Chapter 38: THAT FACE LOOKED AT ME LIKE I WAS NOTHING

He crossed the room in four steps.

What happened next made the household manager, who appeared in the doorway at that moment, turn his face away.

The girl hit the floor. She curled immediately, instinctively, making herself as small as possible, her hands over her head. He kicked the side table above her and it came down on her wrist and she screamed, a short sharp sound that she cut off immediately because she knew from experience that screaming made it worse.

"Mr. Shen." The household manager stepped into the room. His voice was controlled, the practiced calm of someone who had done this before and understood that panic was not useful. "Mr. Shen, please. Let us get you upstairs, let us—"

"Who does he think he is?" Shen Zihao said.

His voice was very quiet. It was always quieter when it was at its worst.

"Who does Liu Liuxian think he is?" He turned around and the household manager saw his face properly for the first time and felt his stomach drop. "He stands there. He stands there in front of everyone and speaks to me like I am nothing. Like I am nobody." He picked up a chair and put it through the window. The glass came down on a sheet. "Me. He speaks to me like that."

"Sir—"

The senior attendant who had moved to help the girl on the floor made the mistake of standing up at the wrong moment.

Shen Zihao’s fist caught him across the jaw before anyone could do anything about it. The attendant went down hard, his head hitting the corner of the overturned side table, and did not get up. Blood appeared on the marble, dark and immediate.

"Oh god," someone said from the doorway. "Oh god call the doctor, call him now—"

The household manager was already on the phone, his back to the room, his voice very low.

Shen Zihao was still talking.

"He takes what is mine and then he threatens me. He threatens me." He put his fist through the painting above the fireplace. The frame split. His knuckles split with it and he did not appear to notice. "That face. That face looked at me like I was nothing. Who is he? Who is Tang XiaoYu? Who is he to Liu Liuxian?"

Nobody answered.

The smart ones never answered.

He moved through the sitting room and into the corridor and the staff who were there scattered, doors closing quietly, people making themselves invisible with the practiced efficiency of a household that had learned survival a long time ago.

The physician arrived at twelve forty one.

Shen Zihao was in the study by then but he was not sitting. He was pacing, back and forth, back and forth, his knuckles split and bleeding, his breathing still audible, still talking, the words coming out low and disconnected, fragments of the same thought cycling through on repeat.

"That face. That face. Who does he think he is? Who is Tang XiaoYu. Who is he to Liu Liuxian? That face."

The physician looked at the household manager.

The household manager looked at the two remaining male staff members he had stationed outside the study door.

They went in together.

Shen Zihao heard them coming and turned around and the physician had approximately one second to register the look on his face before things became very difficult very quickly. It took all three of them, the physician and both staff members, to get him down, and it was not clean and it was not quiet and one of the staff members was going to have bruised ribs in the morning from where Shen Zihao’s elbow found them in the struggle.

"Get off me," Shen Zihao said, his voice rising for the first time all night, the quiet finally breaking. "Get off me, get your hands off me, I will destroy every single one of you, I will—"

The needle went in.

He fought it for longer than a person should have been able to fight it.

Then the words slowed.

Then stopped.

Then his body stopped fighting and the three of them lowered him carefully into the chair, and the study was finally, completely quiet, the only sound was his breathing, slow and even now, the rage still visible in the lines of his face even as the sedative held him under.

The physician straightened up, adjusted his jacket, and looked at his hands.

Then he went back into the corridor where three injured staff members were waiting. The girl with the fractured wrist sitting against the wall with her face white and her eyes dry because she had learned a long time ago that crying in this house cost more than it was worth. The senior attendant still unconscious on the sitting room floor with blood drying at his temple. The junior doorman who had taken a blow to the ribs that made every breath a careful negotiation.

The household manager appeared beside him.

"The usual arrangement?" he asked quietly.

"The usual arrangement," the physician confirmed.

Private treatment. Private records. Private silence.

The household manager nodded and picked up his phone.

It was not the first time.

It was not going to be the last.

Guiying woke up slowly.

The first thing he registered was warmth.

The second thing he registered was that the warmth had a very specific shape and that shape was a very large human being.

He opened his eyes.

There was a chest in front of him.

A very broad, very close chest, rising and falling with the steady breathing of someone deeply and entirely asleep.

Guiying stared at it for a moment.

Then he leaned back slightly and looked up.

Liuxian’s face in sleep was different from his awake face.

The composed, unhurried expression he wore through every waking hour was gone, replaced by something considerably more unguarded.

His mouth was slightly open. His hair, which was always neat, was doing several things at once. There was a crease on his cheek from the pillow.

Liu Liuxian, CEO of Liu Corporation, one of the most powerful men in the country, was asleep with his mouth open and a pillow crease on his face.

Guiying looked at him for a long moment.

Then he looked at the ceiling.

Then he looked back at Liuxian.

He did not remember this man coming to bed. He had gone upstairs, gotten into bed, and been asleep before he had finished deciding anything.