The dust of the sub-basement had barely settled when the Ye Estate transitioned from a silent tomb to a house of reckoning. The brothers were still shouting, and the parents were trembling in shock, but Ye Wanwan moved through the chaos with a terrifying, singular focus. She had retrieved the micro-chip from the disarmed bomb, and she was currently walking toward the main parlor, her boots leaving damp footprints on the expensive rugs. Behind her, Lu Zhentian followed like a dark, protective deity, having donned a spare shirt that strained against his shoulders. He didn't say a word, but the cold promise of execution was written in the set of his jaw.
"Everyone. Into the parlor. Now," Wanwan's voice wasn't loud, but it possessed a frequency that cut through Ye Mo's shouting and Shuyin's sobbing. The authority in her tone was so absolute that even the servants froze in their tracks.
Ye Shijun and Lin Shuyin sat on the sofa, their faces pale as they looked at the tactical gear of the frozen assassins being hauled out by Zhentian's men. Aurora sat in the corner, her face a mask of perfect, wide-eyed horror. She was trembling, her hands clutching a glass of water. "I... I don't understand," Aurora whimpered, her voice a fragile reed. "How could someone put a bomb in our house? Sister, thank God you and Master Lu found it! We could have all been killed!"
Wanwan stopped in front of the large holographic screen in the parlor. She didn't look at Aurora. She didn't offer a single word of comfort. She simply inserted the micro-chip into the system. "A bomb of this caliber requires a localized detonator," Wanwan began, her voice a chilling silk. "It needs a signal from within the house to bypass the Ye family's firewall. A signal that was sent forty-five minutes ago from a device registered to this estate."
"That's impossible," Ye Feng, the tech genius, muttered, his fingers already flying across his laptop. "I monitor the internal network. No unauthorized—" He stopped mid-sentence. His face turned an ashen grey as a line of encrypted code appeared on the main screen. "The signal... it didn't come from an unauthorized device. it came from the nursery monitor in the East Wing. The one Aurora uses for her 'charity sleep-recordings.'"
The room went deathly quiet. Shuyin looked at Aurora, her eyes pleading for a denial. "Aurora? Sweetie, what is Feng talking about? There must be a hack... a mistake..."
Aurora's eyes darted around the room. She saw the five brothers closing in, their faces shifting from confusion to a dawning, murderous realization. She saw Lu Zhentian leaning against the doorframe, his golden eyes fixed on her as if he were watching an insect he was about to crush. Finally, she looked at Wanwan. The "country girl" was standing there, her obsidian eyes reflecting the truth with a clinical indifference.
"The DNA test was the first lie," Wanwan said, stepping closer to Aurora. "You weren't switched by a nurse's mistake. You were planted by the Wei Syndicate. Your father isn't a dead laborer; he is Wei Chang, the man currently sitting in a high-security cell in the North, and you've been feeding him Ye family secrets for ten years."
Aurora's fragile mask didn't just crack; it shattered. The "Angel" of the Ye family stood up, the water glass in her hand hitting the floor and shattering. Her face twisted into a sneer of pure, concentrated venom. The trembling stopped. The tears dried instantly. "So what?" Aurora spat, her voice no longer sweet but raspy and harsh. "Ten years! For ten years I played the perfect daughter for these idiots! I endured their pathetic 'family dinners' and their boring 'love' while my father rotted because of Shijun's business testimony. You think you've won because you found a little chip?"
Shuyin let out a broken cry, her hand flying to her heart. Shijun stood up, his face aging ten years in a single second. "Aurora... we loved you. We gave you everything."
"You gave me a cage!" Aurora screamed, her eyes wild. She reached into her dress, pulling out a small, high-frequency transmitter. "If I'm going down, I'm taking the 'Pearl' with me! The Shadow Syndicate has a second trigger!"
Before Aurora could press the button, a flash of silver cut through the air.
Thwack.
A silver needle pierced the center of Aurora's palm, pinning her hand to the mahogany back of the chair behind her. The transmitter clattered to the floor. Aurora let out a piercing shriek of pain. Wanwan stood just inches away, her hand still extended, her face as expressionless as a statue's.
"The second trigger was disabled twenty minutes ago," Wanwan said, her voice a low, lethal hum. "I don't leave variables in my missions, Aurora. And you... you aren't even a footnote."
Zhentian stepped forward, his heavy boots echoing on the hardwood. He picked up the fallen transmitter and crushed it in his bare hand, the plastic snapping like dry twigs. He looked at the Ye brothers. "She's yours to deal with for now. But by sunrise, she belongs to the Lu family's interrogation wing. I have a few questions about who else in this city thinks they can touch my fiancée."
The five brothers didn't hesitate. Ye Mo stepped forward, his face a mask of iron. "Security! Take her to the holding cellar. Notify the police, but tell them we'll be conducting our own internal audit first." Aurora was dragged out, screaming curses at Wanwan, her voice fading into the distance.
The parlor fell into a heavy, grieving silence. Shuyin was weeping into Shijun's chest, the weight of the betrayal crushing them. The brothers stood around, looking lost, their protective world having been turned upside down.
Wanwan turned to leave, her body beginning to shiver again as the adrenaline wore off and the "Cold-Blood" returned. She didn't expect a hand to catch her. Zhentian wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her flush against his side. "The rat is out, Wanwan," he whispered, his heat radiating into her, steadying her breath. "But the war is just beginning. Your family is broken. They're going to need a God of Medicine to fix them."
Wanwan looked at her parents, then back at Zhentian. For the first time, she didn't pull away from his touch. "I can fix their hearts," she whispered. "But who is going to fix the mess you made of my reputation tonight, Master Lu?"
Zhentian grinned, a dark, shameless expression of pure devotion. "Reputation? I'm going to make you the most feared and adored woman in the world. Now, let's get you to bed. You're freezing, and I'm a very efficient heater."