The L&Z international Boardroom.
9:04 AM.
The meeting had already started four minutes late.
Unacceptable.
Li Zeyan sat at the head of the long, obsidian conference table, a sleek black pen twirling once between his fingers before he set it down with a quiet click that somehow silenced the entire room.
The tension was razor-sharp.
Around him, a dozen executives from both local partners and international firms sat in carefully pressed suits, trying,and failing,to appear confident.
The atmosphere was arctic.
The projector flickered with market charts and proposal slides, the room lit in hues of blue and white. On the screen, numbers danced in pretty lines.
But Zeyan wasn't looking at the screen.
He was watching people.
Like prey.
"Mr. Li," one of the foreign investors began, with an accent that tried to sound assertive, "We believe our AI-optimized logistics model can reduce your import costs by 13% by Q4. If implemented across the city Z and city X branches, projections show..."
Zeyan held up a single finger.
Just one.
The man stopped mid-sentence, voice caught in his throat.
Zeyan leaned back in his chair, legs crossed, expression unreadable. His voice, when it came, was low. Precise. Like a scalpel.
"Thirteen percent?"
The man nodded quickly. "Yes, it's a conservative estimate but scalable..."
"You think I built a global empire by chasing conservative numbers?"
Dead silence.
Zeyan's jaw tightened, eyes flicking toward the slide, then back to the man like a sword being unsheathed.
"I don't do scalable," he said coldly. "I do inevitable. Your model is inefficient, your data is outdated, and your pitch? Insulting."
Someone coughed quietly.
A woman near the end of the table tried to salvage the moment. "Sir, if we could show the implementation phase..."
Zeyan turned his eyes on her.
She immediately shrank back.
He didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to.
Because his silence said everything.
In this room, he wasn't a man.
He was a weapon.
Sharp. Cold. Lethal.
"L&Z international doesn't adjust to weak systems," he said. "We absorb or we replace."
A beat of silence.
Then he leaned forward, elbows resting on the table, tone so calm it was terrifying.
"If I wanted mediocrity in a suit, I'd hire a politician."
Chairs shifted uncomfortably. No one met his gaze.
Only shen Rui, his assistant, stood still beside him, tablet in hand, face expressionless.He was the only one used to this,used to watching him dismantle grown men with polite words and surgical precision.
Zeyan stood.
That alone was enough to make the entire room rise to their feet in nervous unison.
"I expect revised proposals in 48 hours," he said as he adjusted his cuff. "If it's still trash, don't bother flying back."
With that, he walked out.
No goodbyes.
No handshakes.
Just fear left in his wake.
---
10:16 AM
Private Office, president floor
He loosened his tie and tossed it onto the desk. The windows behind him stretched floor-to-ceiling, the city Z skyline glittering in cold silence.
But his thoughts weren't on the city.
They were on her.
Meilin.
Yet the moment Shen Rui had handed him the schedule adjustment…
"Madam Xu has been summoned to her family estate."
Something in him had paused.
Just for a second.
Just long enough to notice that his chest felt… tight.
He didn't ask why.
Didn't ask how long.
He just nodded coldly and walked into that boardroom with enough venom to kill every weak proposal in a ten-mile radius.
But now...
Now he stood at the glass, eyes locked on nothing.
Thinking of her.
Of how quiet she had been the past few days.
Of how she hadn't even flinched when he kissed her forcefully in the mall. Of how she curled into herself in the bath, fighting everything and still smiling like it was her only weapon.
His fingers curled against the glass.
What did they want from her?
If she was hurt...
He wasn't sure he could pretend to be indifferent anymore.
Not about her.