Chapter 42: IF HE DOESN’T SEE ME IN PERSON ILL TURN THIS COUNTRY UPSIDE DOWN

The footage was from the gala. The red carpet. Him and Liuxian walking side by side, hand in hand, the white satin catching every light, the Louboutins clicking against the carpet. The cameras had gotten everything. The angle, the height difference, the way Liuxian had looked at him right before they walked through the entrance.

The news anchor was speaking.

"Liu Liuxian, CEO of Liu Corporation and the evening’s headline sponsor, arrived at the Omega Rights Foundation charity gala last night accompanied by a companion identified only as Tang XiaoYu. However what has set social media ablaze this morning is not the identity of the companion but what was on his finger."

The footage zoomed in.

The ring. Clear and unmistakable on Guiying’s left hand, catching the light in the way that well made things did.

"These are not promise rings," the anchor continued. "According to jewelry experts consulted this morning, these rings were custom designed by Atelier Maren, the Swiss luxury house known exclusively for bespoke wedding and commitment pieces. Their signature internal engraving and the particular cut of the stone are unmistakable." A pause. "Liu Liuxian, one of China’s most eligible and most private figures, appears to be married."

Guiying set down his chopsticks.

He looked at the ring on his finger.

He looked at the television.

The segment cuts to social media coverage. Weibo was apparently in full collapse. The hashtag had been trending since three in the morning. The comments were a mixture of shock, admiration, and the particular frenzy of a public that had been given a mystery and intended to solve it.

Who is Tang XiaoYu??

That OUTFIT. Those shoes. Who IS this person.

Liu Liuxian got MARRIED and told absolutely nobody???

The way he looked at him on that carpet I am not okay.

Finding Tang XiaoYu’s identity is my new full time job.

Guiying looked at his soy milk.

He picked it up and drank it.

He looked at the television again.

His face was on the national morning news.

He was trending on every social media platform in China.

And somewhere across the city, Liu Liuxian was presumably sitting in his office being completely unbothered by all of this.

He ate the rest of his breakfast with the focused composure of a man who had already died once and therefore had a reasonably high threshold for alarming developments.

---

In the Liu family residence on the other side of the city, the morning had started considerably less calmly.

Fu Wanqing had been awake since six, which was her habit. She had taken her morning tea, read her correspondence, and was in the middle of reviewing her schedule for the week when her personal assistant appeared in the doorway of the morning room with an expression that communicated, without a single word, that something had happened.

"What is it?" Fu Wanqing said.

The assistant held out a tablet.

Fu Wanqing looked at the screen.

She looked at it for a long time.

The footage from the gala. Her son, walking a red carpet, hand in hand with a person she had never seen in her life, both of them wearing rings that any person with knowledge of fine jewelry would immediately recognize as wedding bands.

She set the tablet down on the table beside her tea.

She had been furious since the day Liuxian had failed to show up for his arranged meeting with Dia An’s family. She had been furious through the unreturned calls, through the silence, through the complete and characteristic absence of any explanation from her son, who communicated exactly as much as he decided to communicate and not one word more.

She had assumed, in her more generous moments, that he had simply needed time. That he would come to his senses. That whatever had gotten into him would pass and he would return to the plan that had been carefully constructed and she would not have to have the conversation she had been preparing since the day he started avoiding her calls.

He was apparently married. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

To a person she had never heard of.

Who was trending on Weibo.

Fu Wanqing picked up her phone.

She called Liuxian.

It rang. Then it went to voicemail.

She called again.

Voicemail.

She set the phone down. She picked it back up. She found Zhang Wei’s number, because if her son was not going to answer his own mother then his assistant was going to answer for him.

Zhang Wei picked up on the second ring.

"Madam Fu," he said, in the carefully neutral tone of someone who had been expecting this call.

"Zhang Wei," Fu Wanqing said. Her voice was composed and entirely without warmth. "You will tell my son that if he does not come home and explain himself to me in person, I will turn this entire country upside down." A pause. "Today."

"I will relay the message, Madam Fu," Zhang Wei said.

"See that you do," she said, and hung up.

She picked up her tea.

It had gone cold.

She set it back down.

Zhang Wei put his phone down, looked at it for a moment, and then looked at Liuxian’s office door.

He picked the phone back up and sent a message.

Zhang Wei: Your mother called. She says if you do not go home and explain yourself today, she will turn the entire country upside down. Her words, not mine.

He set the phone down and waited.

Thirty seconds later his phone buzzed.

Liuxian: I saw the news.

Zhang Wei: That is not a response to what I just said.

Liuxian: I know.

Zhang Wei: Sir. She sounded very serious.

Liuxian: She always sounds serious.

Zhang Wei: This was a different kind of serious. This was the kind that had a plan attached to it.

A longer pause this time.

Liuxian: Clear my afternoon. I will go after the two o’clock meeting.

Zhang Wei: Shall I inform Madam Liu?

Liuxian: No. I will tell her myself.

Zhang Wei: And Master Xue? Will you be bringing him?