The glass shattered against the wall with a deafening crack, shards scattering across the marble floor.
"Six months!" Mo Jihan's voice tore through the air, hoarse and furious. "Six months, and you still haven't found her?"
The men in the room stood rigid, heads bowed, afraid to meet his eyes. The temperature in the office felt like it had dropped several degrees, though the AC was already off.
"Sir— we've checked every route, every contact—"
The rest of the sentence never made it out. Mo Jihan's hand lashed across the man's face with a sharp smack. The sound echoed, followed by the dull thud of the man stumbling to the floor.
"Do you think I care what you've checked?" Mo Jihan snarled, stepping forward, his dark suit disheveled, eyes burning with sleepless fury. "I told you to find her, not make excuses!"
The man on the floor clutched his cheek but didn't dare speak.
At the far end of the room, a composed voice cut through the chaos.
"President Mo."
It was Xu Lin, his secretary and right-hand man. Calm as always, though the tension in his shoulders betrayed the strain. "We're doing everything we can. Every source has been contacted. But Mis Lou—"
"Don't say her name like you understand." Mo Jihan's gaze snapped to him, icy and sharp enough to slice.
Secretary Xu Lin swallowed his retort. "...We will expand the search perimeter. But for now, you need to calm down."
"Calm down?" Mo Jihan's laugh was hollow, deranged. "You think I can calm down when she's been gone half a year without a trace?"
His voice cracked at the end, the rawness bleeding through the anger. He turned away sharply, running a hand through his hair as if he could physically pull the madness out. Papers littered his desk, maps and reports marked with circles and notes in his handwriting.
Secretary Xu Lin glanced at the mess, then took a steady breath. "Sir, the board is waiting. There's an emergency meeting scheduled in twenty minutes. You need to attend—"
"I'm not going."
"President Mo—"
"I said I'm not going!" He slammed his fist on the table, the veins in his arm taut, his knuckles reddened. The silence that followed was suffocating.
Then—his phone rang.
The shrill tone cut through the room like a knife. For a moment, he didn't move. Then he picked it up, jaw clenched.
"What?"
The voice on the other end was deep and commanding—older, colder.
"Return to the company now, Mo Jihan. Or I'll strip you of every ounce of power you hold there."
A pause.
"And you can say goodbye to whatever foolish obsession you're wasting the company's resources on."
Click.
Mo Jihan's grip tightened until the phone screen cracked beneath his thumb. The silence stretched again.
When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet, glacial. "Xu Lin."
"Yes, sir."
"Tell the men to expand the search to other countries. Every border, every contact we have abroad." His tone was steady now—controlled, deadly. "I don't care how much it costs."
"Yes, sir."
He turned toward the door, the fury in his eyes replaced by something far colder.
"Let's go," he said. "To the company."
The men bowed in unison as he strode past them, his coat flaring behind him.
Secretary Xu Lin followed, casting one last glance at the broken glass on the floor—the silent reflection of the man's unraveling restraint.
As Mo Jihan walked away, the words he muttered under his breath were almost inaudible.
"I'll find you, Sirou. Even if I have to burn the world down."
Meanwhile, across the city…
A faint ding broke the quiet of a small, neatly kept room.
On a simple wooden desk—books stacked, notebooks open, a half-finished assignment lying beside a cooling cup of tea—a phone screen blinked once, then twice, glowing softly in the dim light.
A new message appeared.
> Thank you for protecting me.
— Sirou