The rain eased to a fine mist by morning, leaving the Mo estate wrapped in a hush so pristine it felt artificial. Bai Xueyi stood at the balcony doors of the guest wing, watching droplets chase each other down the glass. Somewhere below, gravel crunched beneath tires; a delivery van rolled through the gates, waved past by security with casual efficiency.
Routine. Predictable. Perfect.
Too perfect.
She turned away from the window and pulled on a plain blouse. The quiet pressed in around her. Last night's conversation tugged at the edges of her mind—words too honest to forget.
Then maybe we burn together.
She found the library by instinct now. Mo Liuxian was already there, sleeves rolled, tie abandoned, studying a printed map of accounts that spidered from Aurora Consortium to half a dozen shell companies. A fresh pot of tea steamed between them.
"You're early," he said without looking up.
"You're pretending you slept," she countered.
A corner of his mouth moved. "Sit. I want you to see something."
She slid into the chair opposite. He tapped a red circle on the map. "Velan Industries. Their next shipment is due tonight. If we can connect Velan's courier to Aurora—and Aurora to Han Ze—we'll have a thread we can pull publicly without exposing you."
"And if we can't?" she asked.
"Then we make one," he said, voice even.
The tea smelled like osmanthus. She didn't touch it.
"Your staff trust you," she murmured, eyes still on the map. "Do they trust me?"
"They trust what I tell them to," he said. "For now, you're an external consultant."
"Name?"
"Lin Xue."
The ghost of a smile grazed her mouth. "How original."
From the hall, a light knock. The head butler—Ma Jian—stepped in with his customary quiet. His posture was immaculate; his eyes slid over Xueyi with the neutral deference of a man who had seen every scandal and survived them all.
"Sir," he said, setting down a small velvet box. "The courier just delivered the archival key you requested. For the east wing storage."
Liuxian nodded. "Leave it."
Ma Jian withdrew without leaving a footprint.
Xueyi waited until the door latched, then leaned forward. "You didn't request any key."
"No," he said. "I didn't."
They regarded the velvet box together. The lid lifted with a soft sigh. Inside lay a metal key fob engraved with the Mo crest… and a second object the size of a match head, almost invisible against the velvet.
A microtransmitter.
"Well," Xueyi said lightly, "either your butler is ambitious or our friend Echo is making house calls."
Liuxian closed the box with two fingers. "Ma Jian has been with my family for twenty years."
"And loyalty is a currency," she replied. "It spends easily."
He stood. "You think Han Ze turned my staff."
"I think he turned your house," she said. "Doors, cameras, couriers, all the gears that move without notice. That's his genius—he doesn't corrupt the throne; he oils the hinges."
They moved together through the corridors with quiet speed—him with a code to every lock, her with the kind of stillness that never drew a gaze. In the east wing, a steel door guarded the private archives. The lock light blinked green as soon as they approached.
"I didn't enter a code," Liuxian said.
Xueyi's eyes cooled. "Because it was already open."
They stepped into the archive room: rows of labeled boxes, climate control humming. A single box sat on the central table, lid half off, papers splayed with theatrical negligence.
Project Bride — Personnel & Procurement.
Top sheet: an invoice bearing Bai Xueyi's name.
She didn't flinch. "Obvious."
He skimmed the second page. "And sloppy."
"Sloppy is a message," she said. "Han Ze wants you to see this. He wants you to doubt me."
He didn't look up. "I don't need help with doubt."
"Then you will need practice with trust," she said, eyes on his.
Their gazes held. It felt like standing on a cliff edge—wind pushing, gravity calling—neither willing to step first.
A soft chime sounded from the ceiling speaker, followed by the calm female voice of the house system.
"Security notice. Guest Wing—unauthorized device detected."
They moved as one.
Back in the guest wing, a maid pressed herself against the wall, pale and trembling as guards swept the room. On the nightstand, beside Xueyi's folded robe, lay a lipstick-sized cylinder in matte black, blinking a sleepy blue.
A signal repeater—piggybacking on the mansion's internal network.
The senior guard looked between them. "We found it during routine scan, sir. Hidden in the pocket of the guest's jacket."
Three pairs of eyes turned to Xueyi.
She didn't lower her gaze. "Check the pantry exit camera," she said. "Replay the last twenty minutes."
The guard hesitated, then tapped his tablet. The feed flickered: a quiet hallway, the maid passing with a laundry basket, Ma Jian crossing with his usual unhurried steps… and a gloved hand, quick as a blink, slipping something into the robe pocket as a cart rolled past.
The angle didn't show the face. It did show the glove: black, snug, marked with a pale crescent where the leather had worn thin at the thumb.
Liuxian's jaw hardened. "Track that glove."
"Already on it," the guard said. His tablet pinged after a beat. "Sir… the glove's RFID tag pings to storage. East wing."
"Where we just were," Xueyi said.
He nodded once. "And Ma Jian?"
"Left the estate five minutes ago to 'collect a parcel,'" the guard reported, eyes widening. "Sir—he left through Staff Gate C without logging."
Liuxian's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Alert the outer perimeter. If he returns, bring him to me."
The guards scattered. The maid scraped a bow and fled. The room emptied like a breath leaving lungs. Only rain and quiet remained.
"Do you believe me?" Xueyi asked, not softly.
It would have been easier to lie, to say yes without weight. He didn't. "I don't know," he said. "I'm learning."
She nodded. "Good. Start here."
She plucked the repeater off the table, twisted the cap, and exposed the board. "Tri-band, low-range, mimics your house system to insert ghost devices. If he's littered your walls with these, Han Ze's been living in your cameras for weeks."
"Rip them all out?"
"We need proof first," she said. "If you purge the ghosts now, he'll vanish. If you let him think you're blind—he'll blink."
He studied her. "You've done this before."
"I've died before," she said. "It's not that different."
Something like heat pricked the back of his throat. He turned away and keyed the intercom. "House system: log and isolate all low-frequency anomalies. Do not purge. Mirror feed to my private line only."
"Confirmed," the system said.
He faced her again. "You don't drink tea anymore."
She blinked at the pivot. "What?"
"You didn't touch it this morning," he said. "You always drank osmanthus before. Now you leave it to go cold."
"Poison is easier in pretty cups," she said.
Their eyes caught, held; something tied itself between them, taut as wire, bright as a flame.
From the hall, the hush of footsteps. A young footman hovered at the threshold, hesitant. "Sir? The delivery van you allowed in earlier—the driver didn't clear disposal. He left a crate in the south conservatory. I—no one can open it."
"Show me," Liuxian said.
They crossed the courtyard, rain misting their hair. The south conservatory was all glass and green—palms and white orchids breathing damp sweetness into the air. In the center lay the crate: matte black, sleek, the size of a small trunk. No latches. No seams.
"Back," Xueyi said immediately. "No one touch it."
The footman retreated. Liuxian circled the crate, eyes narrowed. "Aurora tech?"
She crouched, fingers hovering a centimeter above the surface. The air hummed faintly. "Electromagnetic seal. Probably biometric."
"To whom?"
Her gaze lifted to the ceiling camera. "To the person the house sees most often."
The crate clicked.
A thin line of light split its face. The lid rose a fraction and sighed open.
Inside lay paper.
Not just paper—photographs. Hundreds of them, banded and labeled. Xueyi's face peered up from the top bundle in grainy grayscale: entering the tower as Lin Xue; speaking to Liuxian; standing in the warehouse; riding the service lift; asleep behind rain-smeared glass.
The next bundle: documents with her forged signature. The next: Aurora invoices with Mo Liuxian's name in perfect script.
A black envelope sat at the center like a pupil at the heart of an eye.
Liuxian picked it up. The seal peeled away without a sound. Inside—one sheet, one sentence, in a hand he knew too well.
"Every house burns from the inside." — W.Q.
Wen Qingmei.
Xueyi's jaw tightened. "Of course she's watching."
"Watching," he said slowly, "or performing?"
The conservatory lights flickered. Every screen on the estate—tablets, phones, wall panels—stuttered, then filled with a live feed of the two of them standing over the crate. A countdown clock overlaid the image: 00:05:00. Red. Unforgiving.
Xueyi didn't move. "What happens at zero?" she asked.
The house system answered in its unruffled voice: "Emergency broadcast to all major outlets queued. Contents: Security footage, internal documents, personnel files."
"Framing us," Liuxian said. His pulse stayed level. "Han Ze forces a scandal. Wen Qingmei writes the caption."
"We have five minutes," Xueyi said. "Two to find the trigger, two to sever the spread, one to choose who we become after."
"Trigger first," he said. "Signal origin?"
"Not the repeater," she replied, scanning the palm leaves, the light housings, the sprinkler heads. "He planted a transmitter piggybacking the greenhouse climate controls. See the condensation ring on the third panel? It's running hot."
He grabbed a ladder. She steadied it. He climbed, wrenched open the panel, and yanked a coin-sized disc out of the circuitry. The countdown froze at 00:03:17—then resumed.
"Failsafe," she said. "There's a second."
He jumped down. "Server room."
"Too obvious," she countered. Her gaze swept the room again—settled on the crate. "He wants us to stare at proof. He hid the knife under the evidence itself."
Together they hauled the bundles out, scattering photos across the tiles—two lives in still frames. At the bottom of the crate, recessed into the lining, a second disc blinked red.
"Hello," Xueyi whispered.
She flipped her hairpin out and pried the device free. The countdown juddered. 00:01:54 → 00:01:53.
"Signal severed?" Liuxian asked.
She turned the disc over. "Partial. He braided the transmission." She looked up, eyes bright with the thrill she would never admit. "We need a third cut at the network spine."
"Data room," he said.
They ran.
The corridor blurred: paintings, rain, the taste of speed. In the data room, racks hummed like hives. Xueyi slid beneath a console and tore open a junction box with bare hands, ignoring the bite of plastic. Liuxian killed the main uplink with a manual throw—lights stuttered—servers gasped—fans spun down.
The countdown on the nearest screen jerked like a dying heartbeat.
00:00:09.
00:00:08.
00:00:07.
"Cut the fiber," she said.
He looked at the thick line, hesitation a luxury they didn't have. He snapped the emergency blade from the wall sheath and dragged it through the cable in one clean, brutal sweep.
00:00:03.
00:00:02.
TRANSMISSION LOST.
Silence folded over them, vast and sudden. For a moment, the only sound was rain stitching itself into the glass.
They exhaled at the same time, then laughed—sharp, breathless, disbelieving.
"You just decapitated your own network," she said.
"I can build a new head," he said. "I can't build a new you."
The words burned between them before either could take them back.
A chime cut through the quiet. The house line lit with an incoming call. Unknown ID. Audio only.
Liuxian hit accept.
Han Ze's voice poured into the room like oil.
"Congratulations. You saved your little séance. Tell me, President—how does it feel to tear your own palace apart because a dead woman told you to?"
"Come home, Han Ze," Liuxian said, voice flat. "I'll open the gate."
"Tempting. But I'm with a friend tonight." The line crackled. A second voice bled through, gagged, struggling.
"Recognize her? Sweet Xiao Rou. Loyal little songbird. She tried to post something for Lady Bai. I told her the internet is dangerous."
Xueyi's blood ran cold. "If you touch her—"
"You'll die angry," Han Ze said pleasantly. "Midnight, Pier 17. Bring the files. Come alone, President. Or I light a new fire. I've always liked how you look in the glow."
The line went dead.
Liuxian's knuckles whitened around the handset. Xueyi stood very still, every muscle threaded tight, every instinct sharpened to a single point.
"Pier 17," she said. "It's a kill box."
"I know," he said.
"Then we won't go alone," she replied. "We'll go smarter."
He looked at her. She didn't flinch.
"Together, then," he said.
"Together," she echoed.
Outside, the mist congealed back into rain, tapping at the glass like impatient fingers. The house breathed around them—no longer perfect, no longer safe—alive at last, because the hunt had finally come home.