Free Web NovelChapter 62: Chapter 62; Su Wan
Lu Shaohan continued watching her without interruption.
The answer sounded reasonable enough on the surface—detached, controlled, almost analytical—yet something about it felt incomplete, as though she had intentionally stopped one sentence too early.
"She only admires influence?" he asked quietly.
A faint trace of exhaustion crossed Su Wan’s expression then, softening the sharpness around her eyes for only a moment before disappearing again.
"No," she admitted at last. Her gaze lowered briefly toward the scattered files spread across the table, then returned to him. "You’re also exactly the kind of man someone like Su Yao would want beside her."
The room fell silent again, though not awkwardly. Carefully.
Lu Shaohan leaned back slightly in his chair, one hand resting loosely against the armrest while his attention never fully left her face.
"And what kind of man is that?" The question should have sounded arrogant coming from someone else. It didn’t. If anything, it sounded thoughtful, as though he genuinely wanted to understand how she saw him now after everything that had happened between them that day.
Su Wan studied him quietly for several moments before answering.
"The kind people build themselves around," she said softly. "Powerful enough to create protection, influential enough to change someone’s position overnight, and difficult enough that keeping your attention becomes valuable in itself." A faint pause followed. "And dangerous enough that simply standing beside you changes how the rest of the world behaves."
Something subtle shifted in the atmosphere. Nothing she said sounded emotional. There was no affection beneath it, no resentment either.
She spoke about him the same way she spoke about corporate structures or political leverage, as though she were reducing him into something strategic rather than personal.
And somehow that unsettled him more than admiration would have. ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com
Most people either feared Lu Shaohan or desired his approval. Very few looked at him so calmly and reduced him to a force that altered systems around it.
Outside the windows, the wind brushed softly against the glass while distant lights from the estate gardens flickered faintly through the darkness beyond.
Lu Shaohan remained quiet for a long moment, thoughtful now in a way that revealed more than his expression usually allowed.
Then finally, he asked softly, "And you?" His gaze remained fixed on her. "What do you want beside me?"
The question settled immediately between them; it wasn’t romantic, and neither was it intimate. Something more dangerous than either.
Because this was the first time Lu Shaohan had directly asked her motive instead of merely observing it from a distance.
Su Wan held his gaze steadily.
The previous Su Wan would have answered differently. She would have spoken about love, marriage, affection, or belonging.
She would have searched his expression for reassurance before answering carefully, afraid of saying the wrong thing. But those instincts no longer belonged to her.
"I want stability," she said calmly. Her voice remained quiet, yet the honesty within it altered the atmosphere almost immediately. "I want enough power that nobody can decide my fate for me again."
There was no hesitation in her answer or performance. It was just the truth.
Lu Shaohan’s eyes remained on her for several long seconds, and slowly, almost imperceptibly, something in his expression shifted. Recognition.
As though he finally understood that whatever Su Wan had become after nearly dying, it had not been shaped by ambition first, but by survival. And survival changed people into dangerous things.
The silence that settled afterward felt quieter than before, though no less heavy.
Then eventually, his gaze lowered briefly toward the untouched food spread across the table between them.
"You still haven’t eaten properly."
The sudden shift in topic caught even Su Wan slightly off guard. Her eyes flickered toward the food containers before she leaned back carefully against the sofa, faint tiredness finally surfacing beneath the composure she had maintained all evening.
"I’ve been busy restructuring your family."
For the first time that night, something dangerously close to amusement escaped him. It was brief and low... Gone almost immediately, but real enough that Su Wan noticed it.
And somehow, that unsettled her far more than the tension ever had.
The faint trace of amusement disappeared from his expression almost immediately, leaving the room quiet once again.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
The dim light reflected softly across the scattered documents and untouched food while the wind outside continued pressing faintly against the windows.
The Lu Residence remained restless beyond the bedroom walls, but inside the room, the tension had settled into something calmer and far more restrained.
Lu Shaohan finally stood.
His movements returned fully to their usual composure, controlled and unreadable, as though the conversation earlier had revealed nothing at all.
"You should rest," he said quietly.
Su Wan looked at him briefly but did not answer. There was nothing left to say tonight anyway. Too much had already shifted between them.
His gaze lingered on her for one final moment before he turned toward the door.
The atmosphere changed subtly with the movement, the brief closeness between them dissolving back into distance again.
Then he left.
The bedroom door closed softly behind him.
And once the room belonged to her again, the silence felt heavier than before.
Without wasting time, she began analysing the files she had acquired today.
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Second Madam did not sleep.
The entire east wing of her private residence remained lit long after midnight, though the servants moving through the corridors had already lowered their voices instinctively.
Everyone inside her section of the Lu Residence understood one thing clearly: when Second Madam stayed awake this late, someone usually suffered for it by morning.
She sat alone inside her study, one hand resting against the polished edge of the desk while the financial reports spread before her remained untouched for several long moments.
Something felt wrong.
Not emotionally.
Structurally.
The discomfort had begun nearly forty minutes earlier during a routine verification process tied to one of her offshore pharmaceutical channels.
At first, it looked insignificant—a delayed confirmation sequence from one of the layered holding structures overseas.
Normally she would not have noticed immediately. But Second Madam trusted systems more than people, and systems rarely delayed without reason.
Her eyes lowered toward the encrypted tablet resting beside the desk.
Still inaccessible.
That finally sharpened her expression.
The room felt colder suddenly.
"Again," she said quietly.
The financial manager standing several feet away swallowed before retrying the secure access chain.
The silence inside the study stretched heavily while the verification system cycled once more.
Then stopped.
Failure.
The man’s face lost color almost immediately.
"Madam..." His voice lowered carefully. "Several holding pathways are no longer responding."
Second Madam’s gaze lifted slowly.
"What does that mean?"
The financial manager hesitated just long enough to worsen the atmosphere. They were actually used to conducting business at night.
"It means..." He stopped briefly before forcing himself to continue. "The funds were moved before internal authorization locks activated."
Silence filled the study instantly. Not loud silence. The kind that suffocated.
Second Madam remained perfectly still in her chair.
"How much?"
The question came softly enough to make the man even more nervous.
"Current estimates..." He glanced back toward the screen, his throat tightening visibly. "Approximately three hundred million."
The temperature inside the room seemed to suddenly drop.
Because this was not ordinary theft. Nobody should have been able to touch those accounts.
Those structures existed outside normal financial tracing channels, layered beneath shell corporations and pharmaceutical laundering routes carefully buried over the years.
Which meant if someone could move the money—they could expose it too.
Second Madam’s fingers tightened faintly against the desk.
"Who knows about those channels?"
"No one officially," the manager answered immediately.
A dangerous silence followed.
Then slowly, Second Madam leaned back in her chair. She didn’t panic whatsoever, there was only calculation.
Because the timing was impossible to ignore.
The succession crisis.
The pregnant women.
The Zhang family entering the residence.
Su Wan had publicly destabilized the hall earlier that evening.
And now—someone had touched her hidden accounts the very same night.
Her gaze darkened gradually.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
Because suddenly this no longer felt like financial theft. It felt like a warning or probably... Danger.
—
Across the city, the atmosphere inside the Zhang family estate had already collapsed completely.
The moment Zhang Wei entered the main financial office after midnight, he knew something was wrong.
