The morning light was an intruder. It stripped away the safety of the shadows, leaving Bai Qi's guilt exposed and bleeding.
He did not look at his father. To him, Niklas was a pillar of ice—judgemental and distant. Instead, Bai Qi lunged forward and seized his mother's hands.
His fingers were cold. His grip was frantic.
"Mom," he choked out. The word was a plea for a salvation he didn't think he deserved. "I did something. Something very bad. To the person I... the person I was in love with."
Bai Mingzhu's expression shifted instantly. The polished mask of the Rothenberg matriarch cracked, revealing a raw, visceral concern. She ignored the stiff presence of her husband behind her.
She reached out, her gloved hand cupping Bai Qi's face with a tenderness that felt like a blade to his heart.
"What happened, my dear?" she whispered. Her obsidian eyes searched his. "What have you done to Shu Yao?"
Bai Qi's head dropped. He couldn't sustain the eye contact. Behind them, Niklas crossed his arms over his midnight blue suit. His presence was a heavy, suffocating weight. He stood silent, a sentinel waiting to hear the magnitude of his heir's failure.
"I... I let him," Bai Qi started, his voice fracturing into a jagged mess of sounds.
Mingzhu knelt slightly, bringing herself to his level. She stroked his hair, her touch a stark contrast to the storm in his chest. "Don't be afraid, dear. Tell me. Speak the truth so I can help you."
Bai Qi's eyes welled up again. A single, heavy tear splashed onto his rumpled lapel. "I let him drink it."
Mingzhu's brow furrowed. A collective fear began to settle in the marrow of her bones. The air in the room felt thin. "What did he drink, Bai Qi? Tell me exactly what it was."
Bai Qi looked up. His eyes were no longer those of a powerful CEO. They were the eyes of the boy who had once been lost in a Chinese hospital.
"I let him drink poison," he whispered.
The word hung in the air like a guillotine.
Mingzhu's eyes went wide. She let out a sharp, audible gasp that seemed to echo against the high ceilings. For a heartbeat, she looked over her shoulder at Niklas. Her mind raced.
She turned back to her husband, her face shifting into a forced, brittle smile.
"Could you wait outside for a moment, darling?" she asked Niklas. Her voice was steady, but there was an underlying command. "Bai Qi is overwhelmed. He is sad. I need to talk to him as his mother, not as a witness."
She rose and walked to Niklas. She placed a hand on the of his back, guiding him toward the door with an irresistible, gentle pressure. Niklas hesitated, his gaze lingering on his broken son, but he did not argue.
The door clicked shut, sealing the two of them in a tomb of silence. Niklas had not heard the word clearly. He had only heard the murmur of a confession.
Mingzhu rushed back to the bed. She took Bai Qi's cheek in her hand again. Her voice was a low, urgent hiss. "How did this happen, dear? That boy... Shu Yao. I saw him last night. He looked so weak. So fragile."
Bai Qi's head snapped up. His eyes were wide with shock. "You saw him? You saw him at the party?"
She nodded. "Yes, dear. Just for a moment. I saw him standing near the periphery. I went to find Charles and your father to ask, but when I returned, he was gone. He looked like so weak even then."
Bai Qi let out a high-pitched, broken sob. He buried his face in his hands, his body shaking with the force of his hiccups.
"No, no, dear. Don't cry," Mingzhu cooed, though her own heart was racing. "Good boys do not cry. They fix what they have broken. Tell me the rest. Tell me why."
Bai Qi wiped his face with the back of his hand, his skin turning red from the friction. "She told me... she told me that Shu Yao added something to my drink."
Mingzhu stiffened. "Who? Who told you this?"
Ming Su," Bai Qi spat the name as if it were ash.
He took a shuddering breath, trying to steady his lungs. "I was outside. I was looking for him. Then Ming Su texted me. She said she saw Shu Yao tampering with my hot chocolate. She said he was doing something... something malicious."
Mingzhu listened, her obsidian eyes turning cold as she began to perceive the trap. She stayed silent, letting the narrative pour out of him.
"I rushed inside," Bai Qi continued, his words tripping over each other. "I was furious. I felt... betrayed. I saw Shu Yao in the hallway. He was standing in front of Ming Su. She was crying. She looked so small, so victimized."
He gripped the bedsheets until the fabric groaned. "I asked her what happened. She pointed at the cup. She told me he added something. That he wanted to hurt me."
"And what did Shu Yao say?" Mingzhu asked.
"He tried to speak," Bai Qi wailed. "He looked at me with those eyes... he tried to explain. But I didn't let him. I didn't give him a single second. I trusted Ming Su. I didn't trust him.
He leaned his forehead against his mother's shoulder. "I forced him to drink it. I told him if he didn't, I would see him as a lier. I made him take the poison I thought he prepared for me. And he did it. He didn't even fight me. He just drank it while looking at me."
"My boy," Mingzhu whispered, her voice tightening with a protective edge. "It wasn't your fault that you were deceived.
Bai Qi looked up, his voice a ragged whisper. "But Mom... that poison. It wasn't just anything. It was Belladonna."
Mingzhu's breath hitched. She recoiled slightly, a sharp gasp escaping her lips. The name of the nightshade hung in the air like a curse. "Belladonna?" she breathed, her obsidian eyes shimmering with disbelief.
"How could someone as gentle as Shu Yao take such a malignancy into his body?"
The tears returned to Bai Qi's eyes, hot and relentless. Mingzhu immediately moved to hush him, her fingers brushing his cheeks with the lightness.
"Hush, my darling. Do not cry," she murmured. "Everything will be rectified. The universe does not extinguish a light as bright as Shu Yao's for a lie. Do not worry."
She stood up, her movements fluid and hauntingly beautiful. Her gaze landed on the weathered diary resting on the bed.
She reached for it, her silk gloves brushing the leather before she pressed the book firmly into Bai Qi's trembling hands.
"My boy, do not lose hope," she commanded softly. "Hold onto this. Do not let your mind wander into the negative.
Mingzhu turned away from her son, her expression shifting from maternal warmth to a terrifying, quiet resolve. She glided toward the door and pulled it open.
Niklas was still there, His eyes searched hers immediately. "What did he say? What did he confess?"
Mingzhu offered a small, sorrowful smile that didn't reach her eyes. "It has already begun, darling," she said, her voice like velvet over steel.
Niklas watched her walk past him. He understood the subtext.
He knew the players on this board. "So, this is Shen Baoliang's play," he muttered, his voice dropping into a dangerous growl.
"Did he threaten Bai Qi? Did he force our son into something?"
Mingzhu stopped and turned toward her husband. The fairy-like softness was still there, but her eyes held a spark of ancient fire.
Niklas's jaw clenched so hard the bone seemed to ripple.
His knuckles turned a calcified white as he realized his family had been touched by a common predator.
Mingzhu walked back to him, placing a gentle hand on his chest to still the rising storm. "Relax, honey. You have done so much for me over the years. You have carried the weight of the Rothenberg name alone."
Niklas stood perfectly still, his breath heavy with suppressed rage.
"This time," Mingzhu whispered, her smile sharpening into something lethal, "it is my turn. I will remind Shen Baoliang why he should have stayed in his place. I will remind him to stay away from us."
Meanwhile at the hospital the fluorescent lights of the ICU were a surgical cruelty.
They didn't flicker; they simply hummed, a low-frequency vibration that seemed to grate against George's exposed nerves.
He sat on a plastic chair that had become his temporary throne of thorns. His eyes were heavy, underscored by dark, cavernous bags.
He had already ushered Shu Yao's mother away, a task that felt like tearing a limb from a body.
Her cries still echoed in the sterile vents—high, thin sounds of a woman whose only anchor was drifting into a dark sea. George stayed. He couldn't leave.
He felt if he looked away, the thread holding Shu Yao to this world would finally snap.
The doctors were grim. The 48-hour window had slammed shut, and instead of a recovery, Shu Yao had plummeted. He was back in a coma—deeper, darker, and more silent than before.
The elevator doors slid open with a soft chime. Bai Qi stepped out.
He had changed. He wore a crisp, midnight-black suit, his hair swept back with professional precision, but the artifice stopped there. His face was a ghostly pallor, and his eyes were mapped with bloodshot veins. He looked like a man who had been scrubbed clean but remained haunted.
Bai Qi walked to the glass partition, his gaze fixing on the stillness of the boy inside.
"I will stay too," Bai Qi said. His voice was sandpaper.
George didn't stand up. He didn't even look at Bai Qi's face; he looked at the shine on Bai Qi's shoes. "What's the point?" George asked, his voice hollow. "What is the point of standing watch over your own masterpiece, Bai Qi?"
Bai Qi flinched, his fingers curling into fist's.
"If you hadn't played your games," George continued, "Shu Yao would be home. He would be safe. You ruined everything he was. You took a boy who was already fragile and you crushed him because you were bored, or angry, or blind."
Bai Qi didn't roar. He didn't pull rank. He simply stood there, absorbing the verbal lashes. "I am sorry," he whispered. "I should have listened. To you.
George's expression remained a mask of hardened exhaustion. He didn't offer forgiveness. In this hallway, apologies were just more noise.
Minutes bled into hours. The hours dissolved into a weary, grey 24-hour cycle.
Days turned into a week. Then two.
The hospital became a blur of antiseptic smells and the rhythmic hiss-thump of the ventilator.
The anxiety finally reached its flashpoint on a Tuesday morning. The head doctor was making his rounds, a clipboard in hand, his face a neutral void.
"You said he would wake up," Bai Qi intercepted him, his voice trembling with a volatile mix of hope and rage. "It's been weeks. Why is he still in a coma? The poison should be filtered by now."
"We don't know yet, Mr. Bai" the doctor said, his voice maddeningly calm. "The brain chemistry... the shock to the system... it's unpredictable."
Bai Qi's control snapped. He lunged forward, his hands catching the doctor by his starched white collar. He slammed the man against the wall, the clipboard clattering to the floor.
"How the hell do you know nothing?" Bai Qi hissed, his face inches from the doctor's. "Does that make you a doctor? If you cannot treat a single boy, if you cannot give me a timeline, then you are of no help to anyone!.
"Sir, please—"
"Save him!" Bai Qi roared, his voice cracking.
"Do your job or I will burn this wing down with you in it!.
The doctor scrambled away the moment Bai Qi's grip loosened. Bai Qi didn't wait for a security response. He turned and shoved his way through the heavy ICU doors, ignoring the protests of the nursing staff.
The room was cold. It felt like a refrigerator for souls.
Shu Yao lay there, a pale splinter of a person. He was so still he looked like a marble statue carved by a master of grief. The only sign of life was the jagged green line on the monitor, dancing a lonely rhythm.
Bai Qi collapsed onto the edge of the bed. He didn't care about the wires or the sterile field. He reached out and touched Shu Yao's hand. It was lukewarm, neither dead nor truly alive.
"Shu Yao," Bai Qi whispered, his forehead coming to rest on the boy's hip. "They aren't healing you. They're just watching you fade."
A jagged sob escaped him, shaking his shoulders. "I'm going to take you away. I'll buy a better hospital. I'll fly in the best surgeons from every corner of the earth. These people are useless."
He gripped the boy's hand, his tears soaking into the hospital sheets.
"If something happens to you," Bai Qi gasped into the silence, "I'll die. I mean it. There is nothing left for me in a world where you don't breathe."
He looked up at the boy's closed eyelids. "I want your forgiveness. I need it. Please... just wake up so I can tell you I know. I know about the hospital. I know it was you."
But Shu Yao remained in his deep, oceanic coma. He was in a place where Bai Qi's voice couldn't reach—a grey labyrinth where the only light was the memory of a childhood.
I am sorry, shu Yao. would you just leave me like that.
Suddenly, Bai Qi's breath hitched. He felt it. A microscopic tremor. A ghostly pressure against his palm.
He looked at the heart monitor. The steady, sluggish line suddenly spiked, a frantic jagged peak dancing across the screen before settling back into its slow march.
"He moved!" Bai Qi roared, spinning around as George and the lead doctor entered the room. "He squeezed my hand! Did you see the monitor? He's coming back!"
George stood by the door, his face a mask of pity and exhaustion. He looked at Shu Yao. The boy was as still as a fallen leaf. His eyes were shut tight, his skin the color of parched parchment. There was no movement. Not a finger. Not an eyelid.
"Bai Qi," George said, his voice heavy with a terrible kindness. "He didn't move. I'm looking right at him. He's perfectly still."
"No!" Bai Qi lunged for the doctor's arm. "Check the logs! The heart rate—it jumped! He's responding to my voice. He knows I'm here!"
The doctor sighed, a sound of professional weariness. He walked to the monitor, tapping the glass. "Mr. Bai, that spike was an arrhythmia—a common side effect of the Belladonna's lingering toxicity. It isn't a response. It's a glitch in a failing system."
"You're wrong," Bai Qi hissed, his eyes wide and wild. "I felt it. It wasn't a glitch. It was him."
He turned back to the bed, grabbing Shu Yao's hand again. "Tell them, Shu Yao! Squeeze again! Just once!"
But the boy remained a statue. To the clinical eyes of the staff, Shu Yao was a hollowed-out vessel. To George, he was a tragedy. But to Bai Qi, the air around the bed was thick with a hidden electricity.
"He's losing it," George whispered to the doctor, stepping back. "He's been in this room too long. He's starting to see what he wants to see."
"It's grief-induced hallucination," the doctor agreed softly. "The mind creates what the heart needs to survive. He thinks the boy is talking to him, but the boy is clinically absent."