Free Web NovelChapter 65: Chapter 65; Su Family
------- freeweɓnovēl.coɱ
The guest room had long fallen quiet by the time exhaustion finally pulled Su Wan into sleep.
The bedside lamp near the window remained on, casting a soft amber glow across the room while the wind outside brushed faintly against the estate windows.
Several financial files still lay scattered beside her across the bed, some partially open beneath her loosened hand where fatigue had overtaken concentration sometime after midnight.
The entire Lu Residence still felt restless beneath the silence. Even asleep, her body never fully relaxed.
At some point during the night, the mattress beside her dipped slightly.
Su Wan’s eyes snapped open instantly. Her reaction came entirely from instinct.
Before she thought fully caught up, her hand had already moved beneath the pillow, the cold blade hidden there flashing sharply into her grip as she turned toward the movement beside her.
The knife stopped only inches away from striking.
Because it was Lu Shaohan.
The room fell completely silent. He sat at the edge of the bed beneath the dim lighting, one hand resting loosely against his knee while his dark gaze remained fixed calmly on the blade hovering near him. He wasn’t startled and neither alarmed, just watching.
Su Wan’s breathing steadied slowly as the adrenaline faded just enough for recognition to fully settle in.
For the first time since transmigrating into this world, someone had entered her room without her noticing until physical movement touched the bed itself. That alone unsettled her.
Her eyes narrowed slightly.
"I locked the door."
The knife remained in her hand, though lowered now.
Lu Shaohan’s gaze shifted briefly toward it before returning to her face.
"I know."
He was too calm, as though bypassing locked doors inside the Lu Residence required no explanation. Of course it didn’t. This entire estate belonged to him.
Su Wan finally lowered the knife fully before slipping it back beneath the pillow without looking away from him.
The movement did not escape Lu Shaohan’s notice. Neither did the speed of her reaction earlier.
The atmosphere inside the room shifted quietly after that.
Outside the windows, wind moved steadily through the dark estate grounds while the soft lighting cast long shadows across the scattered documents surrounding them.
Lu Shaohan’s gaze lowered briefly toward the open files spread across the bed.
Financial records. Shareholder structures. Internal branch reports.
The dim bedside light reflected softly across the scattered documents while his expression remained unreadable, though inwardly, something about the scene continued to feel deeply unfamiliar to him.
He did not remember the Su Wan he married being this composed, this intelligent, this dangerously prepared.
The woman he remembered had been emotional before anything else—easily provoked, easily cornered.
She never would have slept beside corporate documents with a knife hidden beneath her pillow like someone preparing for war.
Yet the woman sitting in front of him now looked entirely natural inside the chaos.
His eyes shifted briefly toward the knife she had just hidden away.
"You sleep with knives now?" he asked calmly as he rubbed the towel slowly through his damp hair.
He had clearly just showered. The faint scent of soap and cold night air still lingered around him while droplets of water remained visible near the edge of his collarbone beneath the loosened black shirt he wore.
"For protection," Su Wan muttered quietly as she slid the blade fully out of sight beneath the pillow again.
The answer came casually enough, but neither of them ignored the truth beneath it. Someone had already tried killing her once.
The room quieted briefly afterward except for the sound of the wind brushing softly against the windows outside.
Then Lu Shaohan finally looked toward her again.
"Why did you leave the master bedroom for another woman?"
His tone remained even as he tossed the towel aside before shifting further onto the bed. The mattress dipped slightly beneath his weight.
Su Wan immediately dragged the blanket higher against herself, almost instinctively, covering herself properly before leaning back against the headboard again.
"That’s your co-wife," she replied calmly.
The answer almost made the atmosphere stop. Lu Shaohan’s eyes lifted toward her slowly. For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then finally—
"I don’t remember marrying your sister."
The response came quietly, no emotions, and somehow more dangerous because of it.
Su Wan almost smiled faintly beneath the blanket.
"You allowed her into the residence," she said quietly as she adjusted the blanket higher against herself. "Meaning you needed another wife from the Su family."
The words settled calmly into the dimly lit room; there was no accusation or jealousy whatsoever, but only a conclusion.
Lu Shaohan looked at her for a long moment afterward without speaking.
The soft amber light from the bedside lamp cast faint shadows across his face while the wind outside continued moving restlessly against the windows.
Beside her, the scattered financial documents remained spread across the bed, blending strangely into the silence surrounding them.
Something about this version of Su Wan continued to feel unfamiliar to him.
Not because she had become colder, but because she had become detached in ways he could no longer predict.
The original Su Wan would never have spoken this calmly about another woman entering his life, especially not her own sister.
She would have fought emotionally, demanded reassurance, searched for affection even while pretending pride.
But now she spoke about marriage like a political arrangement and women around him like variables inside a larger structure.
And somehow that unsettled him more than anger would have.
Lu Shaohan finally lowered his gaze briefly before pulling the blanket aside and getting into the bed beside her.
The mattress shifted slightly beneath his weight. Neither of them moved closer afterward.
The space between them remained measured, quiet, and strangely distant despite sharing the same bed.
For several moments, the room stayed silent.
Then Lu Shaohan finally turned off the bedside lamp. Darkness settled softly across the guest room while only faint moonlight filtered through the curtains. He closed his eyes afterward without speaking again.
But sleep did not come immediately.
Because somewhere along the way, Su Wan had stopped caring about the women surrounding him.
And he no longer knew exactly when that change happened.
He only knew that the emotional desperation she once carried toward him had disappeared so completely that now, even when another woman entered the residence openly wanting his position, Su Wan looked at it with indifference instead of fear.
That realization lingered heavily in the darkness between them. And for the first time since their marriage, Lu Shaohan realized he no longer understood his own wife at all. freeweɓnovēl.coɱ
—
The black sedan stopped several hundred meters away from the Su family estate. The mansion sat beyond towering iron gates, surrounded by dense trees and layered private security, the entire property illuminated faintly beneath cold midnight lighting.
Surveillance cameras rotated slowly along the outer walls while armed guards patrolled the entrance at measured intervals. Unlike the Lu Residence, which relied heavily on status and internal order, the Su estate operated like something designed to keep people out.
Li Chen killed the engine quietly. For several seconds, neither he nor Mo Chen moved.
Then Mo Chen lowered his gaze toward the folded paper resting between them. "The west corridor cameras reset every ninety seconds," he said quietly. "The blind zone lasts eleven seconds."
Li Chen nodded once. "And the passcodes?"
Mo Chen tapped the folded note lightly. "Madam remembered all of them." That part still unsettled him slightly. Because Su Wan had recited the estate’s internal security codes from memory without hesitation earlier that night—as though she had already planned for the possibility of someone needing access here eventually.
Outside, wind moved faintly through the trees surrounding the property. Then both men stepped out of the vehicle.
The infiltration happened quickly afterward. No wasted movement. No unnecessary conversation. They crossed the outer grounds through the northern service perimeter while the cameras rotated away from the blind sector exactly as Mo Chen predicted. Within seconds, both men had already slipped past the first surveillance zone and disappeared deeper into the estate grounds.
The Su family mansion loomed quietly ahead beneath the darkness. Cold. Silent.
By the time they entered through the side wing access corridor, the household itself had already gone mostly asleep. Only a few distant servants remained, moving somewhere deeper inside the estate.
Li Chen lowered his voice. "Second floor."
Mo Chen nodded once. They moved through the mansion silently, their footsteps barely audible against the polished flooring. Expensive paintings lined the walls while dim amber lighting cast long shadows across the massive corridors.
