The city was wrapped in late afternoon haze — gold bleeding into smoke. George's car rolled to a halt before the glass tower of Rothenberg Industries, its mirrored façade catching the dim sun like a blade.
He sat there for a moment, recalling his brother's words over the crackle of the morning call.
"I told Bai Qi he's grown — but keep an eye on him, George. The boy's still bleeding where pride can't hide it. He needs time."
The tone had been calm, but the weight behind it hadn't left George's chest since.
He exhaled slowly, stepped out of the car, and straightened his coat against the wind. Inside, the lobby was quiet — too quiet for such a vast place. Marble floors, steel pillars, the faint echo of heels on tile. Everything carried the scent of power and distance.
He crossed to the elevator and pressed 7.
The ride felt endless. Each floor chimed like a heartbeat out of rhythm.
When the doors opened, he stepped into a corridor lined with frosted glass offices. At the far end, through the pale light, was a nameplate that read Shu Yao.
George paused outside the door.
Then he drew a steady breath and pushed it open.
The faint click startled the man inside.
Shu Yao looked up so sharply the pen slipped from his hand. His fingers froze above the keyboard, his breath catching — for an instant, pure panic flashed in his eyes. He thought it was Bai Qi again.
But it wasn't.
It was George. Calm, composed, with that faint kindness that never needed words.
"Shu Yao," he said, his voice low, "don't work too hard. My brother's gone abroad with his wife. Bai Qi's in charge now, but…" He hesitated, letting the sentence breathe. "He's still young. I'll keep an eye on him."
Shu Yao forced a small nod, his gaze falling to his desk again. "I'm fine, Mr. George."
But he wasn't.
Up close, George saw it — the red rim around his eyes, the raw skin near the lashes, the faint tremor in his hands. He'd been crying again.
George's heart lurched. "No, Shu Yao," he said quietly. "You're not fine. You need rest."
Shu Yao shook his head, voice barely a whisper. "I don't deserve any."
The words hit George like a strike. His breath stalled. "Don't say that," he said sharply.
But Shu Yao went on, trembling. "Because of me, my sister's gone. Because of me, Bai Qi—" His voice broke. "He isn't the same anymore. I let her die, Mr. George. I should've—"
"Enough." George's tone softened, but it shook. "You didn't do anything wrong."
Shu Yao looked up, eyes glassy, lips trembling. "You don't understand," he whispered. "It was me. It's always been me. I… I shouldn't have been born."
For a second, George forgot how to breathe.
He wanted to tell him — you're worth every second of breath I take. But the words stayed trapped in his throat.
Instead, he reached out — his hand hovered above Shu Yao's shoulder, uncertain — and then fell away.
"Mr. George…" Shu Yao's voice came soft, cracked.
George's eyes met his.
"You're too kind," Shu Yao said. "I can't let you carry my burden."
George's throat tightened. "What do you mean, Shu Yao?" He forced a faint smile. "You're my friend. If a friend doesn't help in times like this, then when?"
Shu Yao looked at him for a long moment — then turned his gaze aside, as though afraid of being seen.
"Then promise me something," he whispered.
George hesitated. "What is it?"
Shu Yao's next words fell like stones in water. "When Bai Qi hurts me… don't come between us."
George's heart lurched. "What? Shu Yao, what do you mean by that? How can you—"
"Please," Shu Yao interrupted, his voice trembling but resolute. "Please, Mr. George. I have no one else to trust. Only you."
The ache in his tone — it wasn't fear. It was surrender.
George wanted to refuse. He wanted to shake him, to tell him no, to swear he'd never let anyone harm him again. But the look in Shu Yao's eyes stopped him cold.
A sorrow too deep, too human to fight.
He took a long, shuddering breath.
"I… promise," he said finally.
Shu Yao smiled faintly — the smallest curve of lips, but enough to shatter something inside George. It was the smile of someone who'd made peace with his own ruin.
George swallowed hard. "But Shu Yao," he said, voice tight, "you must promise me something too."
Shu Yao looked up. "What is it?"
"That you won't lie to me," George said. "About anything."
Shu Yao hesitated, his hand curling around his own elbow — a fragile gesture of self-defense. "Yes," he murmured. "I won't."
"Good," George said, though it didn't sound like comfort.
Because there was no good in it.
Not in promises made under sorrow's hand.
When he finally turned to leave, the air between them felt too heavy, too still — as if the room itself had overheard what it shouldn't.
Shu Yao stood by the desk, small against the light, and whispered something George couldn't quite catch.
It sounded like a thank you.
Or a goodbye.
George closed the door softly behind him, the echo trailing down the corridor like a heartbeat breaking in half.
The terminal shimmered with morning light — all glass, metal, and murmurs. Charles walked ahead, pushing the polished luggage cart, his movements precise yet distant, as though his body were here but his thoughts had been left somewhere far behind — somewhere where an apology still trembled, unfinished.
He could still see it — the moment Shu Yao turned, startled, his delicate expression caught between confusion and hurt. The memory gnawed quietly. Charles exhaled through his nose, gripping the cart's handle harder. "When I return to China again," he murmured beneath his breath, "I'll apologize properly… to that beauty."
Behind him, Mr. Niklas and Bai Mingzhu followed at a slower pace, their elegance drawing glances from the crowd. Niklas — tall, crisp in a charcoal suit — walked like a man who owned the air he breathed. Bai Mingzhu, dressed in ivory silk, clutched her handbag close, the diamond on her finger flashing each time the light shifted.
"Wouldn't it be good," she began softly, turning to her husband, "if we took our son with us?" Her voice held that maternal ache — gentle, yet threaded with worry.
Niklas didn't slow his stride. "I've already spoken to George about it. He'll manage everything while we're gone."
Mingzhu's brows creased, her perfume sweet and sorrowful. "My boy is still a child in my eyes," she said, almost wistfully. "He was so happy about the marriage… I only wish he could find someone like Qing Yue again. Someone to make him smile the way he used to."
Her words hung between them like perfume in the air — beautiful, and unbearably sad.
Charles glanced back for just a heartbeat.
Mingzhu pressed her lips together. "That girl," she said suddenly, searching her mind, "she had a beautiful brother, didn't she? What was his name again?"
Niklas's tone was even, unreadable. "Shu Yao."
"Yes, that's right." She brightened faintly, as though the name itself carried warmth. "That boy… whenever I saw Bai Qi with him, my son seemed calmer. Softer, even. I hope he takes care of Bai Qi while we're away."
The corners of Niklas's mouth shifted, not quite a smile. He said nothing, only adjusted his cufflinks as they approached the gate.
Mingzhu looked at him again, her mind already working. "Do you have that boy's number?"
"Yes."
"Perfect," she said at once. "I'll call him later. He's such a quiet boy — gentle eyes, the same features as Qing Yue. It's uncanny sometimes. He looked fragile, yet… kind. Maybe he's what Bai Qi needs right now — someone who listens, even in silence."
Niklas didn't answer. He simply offered his arm, helping her into the waiting area where the glass walls opened to the runway. The aircraft loomed beyond, a silver bird under the morning sun.
They took their seats in the first-class cabin. Attendants moved with rehearsed grace, offering champagne and warm towels. The hum of engines grew louder, a sound like the world itself preparing to leave something behind.
Mingzhu leaned against her husband's shoulder, whispering, "I just want him to be happy again, Niklas. That's all I ever wanted."
Niklas looked out the oval window, his reflection fractured by the light. His voice was low, almost to himself. "Happiness… that's something he'll have to find in his own way."
Charles, seated a few rows behind, heard only fragments — Bai Qi, Shu Yao, Qing Yue. He closed his eyes, the drone of the aircraft filling his ears. Somewhere back in the city, a boy was still enduring in silence, and another was still drowning in grief.
And as the plane lifted off, slicing through the pale sky, all of them — Niklas, Charles, and bai mingzhu — carried the same invisible weight: the kind that doesn't fade with distance.
The elevator doors slid open with a hush like a blade sheathing itself. George stepped out, his polished shoes meeting the marble floor that gleamed with the ghost of reflections — pale light, sharp silence. The top floor was always too quiet. Even the hum of the air-conditioning sounded restrained, as though afraid to breathe wrong in Bai Qi's domain.
He paused at the glass doors, his hand on the handle. Inside, the office looked like a cathedral built from ambition and loneliness — wide, sterile, drenched in the cold light of noon. Behind the massive desk sat Bai Qi. His figure was precise, motionless, a portrait painted in grief and control.
George exhaled and entered.
"Still here," he murmured under his breath, half to himself.
Bai Qi was bent over his laptop, the glow illuminating his pale face. His fingers moved rapidly across the keyboard — mechanical, disciplined, merciless. The boy who once despised paperwork now drowned himself in it. Grief had turned him industrious, or perhaps it had merely found another shape to wear.
Without looking up, Bai Qi spoke. His tone was flat, but edged.
"What is it, Uncle George?"
George raised a brow. 'Uncle,' he thought bitterly. How formal he sounds — like affection is a language he has forgotten.
He cleared his throat. "Bai Qi, if you aren't feeling well, you might as well go home and rest. You've been here since dawn."
Bai Qi paused, then closed the laptop softly. The sound was quiet — too quiet — and in that moment, George saw it: the faint tremor around his eyes, red-rimmed from sleepless night.
George sighed inwardly. What is wrong with these boys? They break, but they never bend. They would rather bleed silently than ask for mercy.
Bai Qi's voice came again, smooth as glass. "Uncle George, I'll take my leave in the late evening."
George frowned. "You can't—"
But Bai Qi interrupted with a low chuckle, one that didn't sound like him. "I know it isn't easy, Uncle. I know what you're trying to say."
He leaned back in his chair, pushing his black hair away from his eyes. For the first time, George saw it — that dangerous, glinting smirk. It was not the grief of a broken man but the calm of one who had chosen revenge over sorrow.
"Yes, Uncle George," Bai Qi said softly, almost sweetly. "The pain is excruciating. But someone will pay the price."
George's blood ran cold.
"What do you mean by that, Bai Qi?"
Bai Qi stood, every movement deliberate. He turned his back to George, walking toward the window that stretched across the wall like a mirror to the sky. Hands slid into his pockets — that same gesture of his father's when he was angry.
He spoke to the glass, not the man behind him.
"You know… if he hadn't gone outside last night, none of this would've happened."
The words hung heavy — quiet, bitter, cruel.
George straightened, his heart tightening. "You know very well, Bai Qi, it wasn't Shu Yao's fault."
That was the moment the silence cracked.
Bai Qi turned sharply, his expression flickering with fury. "And how can you say that so easily, Uncle? Were you there? Did you see what happened?"
His voice, though restrained, burned with the violence of something breaking. George saw the flicker of madness behind those eyes — the kind that grief breeds when logic dies.
"No, Bai Qi," George said, steady but firm. "I wasn't there. But the killer — the one who murdered Qing Yue — was someone else. Someone from the mafia."
That word seemed to echo in the air — mafia.
Bai Qi froze, his mind fracturing along invisible lines.
The mafia? Shu Yao… was that it? Was this what you were hiding from me all along?
The thoughts came like knives. You refused to tell me. You turned away every time I asked. You…
His fists tightened in his pockets. His breath trembled — not from sorrow, but from the tremor of revelation gone wrong.
Now I understand, he thought darkly. That's why you kept silent. Because you were part of it. Because you were one of them.
George, watching him, saw the shift. The tension in his shoulders, the flicker of disbelief twisting into rage. He wanted to speak — to stop it — but Bai Qi was already spiraling into his own storm.
He laughed once, bitter and low. "So that's it," he whispered. "He was part of that dirty gang… all this time."
George's throat tightened. He took a step forward. "Bai Qi, stop. You're mistaken. Shu Yao isn't—"
But Bai Qi didn't hear him. Or perhaps, he refused to.
He turned away again, staring out at the sprawling city beneath him — the empire his family built, now nothing but glass and ghosts.
George could only stand there, watching the tremor in the boy's hands, the faint shimmer of fury beneath the polished exterior. He knew the truth. He knew Shu Yao was innocent.
But Bai Qi — drowning in his grief, his guilt, his love twisted into vengeance — no longer cared about truth.
Only about pain.
And someone, somewhere, would pay for it.