The hospital corridor stretched out, a long, sterile void of silence.
Lu Zhiling moved with leaden steps, her mind a chaotic whirlpool of Bo Wang’s parting words. He was a walking contradiction: the husband who had snubbed their wedding, yet the savior who had pulled her from a watery grave. He had looked down on her with icy disdain, shackled her with surveillance, and in a fit of madness, had nearly strangled the life out of her, demanding she accompany him into death—only to turn around and demand her body in his bed.
If he hadn’t vanished as quickly as he had, she might have actually asked him if he’d finally suffered a total mental collapse.
Taking a stabilizing breath, she stopped before a closed ward door. Through the glass, she saw Jiang Fusheng—her friend and protector—lying motionless beneath the rhythmic drip of an IV. Beside him, his parents were hushed figures of grief, their shoulders shaking with silent sobs.
“Miss, you cannot stay with the Bo family a moment longer. It is a Longtan Huxue [Dragon’s den and tiger’s lair; a place of extreme danger],” Feng Zhen whispered at her side. His face was a map of worry, his gray hair seeming to have bleached whiter in the span of a single afternoon.
Lu Zhiling turned, seeing the earnest desperation in his eyes.
“The internal politics of the Bo family are a shark tank,” Feng Zhen continued. “Yu Yunfei and Xia Meiqing [the second and third ‘mothers’ or mistresses of the household] both hold massive stakes in the Bo Group. Their fortunes are webbed into powerful networks. There are too many people who want you gone.”
“I know,” she replied, her voice hollow. She had been lucky this time, but luck was a fickle currency in a house of monsters.
“Miss, let’s go. While their grip on you is loose, let’s flee abroad. We can live in anonymity. In a few years, once the family has a new Zengsun [great-grandson] to obsess over, we can return to your beloved Jiangnan.”
He knew Jiangnan was her obsession—the mist-covered rivers and the scent of osmanthus were the only things that kept her soul anchored.
Lu Zhiling’s long eyelashes trembled. She looked back at the unconscious Jiang Fusheng. “When I was small, my father told me that if I was bullied, I must strike back instantly. To hesitate even for a second is to betray one’s own soul.”
“That was when you had the Lu family behind you,” Feng Zhen’s voice cracked. “But now… you have no one to shield you.”
The truth stung. Without her family’s prestige, she was supposed to be a shadow—hiding, running, making herself small so as not to obstruct the path of giants.
“No,” she said suddenly, her gaze sharpening.
“What?”
“No one will back me up?” She looked at him, her face soft but her eyes flashing with a cold, newfound fire. “Then I will be my own backing. Whoever slaps me once, I will return it tenfold.”
“With what?” Feng Zhen frowned, his heart aching for her. “You have nothing left but a small teahouse.”
“I don’t need an army to find a killer,” she said, turning toward the exit. “I know what they want. And the more they want it, the more I will withhold it. Eventually, the snake will have to crawl out of its hole.”
Back at the Wutong Courtyard—her personal residence within the vast Shenshan estate—the air was thick with frantic energy. Ding Yujun, the family matriarch, was barking orders at servants.
“Is the bird’s nest soup ready? Check the silk robes—why are there so few? Find some Xiaohua [joke collections or light entertainment]; she needs to stay cheerful for the baby while she recovers!”
When Lu Zhiling appeared, still clad in her thin hospital gown, the old woman nearly collapsed from shock. “My dear! Why are you here? Are you hurt? Tell Grandma everything.”
Seeing the genuine tears in the elder’s eyes, Lu Zhiling felt a rare pang of warmth. “Grandma, I’m fine.”
“Your eyes…” Ding Yujun gasped.
“I can see again,” Lu Zhiling smiled, the clarity of her vision a testament to her rebirth.
The old woman wept with joy, stroking Zhiling’s hand with her weathered, ring-laden fingers. She pulled her into the living room, dismissing the servants with a sharp flick of her wrist.
“Grandma,” Lu Zhiling said, standing tall. “I agree to your proposal.”
Ding Yujun blinked, realization dawning. “It’s my fault… if I hadn’t shown you such favor, they wouldn’t have targeted you.”
“What’s done is done,” Zhiling interrupted softly. “I will help Bo Wang become a qualified heir. But I don’t want a seat in the ancestral hall or the title of Matriarch.”
“Then what do you want?”
“I want the Lu family’s old mansion in Jiangnan.”
The old woman froze. “The haunted estate? It’s been on the auction block for years at 1.8 billion Yuan.”
“It is the only thing that matters to me,” Zhiling said firmly.
“Done,” Ding Yujun agreed without a second thought. “If you can tame that grandson of mine, I would pay ten times that amount.”
“I only want the house,” Zhiling repeated. “Nothing more.”
“And what of Bo Wang? Do you…”
The question was cut short by a frantic pounding at the door. A maid burst in, her face ghostly pale. “Grandma, something terrible has happened! Madam Yu and Madam Xia… they’ve been kidnapped!”
The main villa was a tomb of suffocating tension. Twenty elite bodyguards stood in the lobby, heads bowed as if awaiting execution. Bo Zhengrong, the patriarch, was a volcano on the verge of eruption. He grabbed a delicate porcelain cup and shattered it against the marble floor.
“How?” he roared.
The captains stepped forward, trembling. “Madam Xia vanished from a locked restroom at the jewelry boutique. Madam Yu disappeared from a secure lounge at the charity gala venue. The doors were bolted, the windows intact. They simply… went up in smoke.”
Bo Zhengrong let out a jagged, angry laugh. “Two woman, gone in broad daylight.”
Lu Zhiling watched from the sofa. She knew the security protocols for these women were tighter than a government convoy. To take them so cleanly required a terrifying level of skill.
“Call Bo Wang!” Bo Zhengrong screamed. “This reeks of his handiwork! Who else would dare?”
He turned to his mother, his face purple. “And these bodyguards… I hired the best. In all of Jiangbei, only the Living Dead [a legendary, shadowy mercenary organization] could pull this off.”
Lu Zhiling’s heart skipped. She had heard of them—the masks, the hoodies, the ruthless efficiency. She thought of Li Minghuai, Bo Wang’s shadow, always lurking in his dark hoodie.
“Young Master isn’t answering,” the butler whispered, staring at his phone as if it were a bomb.
“Because he’s guilty!” Bo Zhengrong bellowed.
“Perhaps his battery is dead,” Ding Yujun offered weakly.
“In this era? Who doesn’t have a charger?”
“My grandson is not an ordinary man,” she countered stubbornly.
Just as the argument peaked, a melodic ringtone sliced through the room. Every eye turned to Lu Zhiling’s pocket.
On the screen, two bold characters glowed: BO WANG.
The silence was deafening. Ding Yujun cleared her throat. “It seems he found a charging cable.”
“Answer it!” Bo Zhengrong hissed. “Speakerphone!”
Lu Zhiling’s fingers shook as she swiped. Bo Wang’s voice, deep and dangerously low, filled the room. “Where are you? Did you go back to the hospital?”
“I…”
“Don’t forget what I said,” he growled, his voice dropping into a register that was purely carnal, a dark promise that made the air in the room turn heavy. “I’m coming to collect my bargaining chips [a euphemism for her body/the sexual favor he demanded].”
Lu Zhiling panicked. If he said one more word about “collecting” her in front of his father, she would die of shame—or worse.
“Bo Wang, come home!” she blurted out. “Aunt Yu and Aunt Xia are missing! Father is furious!”
There was a pause. A cold silence.
“Are you at Shenshan?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He hung up without another word.
Thirty minutes later, the heavy doors swung open. Bo Wang strode in, his white shirt unbuttoned at the collar, his black trench coat billowing behind him like a dark omen. He looked disheveled, dangerous, and utterly untamed, radiating a murderous aura that made the bodyguards shrink into the shadows.
He didn’t look at his father. His eyes went straight to Lu Zhiling, burning with a possessive, predatory heat.