The rain started before dawn and never quite stopped, a thin, persistent drizzle that polished the city's glass towers until they were nothing but mirrored ghosts in the sky.
From the forty-second floor, the downpour looked like static.
Li Xian watched it through the conference room's floor-to-ceiling windows, hands tucked in the pockets of his charcoal suit, posture easy, expression neutral. A photograph of serenity—that was what his team always said. Unflappable. Unshakeable. A man who never raised his voice.
They had no idea how loud silence could be.
Behind him, the presentation file waited on the screen: SHENG RESIDENCE – FINAL PROPOSAL. In the reflection on the glass, the words hovered over his shoulder like a caption to his spine.
He checked his watch—9:17 a.m. She was late.
Of course she was late.
Xian's mouth curved faintly, a movement that resembled a smile but never arrived. Late meant her morning had gone badly. She'd have skipped breakfast, he thought. Coffee, one sugar, picked up from the lobby café downstairs; emails half-read in the elevator; a call from one impossible client; two from her mother that she'd ignore until they stacked into guilt.
He knew her rhythms better than his own. Or maybe, for the last three years, they had been his own.
The door swished open.
"Mr. Li, your client—"
"I'm not late," Sheng Anqi said, heels clicking over polished concrete as she swept past the assistant. "Your building's elevators are just sadistic."
Xian turned.
She was wearing black again, sharp-shouldered and clean-lined, the kind of tailored monochrome that dared the world to underestimate her. The humidity had coaxed a small wave into her usually sleek hair; it made her look younger, almost like the university girl who used to fall asleep over spreadsheets in the campus library. That girl had laughed with her whole face.
This woman smiled with her eyes closed.
"You're right on time," he said. "Coffee? One sugar."
He slid the paper cup across the glossy table. He didn't look at her, not directly. The habit of gentleness lingered even when the will did not.
Her hand paused on the cup. A flicker—an old irritation, almost fond, crossed her features. "You don't have to keep doing that."
"I know," he replied, voice even. "It's already paid for."
For the first time that morning, she really looked at him.
Li Xian in professional mode was not new to her. She'd seen him in boardrooms and client meetings, sleeves rolled to his elbows, explaining the logic of curves and light, invoking the psychological impact of spatial flow as easily as other people ordered lunch.
But there was usually… more. The slightest tilt of his head when she spoke, as if cataloging her mood. A steadying presence at her elbow when she pretended she wasn't tired. Quiet interference in the form of rescheduled appointments when he knew she was overworked. He didn't say he cared; he redesigned her days until they hurt less.
Today, he was exactly as attentive as he needed to be. No more.
"How formal," she said lightly, trying to make the word an accusation instead of an observation. "Should I be flattered?"
"You should sit," he said. "It's a long presentation."
He clicked the lights down without waiting for her response, plunging the room into a softer darkness. The city turned into a faint, glowing outline beyond the glass. The screen brightened.
Slide one: a sketch. Pencil on paper, the way he always began, no matter how sophisticated the software became. A sloping roofline, a courtyard, a tree.
Her breath caught before she could stop it. "That… that looks like—"
"Your grandmother's house," he finished. "The outer profile. I adjusted the ratios to accommodate the city lot, but the bones are the same."
Memories rose without permission: summers in a village that no longer existed, afternoons beneath a crooked persimmon tree, the smell of wet earth and peeled oranges. Her grandmother cutting scallions in the kitchen, insisting that love was best proven by a full table.
Anqi gripped the coffee a little too tightly.
"How did you—"
"Your mother shows me photos," he said. "When she wants to complain about you not visiting."
The dig should have felt like a tease; it didn't. It was factual, almost clinical.
On the screen, the sketch unfolded into renderings. The house came alive in sharp, elegant lines: a hidden courtyard at the center, glass sliding doors that opened the living room to the night air, a study with walls of shelves and a desk positioned to catch the morning light.
"The library," he said. "You mentioned once that if you ever had a house, you'd want the books to be the heart of it."
"I said that years ago," she muttered. "I barely remember."
"I do," he said.
Three years of remembering everything she said in throwaway conversations. That she liked western-facing windows because they caught the sunset when she worked late. That she hated kitchens with wasted corners. That she felt safer with one entrance, one exit, and complete control over both.
He changed slides. The kitchen appeared: sleek, efficient, an island that doubled as a bar. No dead corners. The deck beyond could host six people, max. Enough for closeness; not enough for a party she couldn't control.
"You'll see there are only two bedrooms," he continued. "Minimal guest space. You prefer short visits."
The way he said it left no room for argument. He knew; he didn't need her confirmation.
Her colliding emotions—annoyance, awe, discomfort—curdled into a single sharp thought: He has no right to know me this well.
Xian clicked to the last slide. A night view: the house glowing from within, warm squares of light in a quiet neighborhood. Not flashy. Not ostentatious. A sanctuary disguised as a modest home.
"The land is already purchased," he said. "The permits are approved. Construction could begin next month."
Anqi's head snapped toward him. "You bought the land?"
"Yes."
"With whose permission?"
He finally turned to look at her.
His eyes were dark, always steady, but there was a distance in them now—a pane of glass between them she'd never felt before.
"It's under my name," he said. "All expenses are mine."
"Why?" The word came out sharper than she intended, brittle with something too close to panic. "Why would you do that?"
"Because you needed somewhere to go." The answer was so simple it almost sounded cruel. "Somewhere that isn't the office. Somewhere that isn't a hotel with good Wi-Fi."
"I didn't ask you," she said.
"You never did," he agreed.
For a heartbeat, the room held its breath, the rain tracing countless vertical lines behind him. A prison of water, she thought distantly. You could drown and call it a view.
"This is too much," she said. "You can't just build a house for me."
"I can," he said. "I did. All that's left is your signature."
On the table, a neat folder waited, pen aligned perfectly on top. She recognized the crisp legal thickness of it: transfer documents. Her name was printed there. It would be hers, entirely; he wouldn't keep even a symbolic share.
A gift with no strings.
Except the ones she tied herself.
Her chest tightened. She thought of her twenties, of the man who'd loved her loudly, constantly, insistently, until his devotion had turned into a cage with silk curtains. I do everything for you, he had said, and he had. So thoroughly that she'd nearly lost sight of herself.
"You don't get to do this," she said, standing so quickly her chair scraped back. "You don't get to decide what I need. You don't get to reorganize my life like it's a floor plan you're optimizing."
He didn't flinch.
For years, he'd taken her anger like rain—another element to design around. A storm that would pass.
Today, he simply nodded once, as if making a note on a blueprint.
"You're right," he said. "I don't."
There it was: agreement, clean and bloodless. No defense. No stubborn insistence that she'd thank him later, that he knew her better than she knew herself.
No fight at all.
She hadn't expected to hit air.
"I can't accept this," she said, the words harsher than she meant. "I won't owe you something like this, Xian."
His gaze dropped briefly to the folder, then rose again. The distance in his eyes had solidified. Glass into stone.
"You don't owe me anything," he said. "You never did."
Her heartbeat stumbled.
"That's not what everyone else thinks," she snapped. "Your sister certainly doesn't. Your mother. Half the people in this city think I'm some villain stringing you along."
"They're entitled to their opinion," he said.
"Are you?" she demanded.
He went quiet for a moment, as if analyzing a structural load.
"I think," he said slowly, "that I've been building a house no one asked for."
He closed the presentation file with one clean click. The room brightened as the screen went dark. The city rushed back in through the windows: traffic, rain, a shimmering of chrome and concrete.
"I'll have the land repurposed," he continued. "The design can be modified for a different client. Don't worry about the cost."
The words didn't match his face. There was no resentment, no shadow of the old wounded ache she was used to provoking. Nothing for her to wrestle with, nothing to deflect, nothing to manage.
Just a man adjusting an error in calculations.
"Xian—" She reached out, fingers hovering over empty air between them. She wasn't even sure what she was about to say. That he was overreacting? That she needed time? That he couldn't just—
Just what?
Just stop?
"I'm restructuring my portfolio," he said, stepping away, neatly out of her reach. "Going forward, I'll be handling only a select set of clients personally. I've already arranged for Senior Architect Zhou to take over any corporate projects from Sheng Group."
"What?" The floor seemed to tilt, as if he'd quietly removed a load-bearing wall.
"You'll like Zhou," he added. "He's efficient. Less… involved."
Something cold slid down her spine.
"This isn't about the house," she said. "What are you doing?"
"Correcting an imbalance," he answered. "Thank you for coming this morning, Director Sheng. I won't keep you from your schedule."
Director Sheng.
He'd called her Anqi in front of his entire staff three weeks ago, laughing softly when she glared, fingers casually at the small of her back as they left a client dinner. You're not just a client, he'd murmured. The world can live with one informal address.
Today, he was careful with every boundary.
"Li Xian," she said, forcing the name past her clenched jaw. "Don't be dramatic."
His lips twitched, not quite a smile. "If you say so."
She opened her mouth, closed it again. There was nothing theatrical about this, she realized. No raised voice, no slammed doors. She had rejected the grand gesture he'd been building with quiet devotion for years—and now he was… done.
Not angry. Not broken.
Done.
"I have a meeting in ten minutes," he said. "My assistant will see you out."
He moved to collect his laptop, hands steady, papers stacked with precise efficiency. As if she were already gone.
The silence pressed against her ribs, so dense it was almost sound.
She left before it could crush her.
In the elevator, her reflection trembled slightly in the mirrored walls. Not from the motion. From something like vertigo.
She should feel relieved, she told herself as the elevator descended. This was what she'd wanted, wasn't it? No more suffocating kindness. No more elaborate surprises that left her scrambling for polite refusals. No more eyes quietly waiting for her to realize she'd been loved all along.
The doors opened on the ground floor. The lobby buzzed with activity—heels on marble, hushed conversations, the hiss of the espresso machine. The world continued, indifferent.
Her phone buzzed: a message from Han Jinyu.
[Han Jinyu]: Survived the dragon meeting?
[Han Jinyu]: Or do I need to fake a fire drill and rescue you again?
Her fingers hovered over the screen. A week ago, she would have sent back something glib: Your hero complex is exhausting. Or: Bring coffee, then we'll talk.
Today, the words wouldn't form. She typed, erased, typed again.
[Sheng Anqi]: He designed a house. For me.
[Sheng Anqi]: And then he took it back.
Three dots appeared, disappeared. Jinyu was at work, she knew—a drab government building with flickering lights and state-issued chairs that squeaked. He was probably hunched over a spreadsheet, glasses low on his nose, half his attention on department budgets and the other half on her.
[Han Jinyu]: Where are you?
She swallowed.
[Sheng Anqi]: His office. Lobby.
[Han Jinyu]: Don't move.
She almost smiled despite herself. He'd said the same thing when they were eleven and she'd fallen out of a tree, her ankle throbbing. Don't move, I'm coming.
She waited, standing at the edge of the lobby as people flowed around her like water around a stone. The minutes stretched.
When he arrived—hair damp from the rain, shirt slightly askew, tie loose around his neck—his eyes went straight to her face. He didn't ask if she was okay. He knew better.
"What did he do?" he asked.
"He stopped," she said.
Jinyu frowned. "Stopped what?"
"Everything."
The word tasted like metal.
Before he could respond, a flash of movement cut through the crowd.
"Unbelievable," a familiar voice said, edged with a dramatic horror that didn't quite mask genuine anger. "I knew you were bad at this, but I didn't realize you were catastrophic."
Li Meilin stood there in an oversized cream trench coat, hair twisted into an artful knot, sunglasses perched on her head despite the rainy gloom outside. Her earrings could probably have paid off someone's rent for a month. Her gaze, rimmed with sharp liner, was fixed on Anqi like a weapon.
"Meilin," Jinyu said cautiously. "You're not supposed to be here until this afternoon."
"Schedule changed," she replied coolly, eyes never leaving Anqi. "Someone had to check whether my brother finally grew a spine or if you just stabbed him with one of your high heels."
Anqi stiffened. "This is between me and Xian."
"Funny," Meilin said. "It's always convenient to say that after you're done using him."
Jinyu stepped in between them by instinct, the way he'd always done when Anqi picked fights she didn't know how to finish. "Meilin, not here."
"Why not?" Meilin snapped. "The whole city already knows she's been dangling him like some—"
"Enough." Anqi's voice cut through the lobby's hum, low and sharp.
For a moment, the three of them stood in a fragile triangle: the woman who had taken without learning to give, the brother's guard dog in designer heels, and the man who had always patched the cracks between them.
Rain streaked down the glass doors, blurring the world outside into smeared neon and brake lights.
Meilin exhaled, shoulders lowering a fraction. "He's different," she said to Anqi, quieter now. "You noticed, didn't you?"
The admission lodged in Anqi's throat.
"Good," Meilin continued. "Maybe this time, you'll notice before it's too late."
She turned away, phone already in hand, murmuring something about a campaign shoot and a brand deal. But as she walked off, she glanced back once, a flash of something complicated crossing her face—anger, yes, but also something almost like… worry.
Jinyu's phone buzzed at the same time as hers. A simultaneous notification.
[Li Xian]: Starting next month, I'll be unavailable for after-hours consultations. Please direct any urgent matters to my office line.
[Li Xian]: Thank you for your understanding over the years.
To both of them. The group chat that had seen late-night jokes, shared takeout orders, and crisis planning now held a message that could have been sent to a stranger.
When presence withdrew, it didn't slam the door.
It simply closed it quietly and walked down the hall.
Outside, the rain intensified, drumming against the pavement like a warning.
None of them moved.
Above them, on the forty-second floor, in a room that still smelled faintly of coffee and disappointment, a folder lay untouched on the table. The name on the documents waited with mechanical patience.
SHENG ANQI.
The house on paper remained perfect—light, angles, possibilities. A sanctuary that didn't yet exist.
Somewhere, in the shadowed space between design and demolition, something else began to take shape.
Not a building.
An absence.