"Nian Nian!"
The moment her eyes landed on the slip of paper, Bai Chenxi felt the blood in her veins turn to ice. The words—so cold, so intimate—struck at the one place she could never afford to be wounded.
She lunged for her phone like a woman possessed, fingers trembling so violently the device nearly slipped from her grasp. She hit the babysitter's number, again and again. Ring… ring… no answer.
Panic poured in like icy water. Her knees went weak. The world narrowed to a single, pounding thought: her child—her life—her reverse scale, the one thing that could make her a monster if anyone dared harm it.
"Amo." Her voice was ragged; she barely realized she'd called. The sharp-eyed assistant at her side moved before she finished the word, alert and immediate.
Amo took the note from her, eyes flicking to the line of typed menace. His face tightened. In one fluid motion he pulled out a compact, military-grade communicator and keyed it.
"President Li," he said in a clipped tone, "Miss Bai's situation—possible targeted threat against the child. Address, now."
Less than ten seconds later, Li Sijue's voice cut across the line—calm, low, and absolute. "Send the address. My team will be there in three minutes. Stay put. Don't move."
Those words were an anchor. For the first time since the slip had appeared, Bai Chenxi felt the raw edges of her panic dull ever so slightly.
Three minutes later, her phone vibrated with a call from the security detail assigned to Nian Nian. Background noise—blocks, clinks, the unmistakable giggle of a child—crackled through.
"Miss Bai, we're on site. The nanny was in the shower and didn't hear calls. Child is safe. All normal."
The relief that hit her was physical—an immediate, uncontrollable collapse. She sank onto the sofa, hot sweat cooling into chills down her spine. The note had been a false alarm, yes—but the cruelty of it cut deeper than any blade. Someone had known enough to threaten her most sacred thing, and that knowledge alone felt like a violation beyond repair.
Li Sijue called back. His voice was colder now, frosted with a lethal edge. "Leave the note to Amo. He will trace the source. Whoever sent it has overstepped."
Even through a headset, through protocol and distance, his words carried something like threat—an unspoken promise that those who harmed what was his to protect would face retribution. The ferocity in that voice shook her more than tears could.
This time, Bai Chenxi did not shrink from his interference. The line had been crossed. Protecting Nian Nian was no longer negotiable.
"Please—help me," she said, voice raw and steadier than she expected. There was a steel beneath the plea now; desperation braided with resolve.
There was a pause, then Li Sijue's reply, low and measured, as if he were setting a weight down beside her—solid and immovable. "Understood. From now on, your and the child's safety are my responsibility. I will make those behind this pay."
The promise landed like a verdict.
Later that night, when the hotel corridor was quiet, Bai Chenxi sat propped against the headboard, the anonymous paper folded and hidden in a drawer like a live coal. Her hands still shook, but there was fire in them now—no longer only fear, but a fierce, calculating anger.
Her mind replayed every small detail from the past weeks: the harness tampered with, the rogue article on Weibo, Zhao Qian's unusual silence, Lu Ziming's smirks, the way the note had been slipped under the door. Patterns formed—too deliberate, too experienced to be random.
A plan began to take shape in her chest. She would not be the passive target of someone else's cruelty. She would stop pretending to be fragile. For Nian Nian she would become predator if she had to. She would learn to pull the strings, to turn the tables, to drag every hidden hand into the light.
She set her jaw. "Find the sender," she told Amo quietly when he checked in that night. "And find how they know about him."
Amo's reply was as efficient as ever: a single nod. He already had boots moving.
At the edge of her fear, another, colder thought had begun to whisper: the man who kept appearing at the edge of her life—the man who'd ordered the Bojue Hotel room checked—had denied fatherhood. He had also rushed into freezing water to drag her up with his own hands. He had sent a protection detail within minutes.
Li Sijue's involvement no longer felt coincidental; it felt like a thread pulled tight across their fates. What did he know? What did he intend? And if he truly cared enough to protect her child, why had he stopped short of answering the one question that burned in her: that night—what had happened in room 1028?
For now, there would be no more answers by whisper. There would be action—quiet, precise, unstoppable.
Bai Chenxi placed both hands over her chest, feeling the steady thud of her heartbeat, and swore silently to herself:
They would touch her son again only over her dead body.