The rain came quietly.
First, a soft tapping on the windows. Then a low hum that filled the silence between city lights and closing hours.
Most of the staff had left. The once-busy corridors of L&Z International stood still ,hollow echoes of whispered gossip and hurried heels fading into evening hush.
But two people remained.
Xu Meilin sat in a corner office near the design wing, a desk lamp casting a golden glow over her slender frame. Her hair was loosely tied, a few strands falling over her cheek as she leaned over the blueprint, pencil in hand. Red circles marked places she didn't understand yet,but wanted to.
She was learning. Quietly. Diligently.
She hadn't noticed the storm.
Nor had she noticed the man watching her from the doorway.
Li Zeyan didn't move.
He stood there with his hands in his pockets, shoulder resting against the doorframe, his gaze unreadable. The cold, calculated CEO that barked through boardrooms was nowhere in sight. In his place stood a man staring at something he couldn't quite name.
He had come to check on Shen Rui's revisions.
But found her instead.
Still here. Still working. Like she belonged here more than anyone else.
His voice was low, almost a murmur. "Why aren't you afraid of me?"
Meilin looked up slowly.
She didn't blink.
She didn't smile.
She set her pencil down, rose to her feet, and walked toward him,her steps calm, her expression unreadable. When she stopped just in front of him, her eyes lifted to meet his.
There was no fear.
Only quiet understanding.
"Because I've seen what's behind your storms."
Zeyan's throat tightened.
No one had ever said that to him.
Not in boardrooms. Not at home. Not even his grandmother,who raised him on discipline and duty. They saw power. They saw fear. They saw a fortress of silence and strength.
But she… saw through it.
Like she had from the beginning.
She took a step closer. He didn't move.
"I was there when you were burning up with fever," she said softly. "You didn't push me away."
He remembered. The trembling hands that wiped his forehead. The soft voice that stayed with him through the night.
"I saw you yell at a boardroom today. I saw you shred men with words sharper than knives." Her voice didn't waver. "But you still looked at me like I mattered."
She paused.
"I don't need you to be soft," she said. "But I won't run just because the world fears your storms."
Zeyan's hand moved, slow, deliberate, until his fingers brushed a loose strand of her hair behind her ear. His fingertips lingered longer than they should have.
"You don't know what I've done," he said, voice low. "What I've become to survive in this world."
"I don't need to know everything," Meilin replied. "Just who you are when you're with me."
There was silence.
But it wasn't empty.
It pulsed,with things unspoken, unnamed, unknown.
He leaned in.
Not for a kiss.
But for closeness.
Their foreheads almost touched. His breath brushed her cheek. Her eyes fluttered shut, not from fear… but from peace.
He had never known peace could feel like this.
And then, just above a whisper, he said it.
> "Then stay."
Not as a command.
Not as an order.
But as a request.
A plea.
A thread unraveling from the tightly bound edges of his control.