The high from the race had long since curdled into a cold, aching exhaustion by the time Lian's sleek black sedan pulled into the gated estate. The adrenaline that had sustained his "Sovereign" persona was receding, leaving behind a hollow shell that felt every bit of the eighteen-year-old body's frailty. He walked through the grand foyer, his footsteps echoing like a countdown. He wanted nothing more than the sanctuary of his room, the blue light of his monitors, and the silence that didn't ask questions.
But as he reached the top of the grand staircase, he saw them.
They were gathered in the small drawing room—a space usually reserved for intimate family moments. His father was standing by the fireplace, his silhouette rigid. His mother sat on the velvet sofa, her eyes red-rimmed, clutching a lace handkerchief. Even Hao-Ran and Ji-Min were there, looking like mourners at a wake.
Lian stopped. He felt the phantom weight of the "Old Lian" wanting to shrink away, to apologize for breathing the same air as them. He crushed that feeling under his heel.
"Lian," his father started, his voice missing its usual booming bravado. It was replaced by a sharp, suspicious edge. "Sit down. We need to talk. Now."
Lian didn't sit. He leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms. The black racing suit was hidden under a long trench coat, but the scent of ozone and burnt rubber still clung to him. "I have work to do, Father. Make it brief."
"Work?" Hao-Ran scoffed, stepping forward. "What work, Lian? You've locked yourself away for weeks. You're talking about market crashes and performing surgeries with kitchen utensils. And tonight... you disappeared for six hours. No security, no driver. Where were you?"
Lian's gaze shifted to his older brother. The intensity in his eyes made Hao-Ran falter. "I was securing the future of this family. A concept you seem to struggle with, given the plummeting shares of the Lian logistics division."
"How do you even know about that?" Feng roared, slamming a hand onto the mantle. "That's confidential board information! Lian, what happened to you in that room? Ever since you came back, you're not my son. You're cold, you're cruel, and you look at us like we're strangers. Your mother is terrified of you!"
The mention of his mother made Lian glance at her. She looked up, her voice trembling. "Lian, baby... please. Just let me hold you. Just for a minute. Let me see that my little boy is still in there."
She stood up, her movements desperate. Before Lian could voice a warning, she had crossed the distance. Her grief-stricken mind ignored the "No Touching" rule he had established. She reached out, her warm, trembling hands grabbing his shoulders, trying to pull him into a maternal embrace.
The world shattered.
The moment her skin touched the fabric of his coat and grazed his neck, a white-hot electrical surge exploded in Lian's brain. The Haphephobia wasn't just a fear; it was a sensory malfunction. The "Old Lian's" memories of being grabbed, moved like a puppet, and ignored surged forward, merging with the "King's" memory of the traitor's blade.
Lian's breath left him in a violent wheeze. His vision fractured into a thousand jagged pieces. The walls of the room seemed to tilt and close in, the air turning into thick, suffocating oil.
"Don't—" he tried to say, but his throat had constricted into a tight knot.
He violently jerked away, his movement so sudden and forceful that his mother stumbled back into the sofa. His heart was no longer beating; it was a frantic, irregular drum in his ears.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
He fell to his knees, his hands clawing at his chest. His lungs burned, screaming for oxygen that wouldn't come. The "Extreme Loneliness" he had been fighting since his rebirth suddenly manifested as a physical weight, pressing down on his shoulders until he felt he would be crushed into the floor. He was alone. Even in this room full of "family," he was a billion miles away, trapped in a dark, cold void where no one could reach him.
"Lian!" Ji-Min shouted, rushing toward him.
"Stay back!" Lian managed to gasp out, his voice a raw, broken shadow of its former self. He held out a trembling hand, his eyes wide and unfocused. "Don't... don't come near me..."
He began to hyperventilate, his body shaking with such violence that his teeth clattered. Tears he didn't want to shed began to track down his pale face. This was the curse of the body—a psychological illness that made his brilliance irrelevant. In this moment, he wasn't a CEO or a King. He was a broken child drowning in the middle of a crowded room.
Ji-Min stopped, frozen by the sheer agony on his brother's face. He had seen Lian cold, and he had seen him arrogant, but he had never seen this. It was as if Lian's soul was trying to claw its way out of his skin.
"Look at him," Feng whispered, his face pale. "He's... he's truly broken."
Lian's head snapped up. Through the haze of his panic attack, that one word—broken—ignited a flicker of the King's pride. He forced his fingers to curl into fists. He forced his lungs to take in a jagged, shallow breath.
Using the edge of a nearby side table, he dragged himself to his feet. He was still shaking, his skin ghostly pale, and his eyes were bloodshot, but the coldness was returning, freezing over the cracks in his mask.
"I am not... broken," Lian said, each word a battle against his own biology. He wiped the tears away with a brutal, dismissive motion. He looked at his family—his mother crying, his father looking at him with pity, and his brothers with fear.
The pity was the worst part. It felt more intrusive than a touch.
"You want to know where your son is?" Lian asked, his voice low and vibrating with a dangerous, unstable energy. "He died in that room. He died because he realized that his life was nothing but a silent background for yours. The person standing here now is the one who survived the silence."
He straightened his coat, his movements stiff. "Never try to 'fix' me again. And never, under any circumstances, touch me. If you do... I will treat you with the same ruthlessness I treat my enemies. Do you understand?"
Without waiting for an answer, he turned and walked away. Every step was a triumph of will over weakness. He could feel Ji-Min's eyes on his back—observant, lingering, and filled with a terrifying amount of curiosity.
Lian reached his room and slammed the door, locking it with a trembling hand. He slid down against the wood, his head in his hands. The room was dark, but for the first time, he noticed a small, blinking red light near the air vent that hadn't been there before.
He wasn't the only one playing a game of shadows.
Deep in the city, in a high-tech monitoring suite, a man with cat-like eyes leaned back in his leather chair, watching the grainy footage of the Lian estate's hallway. He watched the "Ice King" collapse and then rise again with the ferocity of a wounded tiger.
The man chuckled, a sound like silk rubbing against velvet. He picked up a file labeled Lian: The Omega Anomaly.
"Panic attacks and medical genius? A racing demon and a porcelain doll?" the man whispered, his eyes gleaming with a cunning light. "You're a very messy puzzle, Little Phoenix. I think I'm going to enjoy taking you apart to see how you work."
Lian, alone in his room, felt a sudden shiver that had nothing to do with the cold. The hunt had begun, and he didn't even know he was the prey.