In the next eight hours, Secretary Wu stord into the office, gasping for breath, his face drenched in stress. He looked like a desperate student on the verge of a breakdown, forced to complete an impossible deadline with no way out. His hands trembled slightly as he held onto the docunts, each one heavier than the last.
He hesitated before stepping forward, carefully gauging his boss’s expression. But as always, Li ZiChen was unreadable, his face as rigid as stone. The only thing that betrayed him was the way his fingers tapped against the armrest, slow, controlled, but unnervingly sharp, like a blade against bone.
The sound of paper flipping filled the room, each movent of his hands deliberate yet disturbingly careless. But his eyes, those cold, unforgiving eyes, burned with a quiet, simring fury. It was the kind of anger that didn’t explode imdiately. No, it brewed, seething beneath the surface, waiting for the perfect mont to strike.
He exhaled sharply and shut his eyes for a brief mont, forcing his rage into submission. When he opened them again, the temperature in the room seed to drop.
The so called "good natured Bai HaiZe". A fabricated mask. A pathetic illusion. Every thread that Li ZiChen pulled unraveled more filth beneath the surface. That man was a lie. He played the part of the harmless outsider well, but nothing about his past was as spotless as he wanted people to believe.
It wasn’t just the nightclub visits with OuYang before it was shut down. It wasn’t just his unsettling presence in high school, where he neither suffered the abuse AiLin did nor actively participated in it. No, everything about him felt too carefully crafted, too convenient.
Coincidences didn’t exist in Li ZiChen’s world.
A slow smirk curled at his lips, but there was nothing amused about it, only sothing dark, sothing dangerous.
Then Secretary Wu spoke.
"About the maid who was killed in the fire," he began cautiously, "we found a witness, but... she refuses to speak."
Li ZiChen didn’t even hesitate. "Pay her," he said, his tone sharp and final. "How much money does she need to open her mouth?"
There was no kindness in his words. No patience.
Secretary Wu had anticipated this. Of course, his boss was right. The mont money was ntioned, the woman caved within five minutes, spilling every last secret she had held onto.
"We paid her five million yuan," the secretary admitted, watching his boss’s expression carefully. "There’s no solid evidence, but from what she knows, the maid was having an affair... with Senior Mr. Jiang."
Silence.
The air thickened.
Then Li ZiChen let out a quiet, humorless laugh. Not one of amusent—but the kind of laugh that sent a shiver down a man’s spine. A low, cruel chuckle that barely lasted a second before vanishing into a cold, suffocating stillness.
His fingers flexed slightly before he reached for the two photographs on his desk—one of Bai HaiZe, the other of Senior Mr. Jiang. He stared at them, his grip tightening until the paper began to crease beneath his fingers.
AiLin didn’t kill anyone.
She never had.
The fire. The so called "accidental" death of the maid. The lies that painted AiLin as a murderer. It was all a carefully spun web of deceit. But the most damning part? The maid wasn’t just so unfortunate casualty, she was pregnant, Senior Mr Jiang or Mrs Jiang wouldn’t be happy if one of them were to find out how the maid had gotten pregnant from the affair. And now, Li ZiChen knew exactly why.
His jaw clenched, a muscle twitching dangerously as his fingers slowly crushed Bai HaiZe’s file in his grip.
He could tell AiLin the truth about the maid. That was easy. That was nothing.
But Bai HaiZe?
No, that would take ti. That would take proof. AiLin had been blinded by the idea that Bai HaiZe was her savior. She saw kindness, a helping hand, but what she didn’t see was the mask, the careful deception hiding in plain sight.
Li ZiChen exhaled through his nose, forcing himself to think clearly. Then, slowly, thodically, he tapped a single finger against the table. Once. Twice. The steady rhythm of control before chaos.
Finally, his voice cut through the silence like a blade.
"Find the maid’s body," he ordered, his tone laced with quiet, lethal intent. "Gather every rumor, every whisper, every scrap of evidence linking her to Senior Mr. Jiang. I don’t care how much you have to dig, find it."
"Yes, Boss," Secretary Wu said imdiately, nodding. His hands were still shaking, though he tried to hide it. Then, cautiously, he glanced at the other file on the desk—the one his boss had just crushed in his grip.
"...What about Bai HaiZe?"
Li ZiChen didn’t answer right away. Instead, he unfurled his fingers, watching the crumpled docunt fall onto the desk like discarded trash.
Then he smirked, slow and terrifying.
"I’ll deal with him myself."
There was no hesitation. No room for negotiation.
Li ZiChen had already made up his mind.
He was going to rip Bai HaiZe apart. Piece by piece. Lie by lie.
And when he was done, AiLin would see the truth with her own eyes.
There would be no more masks. No more illusions.
Only the reality of the man who had fooled her all this ti.
anwhile AiLin found herself in the lobby with stickers all over her arms. How did this happen? AiLin had just t Mrs Hua and the two had a heart to heart chat, she began to understand more about her birth mother, how despite her fa she didn’t know much about life. She was surprised seeing the famous trendy food and was always happy when seeing AiLin speak about new things.
It was as if her mother never really had a childhood, sothing she understood. The two had grown up with an abusive mother and it clearly shows how Mrs Hua would always looked so sad while looking at her, a gaze she sotis catch when her birth mother looked at her secretly.
She must have hated the idea of parting with her. From Vicky, she even heard how her mother attempted suicide more than five tis after having to give her up, how she would have thrown her life away if not for the only goal in her life which was to get back to see her again.
"Then?" Her mother asked her with a smile.
"Then I went ahead and exposed them! Turns out the person behind those ice bucket were four people but I’m quite sure about the person behind it, I just don’t have enough evidence yet."
Hua Valentine humd, "If I am your enemy, after being exposed, I would try harder to ruin your image," she answered. "You should be careful AiLin, especially in dressing rooms. I had known a few actress who failed their works because of envious colleagues, they would try to provoke the actress while at the sa ti, used a hidden cara, they would even go as far as to edit the video to their advantage."
"Hm," AiLin frowned, her mother does make a very compelling argunt, "What should I do if that happen?"
"The damage would already be done if you leave the scandals for days. Netizen would believe only in facts so unless you co with an evidence, I don’t think it would be easy for them to believe your words."
"That’s true," she drawled but Valentine snapped her finger.
"Have this," her mother took off one of her hairclip and placed it to her hands, "I usually use this, it has a recording function and a cara function. All you have to do is to press this button here."
"Woah, this is... so useful?" AiLin turned the sleek device over in her hands, her eyes wide with curiosity. She had never seen anything like it before. It was small, lightweight, yet packed with chanisms she couldn’t even begin to comprehend.
"Right?" Mrs. Valentine chuckled, a note of pride slipping into her voice. "Samuel made it for . He’s been making all sorts of things lately. Leave it to your brother! He’s always a step ahead when it cos to innovation."
AiLin’s lips curled into a bright smile. "That’s amazing! He should sell them. With talent like his, he could change the world."
Mrs. Valentine sighed, a heaviness creeping into her expression that dimd her earlier enthusiasm.
"He would have," she murmured, almost to herself. Then, with a bitter exhale, she added, "If not for the fact that she’s still alive."
She.
The weight of that single word crashed onto AiLin like a tidal wave.
She knew exactly who her mother was talking about. The invisible chains that bound them. The oppressive force that had dictated their lives for as long as she could rember. Elder Hua.
Their family had wealth. Influence. A na that commanded respect. And yet, none of it belonged to them, not truly. Every decision, every move they made was scrutinized, dictated, and suffocated by the iron grip of that woman.
Mrs. Valentine’s fingers curled slightly, her nails pressing into her palm.
"One day," she whispered, so softly it was almost lost to the air. "One day, we’ll be free."
For a long mont, neither of them spoke.
The hours slipped by in a quiet companionship, one filled with unspoken thoughts and shared burdens. But eventually, reality reasserted itself.
Mrs. Valentine stood, smoothing out the folds of her coat.
"It’s getting late," she said with a small, wistful smile. "I should go."
AiLin wanted to say sothing, anything, to keep her there a little longer. But what could she say? They both knew the truth.
No matter how much ti they spent together, a part of their lives would always be dictated by soone else.
For now.
After bidding goodbye to her mother, AiLin decided to go straight back ho. But once she had turned her body a soft smaller body had bumped to her leg, a familiar sensation as she looked down at the ball of bundles who looked at her with wide eyes.
Little LiAi pointed her hand to her, her face brightening in delight, "MAMA!"
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