The hour of reprieve was over. The Chinese aides returned, their faces carefully blank, and escorted Rajendra and his mother back to the negotiation chamber. Huilan was already there, standing like a soldier at a court-martial. General Guo Feng sat at the head of the table, his earlier fury now distilled into a cold, watchful stillness. The Consortium documents lay untouched.
He did not speak of marriage. He spoke of delay.
"The complexities of cross-cultural understanding have been illuminated," the General began, Huilan translating in a toneless voice. "The Trans-Siberian Consortium is a project of generations. Rushing such a foundation would be unwise. We shall adjourn these talks for one month. To allow for… clarification of mutual understandings."
It was a retreat, but a strategic one. He was not conceding; he was regrouping, forcing Rajendra to live with the uncertainty, the suspended billions, the lingering threat.
Then his gaze shifted to Laxmi. "Family is important. In China, we also respect our elders." The compliment was a blade. "You have traveled far, Mrs. Shakuniya. You should see more of your son's work. And he… should understand the environment from which his potential partner comes."
The trap was re-baited with impeccable courtesy. Take your mother. Show her your world. And while you're at it, let her see the woman who is part of that world.
Laxmi accepted the unspoken challenge with a serene nod. "A mother should know her son's life. And the people in it."
An hour later, in Rajendra's suite, Laxmi laid down her terms. Not to the General, but to her son.
"I am not returning to Pune," she said, unpacking a small suitcase with methodical care. "Not until I have seen. Not until I have met this Huilan properly. Not across a table of men talking of money and power. Woman to woman."
"Maa, you can't just—"
"I can. I am." She turned, her eyes firm. "You will arrange a meeting. A small one. Tea. Just the three of us. No generals. No translators. We will manage."
Rajendra knew arguing was futile. The force that had breached the Ministry of Defence would not be stopped by hotel walls. He sent a discreet message via the System to Huilan's secure device, bypassing her father's channels. "My mother requests a private tea. Tomorrow afternoon. Your hotel, or a neutral place. Your choice."
The reply came an hour later, a single word: "My room. 4 PM."
The following day, at precisely four, Rajendra stood with his mother outside Huilan's door in the state guesthouse wing. The air in the plush corridor was silent, heavy. Laxmi smoothed her simple cotton sari, took a deep breath, and nodded.
Huilan opened the door. She had changed out of her severe cadre suit into a plain grey turtleneck and trousers. It was the most informal Rajendra had ever seen her, and it made her look younger, more vulnerable. The room was standard-issue elegant, impersonal.
"Please, come in," Huilan said in careful English, stepping aside.
The three of them sat in a stiff triangle: Huilan and Laxmi on two small armchairs, Rajendra slightly apart on a sofa, feeling like an exhibit.
An awkward silence descended. The hum of the air conditioner was deafening.
Laxmi broke it. She looked at Huilan, not with judgment, but with deep, curious assessment. "You speak English. Good. My son tells me you are very capable. A leader."
Huilan nodded, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. "I perform my duty."
"Duty," Laxmi repeated, the word rolling in her Marathi accent. "To your father? To your country?"
"To the people," Huilan replied automatically, the Party line, but her eyes flickered.
"And to yourself?" Laxmi asked softly.
Huilan's gaze dropped. That question had no prepared answer. Rajendra watched, fascinated. His mother was conducting an interrogation more effective than any KGB officer's, using only gentleness and truth.
Laxmi shifted tact. "My son is also driven by duty. To his father's memory. To the people who work for him. Sometimes…" she glanced at Rajendra, a flash of maternal sorrow, "...he forgets the duty to his own heart. Do you understand this?"
Huilan looked from Laxmi to Rajendra, then back. A spark of recognition, of shared frustration, ignited in her eyes. "Yes," she said, the word barely a whisper. "I understand this."
"You are alone here, in this room, with us," Laxmi said, leaning forward slightly. "There is no General. No contract. Just a mother, and a son, and a woman caught in between. So I ask you, as one woman to another, with all respect: Do you want to marry my son?"
The directness was a thunderclap. Huilan flinched. Her professional composure, already cracked, shattered. She looked at Rajendra, not as a partner or a target, but as a man—complicated, ambitious, equally trapped. She thought of her sterile apartment, her father's expectations, the hollow future as a decorative wife in a political marriage. Then she thought of the bizarre, terrifying freedom of this alternative—bound to a merchant-king, yes, but one who fought dragons and built his own rules.
"I…" Her voice failed. She swallowed. "I do not know what I want. But I know I do not want to be a… a token in my father's strategy. Again." The admission cost her. Her shoulders slumped a fraction.
Laxmi heard the honesty in it. The defiance. She saw not a schemer, but another casualty of a man's ambition. Her expression softened from assessment to something akin to pity.
"Then listen to me," Laxmi said, her voice dropping into a conspiratorial tone. "If there is to be a marriage… if this is to be a real thing, and not another contract… it cannot be born in an office like this one." She gestured around the impersonal room. "It must have roots. In earth. In family."
She laid out her condition, the ultimate test and the ultimate blessing rolled into one. "You will come to India. To our home. Not for a day. For one month. You will live as we live. You will eat our food, hear our language, see the sky under which my son became who he is. And I will see you. Not Captain Huilan. Not a daughter of a General. Just you. If, after that month, my son still wishes to marry you, and you him, and I see a real light between you… then we will have a wedding. Not in a government hall. In a temple, with flowers and prayers. Or not at all."
Huilan stared, stunned. A month? In an Indian household? It was an inconceivable demand. It was also the first genuine choice anyone had ever offered her that wasn't between two forms of duty.
Rajendra was equally stunned. His mother had just reframed the entire geopolitical stalemate as a domestic drama. The fate of the Consortium now hinged on Huilan's ability to tolerate Pune's heat and his mother's aloo-gobi.
Huilan looked at Rajendra, her eyes wide with a question. Is this real? Is this possible?
Rajendra, trapped between his mother's will and the sheer absurdity of the gambit, could only give a slight, helpless nod. The path was insane. But it was a path. And it was theirs.
Slowly, Huilan turned back to Laxmi. She didn't agree. She didn't refuse. She asked, her voice rough with emotion, "And if I fail your… assessment?"
Laxmi reached across the space between them and patted her clenched hands. The gesture was shockingly intimate. "Then, child, you will have had a month of freedom. And you will know yourself a little better. That is not failure. That is a gift."
In that quiet room, under the fluorescent lights of a state guesthouse, a Chinese officer and an Indian matriarch forged a strange, silent pact. The General's chessboard was still in play. But on a smaller, more human board, a new game had just begun, with rules written not in strategy manuals, but in the language of home, heart, and a mother's fierce, protective love. The price of that love was a month of scrutiny. The potential reward was a freedom neither Huilan nor Rajendra had ever dared to imagine.