The car slowed as if the world itself were taking a breath.
Its sleek black frame glided to a halt in front of Rothenberg Industries, the building rising above them like a glass cathedral—shining, imperious, too perfect to touch. The street shimmered in the morning light, and yet inside the car, time had not moved forward. Not for Shu Yao.
He sat still. Caught.
His body remained bowed slightly, neck stiff from the weight of too much silence. His thoughts were tangled in the remnants of a dream he hadn't escaped, a nightmare version of Bai Qi—the cruel, unrecognizable shadow of the boy he cherished.
George noticed.
He didn't speak, didn't reach out. But his gaze lingered. His posture, always elegant, wavered faintly as if some part of him warred between distance and compassion.
Outside, the driver moved with rehearsed efficiency. First door: George's. Second: Qing Yue's. Third: Bai Qi's.
But no one came for Shu Yao.
Except George.
With the same grace he reserved for boardrooms and diplomacy, George circled the car. He didn't knock. Didn't announce himself. He simply opened the door—quietly, gently—as though waking a sleeping child.
Shu Yao didn't react.
His eyes were locked on a memory no one else could see. A voice from the dream still echoed in his ears, cold and venomous:
"Why couldn't you just disappear, Shu Yao?"
George didn't interrupt the silence. But Bai Qi, now standing outside, did.
He turned just in time to see workers in polished uniforms ushering Qing Yue through the gleaming entrance. She followed, radiant and laughing, her voice echoing lightly into the marble lobby.
Bai Qi took one step forward—then paused.
Shu Yao was still in the car.
He turned back, brow furrowed, steps bringing him face to face with George.
"What's wrong, Uncle George?" he asked, his voice casual but tinged with something else. Concern. Confusion.
George looked down at Shu Yao, then back to Bai Qi.
A sudden chime interrupted.
His phone.
A name flashed across the screen—familiar, commanding.
He sighed. "It's your father again," George said, a flicker of relief in his voice. "Sorry, nephew. I need to go."
Before Bai Qi could question further, George pressed the phone to his ear and took his leave. He walked toward the building—each step deliberate, each one putting space between him and the scene he had no power to fix.
He glanced back once.
Then vanished into the golden glass doors of Rothenberg Industries.
Now it was just Shu Yao.
And Bai Qi.
Bai Qi stood in the quiet that followed, watching the car. Watching the still form in the front seat. The city hummed around them—distant traffic, murmured footsteps—but here, time waited.
He stepped closer.
Leaning down, his voice softened. "Hey, Shu Yao... aren't you gonna come?"
Stillness.
He reached out, placed a hand on Shu Yao's shoulder.
And Shu Yao flinched—hard.
As if struck.
As if that touch had unlocked the voice again, cold and cruel, from the night before.
Shu Yao turned his head slowly. "I… I'm sorry."
His voice cracked like glass under pressure.
He stepped out of the car, his body moving as if pulled by invisible strings. Bai Qi's brow creased further.
"Shu Yao, what's wrong? Are you not feeling good?"
No answer.
Only the faint wind, the hum of morning, and Shu Yao's silence—its edges frayed.
Bai Qi leaned in, voice gentle. "Shu Yao, if you're not feeling well, you don't have to push yourself—"
But Shu Yao, eyes still distant, murmured quietly under his breath, almost to himself,
"Everyone is waiting for you."
It wasn't said with excitement.
It wasn't said with dread.
Just a simple truth.
A line spoken by someone who had always made way for others, even when he was breaking.
He smiled, placed his hand again on Shu Yao's shoulder.
Shu Yao flinched again.
But he tried to hide it.
Bai Qi didn't see it. Or maybe, he chose not to. Back in high school, Shu Yao used to shrink from things he didn't know how to handle. Bai Qi had thought it was just habit.
They walked side by side now, approaching the golden façade.
The glass doors opened on their own—luxury wrapped in automation. Bai Qi looked at Shu Yao, concerned but still smiling.
"If you don't feel well, you can rest," he said. "It's alright."
But Shu Yao shook his head.
He didn't need rest.
He'd had enough of that kind of sleep—the kind that left claw marks on your soul.
He stepped forward, the door swallowing them both, light swallowing them whole.
And whatever came next—Shu Yao would endure it.
Even if his neck ached. Even if his chest trembled.
Even if the world beyond that glass was about to show him a version of love that didn't have his name in it.
The courtyard of Rothenberg Industries wasn't just an entryway.
It was an arrival.
A stretch of polished stone veined with silver, bordered by manicured hedges too precise to be anything but expensive. Fountains whispered at the edges—artful, restrained, the water looping in perfect arcs as if choreographed to impress but not distract. Marble benches lined the path like silent judges, each one carved to mimic the sleek architecture of the empire they fronted.
Above them, the glass towers of Rothenberg glinted like daggers catching sunlight—proud, unyielding. A symbol of legacy. Of control.
This place didn't welcome you.
It evaluated you.
And in the center of it all, the open courtyard breathed with the kind of sterile beauty only money could create. No birds. No leaves out of place. Just quiet, cool air, and the echo of designer shoes clicking against eternity.
Qing Yue, vibrant in every color, moved ahead with grace—surrounded by assistants in crisp blazers and slicked-back hair. She belonged to the moment now. A star poised for the shoot, glowing brighter with each step.
Bai Qi walked beside Shu Yao, all sunlight and posture—every inch the heir of Rothenberg. His gait was easy, confident, practiced. He could've walked onto the cover right there.
But Shu Yao…
Shu Yao was quieter.
His suit hung beautifully on his frame, but his eyes didn't sparkle for cameras. He didn't walk like he belonged here. He walked like he was trying not to wake something sleeping beneath the stones. The courtyard was too wide, too open, too full of sky.
And the echo of that dream—that cold version of Bai Qi—still curled around the back of his neck like invisible frost.
The courtyard shimmered beneath the late morning sun—
a cathedral of glass and power.
Everything had been arranged to perfection.
Cameras gleamed on their tripods like mechanical sentinels. Light reflectors hovered like wings mid-fold, held up by assistants in black, their movements brisk, clean, rehearsed. Ribbons of cables curled like serpents near the monitors. Every detail sang of control—money sculpted into purpose, beauty polished into expectation.
At the far end of the courtyard, three figures waited like sculpted myth:
Niklas Rothenberg. His wife. And George.
Niklas stood tall, dressed in power—his navy coat trimmed with gold-threaded detail, shoulders squared as though he held up the company with his spine alone. His expression was unreadable, eyes cool beneath silver lashes. No joy, no malice. Just the weight of a man whose son was both asset and heir.
Beside him, his wife moved like a painting that never aged.
Her black dress clung to her body like water to stone—seamless, sensual, intentional. Each step was a soft decree. Her obsidian hair, parted to one side, spilled down her right shoulder like liquid night. And her eyes—two polished onyx stars—lit the moment she saw him.
Her son.
Bai Qi.
He approached with the kind of walk that made people forget to blink.
Tall. Straight-backed. His obsidian-black suit kissed with a violet vest that shimmered with each step like twilight beneath silk. He was a contradiction—divine and devastating. Unreachable yet burning alive.
Cameras paused. Assistants turned. Even light seemed to lean toward him.
He didn't smile. He didn't have to.
He was a legacy in motion.
His mother took a step forward before anyone else could. Her eyes sparkled not with pride—but with delight. She had already greeted Qing Yue, already shined with approval at the girl. But now…
Now she saw her son.
And she lit like a moon rising over velvet waves.
"Bai Qi," she whispered, stepping forward. "Bow down a little, my darling. Let me see that beautiful face."
He obeyed without hesitation, lowering himself just enough, a grin sneaking onto his lips.
And she—his mother, the queen of this marble kingdom—
pinched his cheek.
A laugh spilled from her lips—light, melodic, almost girlish in its rare tenderness. "Ah," she said, "look at you. Alive again. Just like when you were ten, running through the halls, refusing to wear your shoes."
Her fingers lingered a second longer. And Bai Qi laughed too—blushing faintly, caught in the ease of it. For a moment, the gods forgot their thrones, and they simply were:
Mother and son.
George watched it unfold with arms loosely crossed, his gaze flicking from the mother's smile to Bai Qi's glowing face… then subtly, quietly…
To Shu Yao.
Shu Yao stood apart—near the equipment. Not as a model. Not as a son. Not even as a guest.
He moved quietly among the crew, adjusting cords, holding up mirrors, handing out waters like someone invisible.
Like someone used to being useful instead of seen.
His suit, though tailored and brown, now wore the marks of quiet labor: a bit of lint here, a smudge of dust from kneeling beside the boxes. No one commented. No one questioned why he, one of the faces who helped make this moment happen,but now it was blurred into the background.
And Shu Yao—
He didn't complain.
He helped.
He adjusted a light angle when it tilted too far, nodded when a staff member whispered for assistance. He moved like a shadow content to carry everyone else's shine.
But from a distance—he still watched Bai Qi.
Still noticed the way his smile bloomed under his mother's fingers. Still heard the rare laughter as it echoed faintly across stone and sunlight. It didn't hurt.
Not quite.
But it carved.
Because Shu Yao had once made him laugh like that too.
Bai Qi's mother lingered in the moment a little longer, the corners of her lips still sweetened by that laugh. But then—
her gaze drifted past her son, scanning the edge of the courtyard with a flicker of anticipation.
And she smiled again.
Not soft this time—
But amused.
Like a secret had just walked into her memory.
"Oh?" she murmured, her tone touched with dramatic curiosity. "Weren't we expecting another charming boy?"
Bai Qi tilted his head. "What do you mean—another?"
But then his brows lifted. His voice came again, feathered with a gasp. "Wait—wait, you don't mean—"
His mother gave no reply. Only a slow, satisfied nod.
That smile of hers returned like the knowing curve of a fortune-teller's grin.
And Bai Qi's pulse kicked once. A half-laugh left his lips as he glanced around the courtyard, the shine in his eye dimming with calculation. He knew who she meant.
He wasn't sure he was ready.
Across the courtyard, Shu Yao knelt briefly to adjust a light stand—fingers quick, precise. His jaw was tight with quiet focus, his thoughts still caught between dreams and duties, still swirling with the ghosts of the morning.
He didn't see the figure approaching.
Not until—
Crash.
Their bodies clipped.
Not hard. But jarring.
Shu Yao gasped softly, instinctively bowing his head. His voice came low and automatic, threaded with gentle apology.
"Forgive me. I didn't—"
But the boy didn't stop.
Tall. Dazzling. Dressed in a suit of soft yellow-beige, like morning sunlight poured into linen. His vest shimmered ivory beneath the open jacket, and his movements were too practiced, too proud—like someone used to being seen before being heard.
His hair fell in golden waves, brushing his cheekbones, shimmering like burnished flax in the courtyard's light. But it was his eyes—
Ocean blue.
Too cold. Too clear.
As if he had never once blinked at the thought of gentleness.
He didn't return Shu Yao's apology.
He barely glanced at him.
Instead, he stepped past—and in doing so, shouldered him.
A deliberate contact. Not violent, but cutting.
The impact struck Shu Yao's ribs just hard enough to make him sway. His fingers curled slightly. He steadied himself. But he said nothing.
Not a word.
The golden boy didn't look back. His steps continued forward, slow and composed, as if nothing behind him was worth noting.
And Shu Yao—
stood again.
Composed.
But dimmed.
His gaze followed the boy's back only once, briefly. Then turned away. He picked up the clipboard from the nearest crate and tucked himself further into the folds of the staff.
A worker. A helper.
Not the charming boy they were waiting for.