The city hummed beneath him. From the corner office perched on the 41st floor, Shanghai looked like a sprawling circuit board-lights blinking in rhythm, roads pulsing with movement. But inside, it was quiet. Still.
Qin Yu stood before the glass wall, back to the room, arms crossed. He hadn't moved for a long time.
His assistant, Shen Wenlang, lingered near the doorway with a tablet in his hands, eyes flicking to him and then to the documents he wasn't sure he'd read. "President Qin?" he asked carefully.
"Leave it there."
He nodded, placed the tablet on the glass desk, and slipped out soundlessly. Qin Yu heard the whisper of the door sliding shut, and then silence returned.
He hadn't checked his phone all day.
The message from last night was still in his mind, pressed against his thoughts like a thumbprint on glass.
I don't delete things I like.
That wasn't the problem.
The problem was: he hadn't either.
He finally turned from the window and walked to the desk, pinching the bridge of his nose as he sat. The office was pristine. Clean lines. Marble. Chrome. A symbolic fortress of control.
But the man in the chair was tired.
His fingers moved across the tablet Shen Wenlang left. He began flipping through contracts expansion deals, foreign clients, supply chain realignments.
Then a file caught his eye.
ZENITH GROUP - FUSION PROPOSAL.
He tapped it open.
Zenith was one of the fastest-rising tech firms in Southeast Asia, and they'd requested a sit-down. Nothing unusual. But it wasn't until he saw the name under Head of Strategic Partnerships that something shifted.
Yan Rui.
His breath paused. YR?
No picture. Just a name.
He leaned back, tension crawling up his spine.
"Coincidence," he muttered aloud. But it didn't sound convincing.
He didn't want to deal with that now. Not with a dozen other acquisitions in motion. Not with the upcoming conference in Seoul. Not when his body still responded to that voice like it remembered something it shouldn't.
He marked the proposal for a later date and set the tablet down harder than necessary.
Three hours passed.
He buried himself in reports, memorandums, restructuring blueprints. His mind was sharp, slicing through data like a blade-but his body felt off. Agitated.
The door buzzed once, and Shen Wenlang's voice came through the intercom.
"President Qin, the delegation from the Swiss branch is waiting in the conference room."
He rose, adjusted his suit, and walked out without a word.
The meeting was routine. Numbers. Forecasts. Language switching between Mandarin and English. Qin Yu was composed, efficient, ruthless.
But something shifted near the end.
A notification lit up his phone, face-down beside his tablet. Only he noticed. He picked it up subtly, thumb unlocking it while keeping his expression neutral.
Unknown Number:
"Have you eaten? You looked thinner than you should be. YR."
He inhaled through his nose, slow and sharp.
He knew who it was.
Not a second later, another message arrived.
"Don't worry. I'm not stalking. I'm... observing. YR"
He looked up, eyes flicking across the room, though he knew there was no way Yan Rui was here.
Still, the sensation that someone knew, made his skin itch.
"President Qin?" one of the executives asked, prompting him to speak.
He returned to the presentation without a falter. On the surface, nothing had changed. But inside, things were becoming impossible to compartmentalize.
Later that evening, after the last department head left and the office quieted again, Qin Yu stood alone in the elevator, descending.
His penthouse was waiting.
So was the silence.
He hated both tonight.
As the elevator neared the ground floor, his phone buzzed again.
"If you're going to ignore me, at least have the decency to admit you're scared. YR"
His jaw clenched.
Then another came in. This time, an image.
A coffee cup. The same kind from the lounge on the first-class flight.
And under it:
"We shared this. Or are you deleting that memory too? YR"
The elevator doors opened, but he didn't move.
His hands remained at his sides. Breathing shallow. Controlled.
He replied.
Qin Yu: You're crossing a line.
The reply was immediate.
"Good. I like knowing where the lines are. YR"
Instead of heading home, Qin Yu made a detour.
He had a penthouse at the Continental Residences, yes. But tonight, he drove to a different building, one still under renovation. One of his new properties.
It wasn't even listed in the company portfolio yet.
No one would expect him here.
He stepped out of the car, passed the guards without a word, and took a private elevator to the 52nd floor. The space was raw, glass walls, concrete floors, and one simple black armchair overlooking the skyline.
He needed silence.
And here, he could breathe.
He turned off his phone.
Let it go dark in his palm.
And finally, Qin Yu sat. No assistant. No boardroom. No chaos. Just him.
And still-
He could feel it.
That lingering presence. The sensation of being seen.
Yan Rui had barely spoken two dozen words to him. They'd met only once. And yet the man's presence slithered under his skin like a whisper he couldn't shake.
And he didn't understand why.
But he would.
He would find out.
And then he'd end it.
Or so he told himself.