Runze's POV
The evening news has been playing on mute in the small sitting room off the main hall for forty minutes.
On the screen, ticker text scrolls beneath a sleek banner graphic of the central headquarters: Wuchen Group Formally Certifies Sole Ownership Under Chairman Bael Wuchen. The stock price sits beside the headline, green numbers adjusting in real-time as after-hours trading reacts to the press wire.
I glance down at my phone on the low table beside my chair. There are no new notifications. The last conversation was a brief, unexpected call from Ling Yue shortly after Bael and I hung up. He didn't stay on the line long—just long enough to say he had left Jin Hao's residence again, but that this time, he wasn't going into hiding. He was returning directly to his family to step into the position he had spent years dodging, promising to explain the rest when he comes to the estate in three days.
