eyes. It was Ming Su.
Instantly, the predatory tension in his frame dissolved. His expression, which had been a mask of obsidian rage, softened into something unrecognizable—a relic of the man he pretended to be. To the world, and especially to her, he was the polished heir.
Ming Su: "Ah Qi, I heard your parents returned to China this morning. Why didn't you tell me? I was quite surprised."
Bai Qi's heart lurched. He cursed under his breath, his thumbs hovering over the glass. The presence of his parents meant his unrestricted power was over, and the chaos in his office was a secret he had to bury deep.
Bai Qi: "I am so sorry, Ming Su. Their arrival was entirely unannounced. I think my mother wanted to stage a surprise. I only found out by News."
He hit send, a cold sweat breaking out on his neck. He waited, the silence of the room pressing in on him.
Ming Su: "I understand, Ah Qi. I was just wondering. I knew you wouldn't keep something like that from me."
Ming Su:"Toodles"
Bai Qi felt a momentary, hollow relief. A faint blush touched his cheeks—the last vestige of a man who still craved a normal, untainted affection. He typed a quick.
"Bye, see you later," and set the phone down. But as the screen went black, the reflection of his own eyes stared back at him.
"What the fuck is wrong with me?" he whispered to the empty room.
The phone rang again almost immediately. This time, the caller ID read: MOM. Bai Qi exhaled a jagged breath and answered. "Yes, Mother?"
"Oh, my dear Bai Qi!" Mingzhu's voice chirped, vibrant and oblivious to the wreckage her son was sitting in.
"I'm organizing a grand Christmas party. The invitations are flying out as we speak. Everyone is accounted for, but there is one person left—your assistant, Shu Yao. Would you mind handing him his invitation personally?"
The world seemed to stop. Bai Qi's grip on the phone tightened until the casing groaned. The thought of facing Shu Yao—of looking into those glassy, haunted eyes—sent a shiver of pure cowardice through his spine.
"I... I will, Mother. Don't worry about it," he stammered.
"That's my boy! See you at home, dear!"
The line went dead. Bai Qi stared at the phone as if it were a ticking bomb. He was the Monarch of Rothenberg Industries, but he was currently a prisoner of his own guilt. How was he supposed to hand an invitation to a boy he had just finished unmaking?
Across the city, in a quiet, high-end boutique George had cleared out, Shu Yao stood behind thick, heavy velvet curtains. The silence here was meant to be soothing, but to him, it felt like the weight of a coffin.
He stood before the full-length mirror, his hands trembling as he unbuttoned his coat. He forced himself to look. His breath hitched—a sharp, agonizing sound. His skin was a roadmap of Bai Qi's wrath.
The dark hickeys and purple bruises bloomed across his collarbone like poisonous flowers. They were brands, markers of a possession that had cost him his soul.
He turned his head away, unable to bear the sight of his own "ruined" reflection. He reached for the shredded white shirt he had been wearing— He let it drop to the floor. It fell silently, looking like a dead skin he was trying to shed.
With robotic, stiff movements, he pulled on a soft, light-brown shirt George had provided. The fabric was gentle, but against his sensitized skin, it felt like sandpaper. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hands, his sobs coming in small, rhythmic hiccups that he couldn't suppress.
"Shu Yao? Is something wrong?" George's voice drifted from the other side of the curtain—low, steady, and filled with a concern that Shu Yao felt he no longer deserved.
Shu Yao flinched, quickly scrubbing the tears from his face. "It's nothing."
He stepped out from behind the velvet. His head was bowed, his shoulders hunched as if he were trying to occupy as little space as possible. George stood there, his expression a fortress of calm, though his eyes burned with a protective fire.
George reached out, his hand moving with agonizing slowness. He placed a finger under Shu Yao's chin and gently, lightly, lifted his head.
The sight was a masterpiece of tragedy. Shu Yao's delicate face was pale, his eyes bloodshot and raw, his features swollen from the sheer volume of his grief. He looked like a beautiful doll that had been discarded in the rain.
"Don't worry, Shu Yao," George murmured, his voice thick with emotion. "I'll take you home. You don't have to see him again today."
Shu Yao didn't answer. His mind was elsewhere. He was thinking about his Journal again.
If Shen had taken his belongings from the hospital, then the journal was in the hands of shen. The thought sent a fresh wave of terror through him.
That book contained every line of his soul—every deep, desperate confession for Bai Qi that he had never dared to speak aloud. If Shen showed that to Bai Qi... or worse, if Bai Qi read those words of love after what he had just done...
"Shu Yao? Shu Yao?"
George had called his name three times. His voice was soft, afraid to startle the boy who looked like he was standing on the edge of a precipice.
George said nothing. He simply watched the boy, his heart breaking for the "boy" who was currently drowning in a shame that didn't belong to him.
Meanwhile at ming su penthouse, The tea room was an oasis of curated silence, bathed in the amber glow of a dying afternoon.
Porcelain clinked softly against a saucer—a delicate, domestic sound that belied the venomous conversation hanging in the air.
Ming Su sat across from Shen Haoxuan, the "Saintly" mask she wore for Bai Qi discarded like a cheap trinket. Here, in the shadows of the Viper's nest, her eyes were sharp, cold, and glittering with a predatory intelligence. She took a sip of the steaming Darjeeling, her movements graceful and lethal.
"Oh, come on now, Shen," she began, her voice a smooth, melodic purr. "You know I was so close. I had him balanced right on the precipice. It took every ounce of my patience to cultivate that version of Bai Qi—the one who was actually starting to look at the world through the lens I provided."
She set the cup down with a clinical click. "But it was a staggering waste of time. If that titan, George, hadn't intervened that night and ruined the arrangement, Shu Yao would have been extinguished completely. He would have been a memory in my story."
Shen smirked, his features sharp and aristocratic in the dim light. He watched the steam curl from his cup, his expression one of bored amusement. "And what, exactly, was the culmination of your little masterpiece that night, Ming? What was the final blow?"
Ming Su smiled, and the expression was truly terrifying—a jagged, cruel thing that reached her eyes. She crossed one slender leg over the other, the silk of her dress whispering against the couch.
"Frame-up, of course," she said simply. "Simple, classic, and utterly devastating. I was seconds away from orchestrating a scene that would have branded Shu Yao as a predator.
A few well-placed tears, a shredded dress, and a collection of compromising photographs showing the 'Assistant' harassing the future mistress of the Rothenberg estate."
She leaned back, her eyes narrowing. "Shu Yao knows who I am, Shen. He sees past the image. He became a liability—something that didn't fit anymore. I was halfway removing him to protect the plan. I didn't realize that while I was dealing with him, another problem was already forming."
Shen gave a short laugh. "You can't touch someone like George, Ming. He's not just business. He protects the throne. And worst he knows who I am."
Ming Su's hand stilled on the handle of her teacup. A flicker of genuine surprise crossed her face, quickly masked by a cold curiosity.
"He knows? Then why in heaven's name didn't you warn me before about him? I could have been more surgical.
I could have moved with more caution if I knew I was being watched by someone with actual teeth."
Shen's smile widened, but it didn't reach his eyes. His gaze was fixed on some distant, invisible point—a horizon only he could see.
"Because I wanted to write a few lines of my own, Ming," he said, his voice dropping into a dark, velvet register. "This isn't just a game of corporate chess. This is a blood sport."
Ming Su tilted her head, her curiosity piqued by the sudden, visceral shift in Shen's energy. "We all know you hate Bai Qi, Shen. But you've always framed it as a patrilineal debt—a son avenging a father's fallen legacy. Is there more to this than a simple grudge over a crown?"
Shen set his tea aside, the porcelain rattling slightly as the mask of his composure slipped for a fraction of a second. The hatred that flickered in his eyes was ancient and absolute.
"Bai Qi is my greatest adversary, yes," Shen whispered, the words like a vow. "But I am not merely avenging my father. I am avenging my own soul.
I am seeking recompense for what his father, Niklas Rothenberg, did to us before I ever held a pen."
Ming Su leaned forward, her breath hitching in the sudden, heavy silence of the room. "And what did the Great King of Steel actually do, Shen? What could Niklas Rothenberg possibly have done to your family.
"Come now, Shen," Ming Su pressed, her eyes searching his face for a crack in the armor. "You're always retreating into the fog the moment things get personal. Get to the hellish point already. What did Niklas do?"
Shen smirked and tilted his head. "Save that for the memoirs, Ming," he said calmly. "The past doesn't matter. I'm focused on what's happening now."
Ming Su huffed, a small sound of irritation, but she allowed the pivot. She knew better than to corner a viper. She leaned forward, her curiosity shifting like a feline stalking new prey.
"Fine. Then tell me about the shirt," she said, her voice dropping an octave. "How did you find it? How did you know exactly where to strike? Sometimes I think you're a ghost, Shen, drifting through the hallways of they're life without a sound."
Shen chuckled, a dry, melodic sound that lacked any warmth. "Do you truly think I rely on the supernatural, Ming? I find the material world far more cooperative. Have you forgotten about the guard?"
Ming Su's brow knitted for a heartbeat before realization dawned. "The one at the hospital? The one you... 'realigned' with those threats of yours?"
"Correct," Shen said, sipping his tea with clinical precision. "I told him to keep his eyes—and his ears—on the boy.
For two months, I had a front-row seat to Shu Yao's slow disintegration. Every time he slept, every time he reacted to a nurse's touch, it was recorded. But the real treasure wasn't in his waking hours."
Shen leaned back. "When the shu Yao has nightmares, he talks. He reveals things. The guard recorded everything he said. It gave us a clear picture of his mental state."
Ming Su smirked. "And what did he say in those dreams? What was so useful that it gave you leverage over him?"
Shen's gaze sharpened, the amusement in his eyes turning into something glinting grey and visceral. "He would scream in his sleep. Jagged, incoherent things about a specific night. A night he couldn't escape, even in his unconsciousness."
Ming Su lifted a perfectly manicured brow. "What night, Shen?"
"The night I raped him," Shen said it flatly.
The statement was delivered with the same casual tone one might use to describe the weather. Ming Su's eyes widened, a flicker of genuine surprise crossing her features. She looked at him, truly seeing the depth of the monster across the table.
"You really are something, Shen," she breathed, a twisted sense of admiration coloring her tone. "A true Rothenberg rival."
Shen chuckled again, a dark, low vibration. "But you won't believe me, Ming—it was an accident."
"An accident?" Ming Su echoed, her voice skeptical. "You expect me to believe you stumbled into a violation of that magnitude?"
"Of course," Shen said, his expression hardening into one of cold principle. "I didn't do it on purpose. Not initially. I have zero tolerance for impudence, Ming.
If someone dares to disrespect me in front of my people, I will serve them justice in the only language they understand. He was defiant. He was proud. So, I rape him."
He paused, a smirk dancing on his lips. "The surprise only came later. Imagine my delight when I realized the man I had just unmade was the same 'Saintly' assistant of the man I hate most in this world. It was as if fate had handed me the perfect weapon, already bloodied and ready for use."
Ming Su let out a sharp, jagged laugh. The horror of the revelation was eclipsed by the sheer utility of it. They both sat there in the amber light, two predators bonded by a shared love for the "ugly" things that made their world move.
"So the shirt was just the evidence of the crime," Ming Su mused, a cruel light in her eyes. "And now Bai Qi is choking on the truth of it."
"He isn't just choking," Shen corrected, his voice a lethal whisper. "He is drowning. And I've only just started pulling the tide out from under him."