CHAPTER FIVE
The Red Lotus Mansion stood on the outskirts of Shanghai — a sprawling estate surrounded by still ponds and whispering bamboo. Built decades ago by both families as a symbol of union, it now served a different purpose: a gilded cage for two unwilling occupants.
General Li Xuefang arrived before dawn, her motorcade silent as shadows. She brought only essentials — a single suitcase, a stack of encrypted files, and the discipline of a soldier who had never known leisure. The household staff bowed deeply as she entered, their nervousness palpable.
She nodded once and climbed the marble staircase without a word.
At the far end of the hall, Jiang Ren stood before his canvas, listening to the faint rhythm of her boots echoing across the mansion. He didn't turn around.
"So it's official," he murmured. "The General moves in. Just hope we'll respect each other's space."
She paused briefly, one hand on the doorway. "Hm."
Then she disappeared into her wing of the house, leaving only silence and the faint scent of rain and steel behind her.
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Days passed like pages turned in a locked book.
The mansion divided itself naturally — one half belonging to the disciplined rhythm of a general, the other to the chaos of an artist. She rose at 5 a.m., her footsteps precise, her schedule unbroken. He worked through the nights, the sound of his brushes scratching faintly through the walls.
They never shared a meal.
Never crossed paths unless necessary.
Even the staff learned to move quietly between them — as if serving two different worlds under the same roof.
Yet, Jiang couldn't help noticing her presence.
The way she stood in the courtyard each morning, practicing her silent Tai Chi, sunlight glinting off the silver thread in her hair. The subtle authority that followed her even in stillness. Every gesture was deliberate, sharp, powerful — and irritatingly graceful.
He told himself he despised it.
"She walks like she owns gravity," he muttered one night, painting furiously. "Even her silence feels like a command."
But when he glanced at the reflection in his studio window — her silhouette passing across the far balcony — his brush hesitated. The stroke faltered.
Li, on her end, remained utterly indifferent. She barely noticed his existence. Her nights were spent reading intelligence files, revisiting war reports, and sketching tactical models that had no place in peacetime.
If she ever thought of Jiang, it was only in practical terms:
A link to what she needed. A means to an end.
Yet something subtle had begun shifting in the mansion's quiet air — the faint awareness that two storms, long restrained, now shared the same sky.
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