[SU YISHUI POV ]
The dead didn't speak with such precision.
Su Yishui's mind kept circling that thought, trying to make reality align with what he was seeing. Feng Yu sat three feet away, perfectly still except for the slow tap of his fingers against the chair back—a rhythm Yishui remembered from library study sessions, from late nights when Feng Yu worked through problems he refused to ask for help with.
But that person was gone. Had been gone for years.
This person wore expensive clothes and controlled a room designed for breaking people.
"You're not saying anything," Feng Yu observed. His voice carried the same inflection it always had, but stripped of warmth. Clinical. "Most people have questions by now."
Yishui's throat felt lined with glass. Questions weren't safe—not here, not with the leather restraints still binding his wrists, not with the reality of where he was finally settling into his bones.
The Red Room did t operate on curiosity. It operated on compliance.
"Smart," Feng Yu said, as if reading his silence correctly. "Your parents taught you well. When you don't know the rules, don't speak until someone tells you what's permitted."
It was" the praise. It was observation, the way someone might note an animal's trained behavior.
Yishui forced himself to breathe steadily, to keep his expression neutral. Every instinct screamed to ask why—why Feng Yu was alive, why he was here, why he'd looked at Yishui like a problem to solve instead of someone he'd once—
Don't think about that. Not here. Not now.
"Let me clarify how this works," Feng Yu continued, standing up with fluid grace. He moved to the side table, poured water from a clear pitcher into a plastic cup. Not glass. Nothing that could be broken into a weapon. "The Red Room has three rules. Learn them quickly."
He did t bring the water to Yishui. Just held it, condensation dripping down the sides.
"Rule one: Silence is loyalty." Feng Yu's eyes stayed on Yishui's face. Tracking every micro...expression. "The last person who talked about what happened here lost his reputation before he lost his teeth. The Wei Syndicate doesn't make threats. They demonstrate consequences."
The weight of that settled in Yishui's chest. No dramatic threats. No explicit violence. Just a statement of fact delivered like a weather report.
"Rule two: Obedience is currency. You have nothing else to trade with down here. Not your family name. Not your education. Not your father's political connections or your mother's social network. Just your willingness to comply when I tell you to do something." Feng Yu took a slow sip of water, and Yishui's throat ached watching it. He'd been here hours without water, food, or bathroom access. His body's needs were becoming urgent, humiliating.
Feng Yu set the cup on the table. Still within view. Still out of reach.
"Rule three: Exit is earned, not given." He returned to the chair, same backward straddle, same controlled posture. "You don't leave because you've been here long enough. You don't leave because you've suffered enough. You leave when whoever brought you here decides you understand something you did t understand before."
The logic was airtight and terrifying. No concrete timeline. No measurable endpoint. Just subjective satisfaction from someone who held absolute power.
"Do you understand the rules?" Feng Yu asked.
Yishui nodded. His neck felt stiff.
"Say it."
"I understand." His voice came out rougher than intended. How long since he'd spoken? Hours, maybe. Since before the hood had gone over his head in the parking garage, before the van, before waking up in this chair.
"Good." Feng Yu tilted his head slightly. "Now let's discuss why you're here."
Yishui's pulse spiked despite his attempts at control. The leaked fund route. His university credentials. The connection to—
"You think you're here because of the data breach," Feng Yu said, and something almost like amusement flickered across his face. "You think this is about proving your innocence, about clearing your name so the Wei Syndicate does t consider you a liability."
He leaned forward slightly.
"You're wrong."
The words hung in the recycled air. Yishui's mind raced, trying to reorient around this new information. If not the leak, then what?
"You're here," Feng Yu continued softly, "because I wanted you here. The data breach was convenient timing—gave me a legitimate reason to request your... interview. But the Wei Syndicate does t actually care if you leaked information. They know you didn't. I told them you didn't."
Yishui's hands clenched involuntarily. "Then why—"
"Did I say you could ask questions?"
The interruption was gentle, but Yishui felt it like a slap. He closed his mouth, forced his jaw to unclench. Obedience is currency.
"Better." Feng Yu's approval felt worse than his anger would have. "You're here because you need to learn what I learned. That love is a fantasy people perform until reality requires a choice. That protection has a price. That every comfort you enjoyed was built on someone else's submission."
He stood again, circled behind Yishui's chair. Yishui forced himself not to track the movement, not to turn his head. His father had taught him young: never show nervousness to predators.
"Some years ago," Feng Yu said from behind him, "you let me into your life. Shared your space, your thoughts, your—" A pause. "—affection."
The word landed like something sharp between Yishui's ribs.
"And when I disappeared..." Feng Yu's hand appeared on the armrest beside Yishui's wrist, not touching but close enough to feel the proximity. "What did you do?"
Yishui's throat closed. He knew what Feng Yu wanted him to say. Knew the answer that would confirm whatever lesson this was supposed to teach.
"Nothing," he whispered.
"Louder."
"Nothing." His voice cracked. "I did nothing."
"Why?"
Because his parents had ordered him to stay silent. Because in Jinling, self-preservation always came before loyalty to someone who couldn't offer protection in return.
Because love—or fondness, or whatever fragile thing had existed between them—didn't have the power to shield anyone from consequence.
"My parents—"
"Told you to forget me," Feng Yu finished. His hand moved, fingers trailing along the leather restraint, not quite touching Yishui's skin. "And you obeyed. Because that's what you do. That's what you've always done."
It was the accusation in his tone. Just a statement. Just a fact.
Yishui's chest felt tight. "I didn't know—"
"What? That I was alive?" Feng Yu's laugh was soft and humorless. "Would it have mattered? If you'd known I was being held somewhere, tortured for information about a crime I didn't commit, would you have risked your family's position to help me?"
The answer was no. They both knew it.
"That's the lesson," Feng Yu said, moving back into view. "Love doesn't protect you in Jinling. Power does. And you chose power—your family's power—over whatever you felt for me. Which was the smart choice. The correct choice."
He crouched down, bringing himself eye level with Yishui. Close enough that Yishui could see the faint scar along his jawline that had"t been there before. Evidence of violence survived.
"But it's important you understand what that choice meant." Feng Yu's voice dropped lower. "It meant I learned exactly how much your affection was worth. How easily it disappeared when keeping it became inconvenient."
Yishui wanted to argue, to explain, to make Feng Yu understand that it hadn't been easy, that he"d—
But the restraints reminded him he had no leverage here. No position to negotiate from.
"I'm sorry," he said instead, because it was true even if it was inadequate.
"I know." Feng Yu stood up. "That's why you're still alive."
The casual mention of death alternatives made Yishui's skin go cold.
"The Wei Syndicate wanted you to disappear quietly," Feng Yu continued, walking to the door. "Loose thread, potential liability. But I convinced them you had value. That you could be... recalibrated."
His hand rested on the door handle.
"So you're going to stay here until I'm satisfied you understand the new terms of our relationship. Until you learn that obedience isn't just currency—it's the only thing preventing worse alternatives."
"How long?" Yishui asked, then immediately regretted it.
Feng Yu looked back at him, and for a moment—just a flash—something complicated crossed his face. Something that might have been the person Yishui used to know.
Then it vanished.
"As long as it takes," he said simply. "Could be days. It could be weeks. Depends on how quickly you adapt."
He opened the door, revealing darkness beyond it.
"Someone will bring you food. Water. You'll be allowed bathroom breaks under supervision. Medical checks to ensure you stay healthy." His tone remained factual, almost kind.
"And if I don't learn?"
Feng Yu paused in the doorway. "Then you'll learn anyway. Just slower. More painfully."
The door started to close.
"Wait—" Yishui's voice broke. "Feng Yu—"
"That's not my name anymore." The correction was quiet. Final. "Down here, you call me what everyone else does. Sir. Or nothing at all."
The door closed with a soft click.
The lock engaged with mechanical precision.
And Su Yishui sat alone in the Red Room, leather restraints holding him in place, understanding with perfect clarity that everything he'd been taught about power and protection and the value of obedience had been preparation for exactly this moment.
His family had trained him to submit to authority.
They just never imagined the authority would be wearing a dead man's face.
The lights hummed their constant frequency.
Time stopped meaning anything.
And Yishui began the slow, necessary process of learning that in Jinling's underworld, Obedience isn't protection.
It's exposure.