The rumor started the way all dangerous truths do.
Carefully.
Not loud enough to be traced.
Not specific enough to be denied.
Just enough to unsettle.
"She's advising them."
"Who?"
"…her."
Names were unnecessary.
Everyone knew who her meant.
The first denial came from a think tank.
"She is not formally affiliated."
It was accurate.
The second came from a consortium.
"We have no exclusive relationship."
Also true.
The third never came at all.
Because the organizations that mattered understood something instinctively:
Claiming me would be a mistake.
I didn't correct the rumors.
Correction implies concern.
I had none.
Instead, I adjusted my schedule.
More walking.
Fewer meetings.
Longer stretches of quiet.
Influence didn't require visibility.
In fact, visibility diluted it.
Gu Chengyi heard the rumors during a closed-door lunch.
The table went still for half a second too long.
Then someone asked, casually, "Is it true?"
He didn't ask who.
"Possibly," he said.
The response was immediate.
Sympathy.
Not envy.
That was when it hit him.
Whatever position I now occupied—
It was one he could not reach through negotiation.
Han Zhe heard it differently.
Laughter.
The kind that came with disbelief and grudging respect.
"She always was sharp," someone said. "Didn't expect this, though."
Han Zhe smiled automatically.
Then excused himself early.
Outside, city lights blurred as he realized something cruel and precise:
He had been interesting to people.
I had become indispensable.
Shen Yu didn't hear the rumor.
He inferred it.
Patterns shifted.
Access points changed.
Decisions carried an unfamiliar logic.
A quiet one.
A feminine one—not in softness, but in restraint.
He closed his eyes briefly.
"She chose distance over dominance," he said to himself.
That choice had changed everything.
That afternoon, someone broke the unspoken rule.
A journalist sent a request.
Anonymity.
No photos.
No last names.
Just questions.
I declined.
Not out of fear.
But out of principle.
The moment I became a story—
I would stop being a factor.
Instead, I wrote one email.
Short.
Measured.
Final.
You are welcome to study outcomes.
You are not entitled to their origin.
I sent it.
Then deleted the draft folder entirely.
That night, I dreamed for the first time in weeks.
Not of banquet halls.
Not of corridors.
But of water.
Deep. Still. Untouched by surface noise.
I woke without the familiar tension in my chest.
Chapter One Hundred and Three did not revolve around pursuit.
It revolved around restraint.
No one could point to me.
No one could claim me.
And that—
More than power,
More than revenge,
More than recognition—
Was freedom.