Xue Ning was finally admitted to a hospital abroad.
The maid who had been helping her settle into the apartment found her unconscious one morning, curled on the floor between the kitchen and the hallway. No visible wounds. No blood. Just a fever too high, lips cracked and trembling, and skin too pale for someone who used to command boardrooms with poise.
The maid panicked and called the only number listed under Emergency:
Xue Zhen.
He answered on the second ring.
He wanted to go. He really did. But there were fires everywhere—
Third Branch pushing a vote of no confidence, stockholders in uproar, and quarterly reports due by the hour.
None of it could wait.
And worse—none of them would wait for her.
So instead, he called in the only person who could act in his stead.
Mr. Yuwen. His most loyal retainer.
He handed him full medical authority—every treatment, every test, every signature.
No second opinions. No hesitation.
Just one instruction:
"Don't leave her alone."
Mr. Yuwen arrived within hours and stationed himself like a sentinel beside her hospital bed.
He didn't leave.
He didn't report.
He simply stayed.
⸻
Meanwhile, Zhen kept working.
Boardroom to boardroom. Floor to floor.
He clocked in meetings he didn't remember.
Signed papers he didn't read.
Watched shareholder smiles stretch thin around polished conference tables.
The world didn't stop spinning just because he couldn't breathe.
And when it all became too much—
When the pressure tightened like a noose around his throat—
He would vanish for twenty minutes.
No one knew where.
Not his office.
Not the chairman's lounge.
Not even the gym or the rooftop or the hidden elevator exit his assistant had memorized.
Instead, he went to her office.
It hadn't been reassigned.
He hadn't let them.
The plaque still read Xue Ning, VP – Innovation Strategy
as if she might walk in any minute and demand a more modern font.
Inside, it was... hers.
Pastel folders organized by project phase.
A crooked penholder shaped like a bunny—gifted by an intern she once protected.
The same lavender-sage candle she never lit but always kept by the window.
Even the chair, which squeaked slightly to the left when you leaned, hadn't been changed.
He would sit there in silence, eyes closed, letting the chaos of the day bleed out like ink on old paper.
He didn't know why.
He just knew it worked.
Sometimes, he would rest his fingers on the edge of her desk.
Not to touch anything—just to remember that she used to be here.
That someone had once sat in this exact space and dared to challenge him with silence.
And sometimes, when no one was watching, he would whisper under his breath:
"Come back."
⸻
Across the sea, in a room that smelled like antiseptic and fading rain,
Xue Ning blinked awake to the sound of her phone buzzing weakly under her pillow.
"Liyan," she rasped, voice barely audible.
"I heard," came the reply. Soft, worried. "You scared the hell out of me. Mom and Dad, too. Even Yuwen started snapping at doctors."
She let out a faint laugh. "I didn't mean to collapse dramatically. That was a bonus."
"Funny," Liyan sighed. "Seriously though... I can't fly out. But if you need me—"
"Help him instead," she said, eyes already fluttering closed again.
"Help Zhen... as much as you can. Even if he doesn't know."
A pause.
Then, Liyan's voice gentled.
"I'll only do it for you."
She smiled faintly. "Good. He won't ask for help otherwise."
Then her voice faded into sleep.