Chapter 8 (2/2)
Rain had begun again.
The wooden windows stood wide open. In the courtyard outside, dense groves of bamboo gleamed green with moisture. By the pavilion and garden paths, a pond of lotus flowers lay in bloom. Fine rain fell over the broad leaves, the droplets gathering, then rolling off into the water below. It was almost possible to hear the clear sound of each drop entering the pond.
Liu Qingyuan sat to one side of the main hall and lifted his eyes toward the man in the seat of honor.
Ascetic. Remote. Noble.
His face was turned toward the open window, and since the lights in the hall were not on, the line of his profile looked like black paper cut by hand—precise, refined, almost impossibly beautiful.
“Qianxiu,” Liu Qingyuan said at last. “Stay and have dinner at home.”
He smiled as he spoke, but in his long, narrow eyes there was a careful, almost deferential kind of hope.
Liu Qingyuan was only a few months older than Liu Qianxiu, yet he looked much more mature. His features were handsome, his bearing straight-backed and polished, his hair immaculate, his whole person carrying the sharp, efficient air of an elite executive.
But he did not resemble Liu Qianxiu.
Each had taken after his own mother.
Liu Qianxiu was cool, restrained, and aristocratic.
Liu Qingyuan was mild, cultivated, and full of ambition.
Although Liu Qianxiu was younger by a few months, he was now the head of the Liu family. When Liu Qingyuan spoke to him, there was unmistakable respect in both tone and expression.
Liu Qianxiu did not reply.
His lashes lowered once.
Outside the wooden window, a single drop slid down the surface of a lotus leaf, broke apart, and vanished into the pond—alone.
“What exactly keeps you so busy at the hospital all day?” another voice sounded from the far side of the main hall, heavy with authority. “If it weren’t for your grandfather’s memorial, would you even have bothered to come back?”
When the speaker finished, a low cough followed.
Liu Fengmian was already in his sixties, but he looked far younger. Dressed in black, he was still lean and straight-backed. Beneath the fine lines of age, one could still see how striking he must once have been.
Even past sixty, Liu Fengmian still had style. Presence and polish had not left him.
The moment Liu Fengmian spoke, Liu Qingyuan stood and refilled his father’s tea, acting the part of the mediator.
“Qianxiu has his own responsibilities,” he said. “And besides, Uncle Cai is here to help.”
Uncle Cai—Cai Qingliang—was the Liu family’s chief secretary, responsible for consolidating information from around the world and reporting it to the family head. The family head gave the orders; Cai Qingliang carried them out.
Liu Fengmian coughed twice again.
Liu Qianxiu’s gaze did not shift. His tone remained level and calm.
“You’re ill?”
Liu Fengmian’s brow twitched. He lifted his eyes briefly to Liu Qingyuan, gave a faint sigh, and took a sip of tea to soothe his throat.
“I’ve been a bit overworked lately.”
“Father handles too many things himself. Of course he’s tired,” Liu Qingyuan said, first explaining it to Liu Qianxiu, then turning to Liu Fengmian. “You’re not as young as you used to be. Some of these matters should be left to me.”
“Bring Aunt Shen back,” Liu Qianxiu said.
Only then did he withdraw his gaze from the window outside.
He lifted his eyes and let them pass once, calmly, over the father and son whose expressions had gone subtly stiff at his words.
His own eyes remained still, bottomless.
“If I wanted to move against her, it wouldn’t matter where she hid.”
Both Liu Fengmian and Liu Qingyuan felt their hearts jolt. The stiffness on their faces vanished almost at once.
Liu Qianxiu behaved as though he had not noticed.
His phone vibrated once in his hand. He lowered his gaze and opened the message, the screen lighting the dark depths of his eyes without making them any easier to read.
Liu Qianxiu rose from his seat.
He was wearing a black suit that day, the collar neat and severe. His tall frame looked spare and imposing as he stood, and both Liu Fengmian and Liu Qingyuan lifted their heads to look at him.
Then Liu Qianxiu turned and walked toward the door.
“You’re not staying for dinner?” Liu Qingyuan asked just before he stepped outside.
The only answer was the man’s disappearing back.
The moment Liu Qianxiu left, the heavy, oppressive air in the main hall seemed to refill with oxygen. It came back to life. The two men inside relaxed almost unconsciously.
Liu Qingyuan frowned and cursed under his breath, looking toward the doorway where Liu Qianxiu had vanished, his eyes full of resentment and unwillingness. Then he looked back at Liu Fengmian, who had returned to the seat of honor.
“Are we really going to bring Mother back?”
Now that Liu Qianxiu was gone, Liu Fengmian seemed to settle back into his own authority as well. He lifted his tea and drank, the fragrance faint, the taste bitter.
“Yes,” he said. “Otherwise, he’ll really start to think we’re afraid of him.”
Mu Wan had sent Liu Qianxiu a message. Apparently, he was not home yet and had asked her to wait a little.
By the time she reached his floor, confirmed by a knock that he truly wasn’t there, and stood at the window at the end of the corridor holding the bouquet, night had fully fallen.
The sky was black, not a single star in sight.
Below it, however, the city glowed with lights, spreading outward like an endless man-made galaxy.
In a good neighborhood, even the night view was beautiful.
Mu Wan waited for fifteen minutes.
Then the elevator chimed.
She turned toward the sound.
The moment he stepped out of the elevator, Liu Qianxiu saw her standing by the window.
She held a large bouquet in her arms. Behind the clustered flowers, her oval face, red lips, and pale, delicate beauty seemed almost like a painting pasted against the night—more moving than the flowers themselves.
Black night.
Bright blossoms.
A soft woman.
The elevator doors closed soundlessly behind him.
Liu Qianxiu’s mouth tightened slightly. His throat moved once, and when he spoke, his voice was low as the night.
“Have you been waiting long?”
“No.” Mu Wan shook her head.
It was her first time seeing Liu Qianxiu in a suit. She had not expected Taoist Liu in formalwear to carry such a different kind of presence.
He had probably just finished with something important and hurried back.
Mu Wan walked over and said lightly, “It doesn’t matter. I wasn’t doing anything on my own anyway.”
On her own.
She was always on her own.
Once the woman drew close, Liu Qianxiu lowered his gaze.
“What happened?”
Mu Wan froze for a moment. The corridor was drafty, and loose strands of hair at her ear kept brushing her cheek, making it itch. Following his line of sight, she shifted the flowers aside and lowered her eyes.
The corridor was empty, just the two of them. The overhead lights were bright enough to show every detail in the other’s face. When she looked down, the flowers in her arms trembled softly, the petals rustling, their fragrance stirring around them.
“I fell while filming,” Mu Wan said.
Then she lifted her head and looked at him over the flowers.
His black eyes were still as deep and cold as a winter pool, and yet something about them made her heart soften.
Mu Wan bent her knee slightly, instinctively about to say it was nothing, when she heard him ask:
“Does it hurt?”
The bend in her knee straightened again.
She looked up at Liu Qianxiu.
That hollow place that had caved in inside her the night before seemed, because of those two words, to fill itself up all over again.
Full to the brim.
Like the flower scent in the corridor.
Mu Wan smiled, her eyes glimmering with moisture.
“Mm,” she said. “It hurts.”
Liu Qianxiu withdrew his gaze and pressed his finger to the lock. The door opened at once.
He turned back to look at her, his voice low—
“Come in.”
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