Guiying nodded and stood up. "When are you starting?"

"Monday. Do you want to get signed?"

-_-

"No thank you."

Wang Chengli opened the front door before Guiying reached it, which meant Liuxian had called ahead, which meant Liuxian had been tracking the journey home, which was both slightly suffocating and, if Guiying was being honest with himself, not entirely unwelcome.

"Welcome home, Master Xue," Wang Chengli said.

"Thank you, Uncle Wang," Guiying said, stepping inside.

He went upstairs, changed out of his coat and into proper indoor clothes, replaced the bear slippers with the correct bear slippers which were identical but had been where they were supposed to be, and sat down at his desk.

He opened his laptop.

He had a TongShu meeting on Wednesday, a Saturday with Limo, and a portfolio that needed his attention.

Meanwhile...

The Xue family sitting room had seen many difficult conversations over the years.

This one was different.

Xue Deyong sat in his usual chair. Zhou Meilan sat across from him, her back straight. Xue Jiaming and Xue Bowen were both present, which meant the matter was considered serious enough to require the full household.

The search for Guiying had stalled completely. The private investigator had led them to Harbin, then to Chengdu, then to Kunming, and each time they had arrived at nothing.

The trail kept moving and they kept following it and it kept going nowhere.

Zhou Meilan had been talking for ten minutes about next steps, about resources, about the continued embarrassment of the situation, when the patriarch spoke.

Everyone in the room went quiet.

The patriarch of the Xue family was Xue Deyong’s father. The man who had built the company from nothing and had handed it, piece by piece, to the generation below him. He was in his seventies, sharp eyed, unhurried, and had the particular authority of someone who had earned the right to end conversations simply by beginning them.

He had been sitting in the corner chair saying nothing for the past twenty minutes. His wife, Kong Yunyi was beside him.

"Let it go." he said.

Zhou Meilan looked at him. "Grandfather—"

"Let the boy go." he said again. "All of you. Stop this search and start learning how to build something that doesn’t require ruining a young man’s life to sustain itself."

The room was very quiet.

He looked at Xue Deyong.

"We never arranged a marriage for you," he said. His voice was even and entirely without mercy. "We let you choose. We let you marry who you wanted, because we believed you were man enough to handle the consequences of your own choices. Instead you had a child out of wedlock, brought him into this household, and then spent twenty three years punishing him for your mistake." He paused. "You wanted to be the victim. The man who had made a mistake and was inconvenienced by its existence. So you let her—" he gestured at Zhou Meilan without looking at her, "raise him in bitterness and call it family."

Xue Deyong said nothing.

"Did she raise him?" the patriarch said. "Did any of you? You sat in this house and watched the innocent child suffer and told yourselves it was not your business." He looked around the room. "The one you should have hated was yourself, Deyong. You were the one who had a child and couldn’t take care of him. You were the one who looked at a boy who had done nothing except be born and decided he deserved what happened to him." He sat back. "I have made my decision."

Zhou Meilan straightened. "What decision?"

"I am giving my shares to ShangYan."

The room went still.

Like a cold gust of wipe had blown past.

Xue Jiaming and Xue Bowen looked at each other.

Xue Deyong’s expression did not change but something behind his eyes shifted, a rapid and unwelcome calculation happening beneath the surface.

Zhou Meilan stared at the patriarch.

"Brother ShangYan," she said.

"My shares," he said. "To ShangYan. Which means the company is effectively in his hands. You will be meeting your brother soon." He looked at Xue Deyong. "Or rather, your half brother."

Kong Yunyi found her voice.

"You hypocrite.." she said. Her voice had lost its careful composure entirely. "You sit here and lecture this family about that boy and you—"

"I also had a child out of wedlock.." the patriarch said, without particular shame.

"Yes. I did. The difference is that I kept him away. ShangYan and Deyong grew up in entirely separate lives. I did not bring ShangYan into this house and hand him to a bitter woman to raise. I did not watch him suffer for twenty three years and call it propriety." He looked at her. "ShangYan turned out considerably better than the son I raised in comfort and privilege. He built himself without my name, my money or my help. Which is more than I can say for most of the people in this room."

Kong Yunyi stood up, anger visible on her face.

"How dare you give your shares to a bastard," she said. "How dare you stand there and lecture us about that boy and then do the exact same thing—"

"I am not doing the same thing," the patriarch said. He did not raise his voice. He never needed to. "I am correcting an imbalance. ShangYan will have what is his by right. And you—" he looked at the room, at Zhou Meilan, at Xue Deyong sitting very still, at the two sons who had inherited their parents’ habits along with their features, "will be seeing him soon enough." He paused. "He is, by the way, very handsome. Much better looking than his brother. You’ll see."

He stood, with the unhurried ease of a man who had said everything he came to say and found the effort entirely worthwhile.

"Let the boy go." he said one final time, to no one specifically and everyone present. "You have done enough damage."

He walked out.

The sitting room was very quiet.

Kong Yunyi sat back down slowly.

She looked at her son in utter disappointment.

Xue Deyong was looking at the floor, she hissed loudly and got up. Walking out as well, muttering "What a complete waste."