He set it down.

She had kept the book. He had never found out which one.

The first tear came without warning, sliding down the ridge of his cheekbone before he’d registered that his eyes had filled, and he didn’t wipe it away, just sat with his palms flat on the desk and let it fall. The second followed. His throat constricted and he pressed his lips together and breathed through his nose, slow and deliberate, his shoulders rigid.

He thought about Guiying growing up in that house. Illegitimate, treated as surplus, as inconvenience, as something to be managed rather than loved. The details he had assembled over the past months sat in his mind without softening — the isolation, the arranged marriage to a violent man, years of being systematically ground down by people who should have protected him instead. His fingers curled against the desk, knuckles whitening.

A complete family. Two languages at the dinner table. Isabelle’s voice in the morning. A child who grew up knowing without question that he was wanted.

None of it had happened.

And nobody who caused it had paid anything for it. Deyong still had his name, his position, his comfortable life. The men who looked the other way still had theirs. The world had moved on unbothered while Guiying carried everything alone, because that was what the world did to the powerless — it moved on and left them with the bill.

A sound escaped him, low and involuntary, and he pressed the back of his hand hard against his mouth and held it there, his eyes burning, his shoulders shaking. The tears came properly now, silent and relentless, tracking down his face and dropping onto the desk beneath him, darkening the wood in small irregular spots.

Was this the tax levied on illegitimacy? Not on the men who created the circumstances but on the child delivered into them, who spent his entire life paying a debt he never incurred?

He sat there until the shaking stopped and the tears slowed, the dull dense weight of it settling back into its usual place.

Saturday was coming. Guiying would be in that room, across that table, and he didn’t know yet what he would say or how to begin or whether Guiying had any idea that the man looking at him had his mother’s letter folded in a desk drawer. But he would be there.

And someday, when enough of the truth had surfaced, maybe he could close the distance between them properly.

Maybe he could hug him. Just once.

He folded the letter back along its creases, placed it in the drawer, closed it, picked up his phone, turned it face up, and went back to work.

Liuxian got home to find Wang Chengli already at the entrance, taking his coat before he’d finished stepping through the door.

"Welcome home young master," Wang Chengli said, folding the coat over his arm. "You’re back later than usual."

Old Li appeared from the kitchen, wiping his hands on a cloth, looking Liuxian over. "You came back quite late," he said. "Have you eaten? Shall I put something together?"

"I’m not hungry Uncle Li," Liuxian said.

Old Li clicked his tongue. "Then let me bring you tea at least." He was already turning back toward the kitchen before Liuxian could respond.

Liuxian took out his phone, saw the voicemail notification from his mother, and pressed play. Fu Wanqing’s voice filled the entrance hall, warm on the surface and iron underneath. "Liuxian, I’ve been patient. You know I have. But this Omega you’ve been hiding — bring him home. I want to meet him properly. A mother has a right to know who her son is spending his time with. Don’t make me come to you."

Wang Chengli, who had been quietly hanging the coat, said after a moment: "She’s not wrong to want to meet him, young master. In her position most mothers would have shown up at the door already."

"I know," Liuxian said.

"Master Xue is more than capable of holding his own in that meeting," Wang Chengli added. "When the time is right, it won’t go the way she expects."

Old Li reappeared with the tea, handing it to Liuxian and looking between them. "Is it the madam again?" He shook his head. "Bring the boy home, let her see him, she’ll come around." He patted Liuxian’s arm once. "Don’t let it sit on you all night young master."

Liuxian picked up the tea and headed upstairs to his study.

——

He set the tea on his desk, opened his laptop, and had barely read the first email when his phone rang. His operations director.

"Sir, the South China Sea shipment. We’ve just received confirmation. It went down this afternoon, weather related, total loss. One hundred million yuan worth of goods. The insurance claim is being filed tonight but realistically we’re looking at months before resolution. Hengli, Baorun and the Shenzhen group are all affected. Their contracts require delivery by end of month and we have no way to meet that timeline."

"Full report on my desk tonight," Liuxian said. "All three clients contacted personally before morning, not by their account managers, by you. No public statements until I’ve reviewed everything."

"Understood sir. I apologise."

"Next time something like this happens I hear about it within the hour."

"Yes sir."

He hung up, turned back to the laptop, and had opened the next email when his phone buzzed. A message from his contact at Yang Entertainment.

He picked it up.

Young master. Flagging something from the trainee floor. Been watching for a few days since the initial report and I can confirm it’s deliberate. Moying has been turned away from group meals consistently, told there’s no space when there clearly is, and his rehearsal scores have been interfered with on two separate occasions, marks submitted under his name that don’t reflect his actual performance. Yesterday his mic pack was damaged, it was made to look like an accident but it wasn’t. Someone is organising this and directing the others. The name at the center of it is Xue Peng.

Liuxian set the phone face down on the desk.

Then he picked it back up and called Zhang Wei.

Limo’s penthouse was quiet when Moying came out of the bathroom, and Limo was already on the couch with the first aid kit open on the coffee table, waiting. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Moying sat down. His left eye was swollen at the outer corner, a cut along his cheekbone still slightly raised, and his knuckles were clean.

That last part was what had been bothering Limo since he found him.

"Why didn’t you fight back?" Limo said.