Free Web NovelChapter 466: Chapter 466; Lin Shuyin
Lu Yuze reached over and took her hand.
Not speaking.
Just holding it.
And for the first time that morning, Shuyin understood—letting go, even for a few hours, could feel harder than revenge ever had.
The car moved steadily away from the academy, the morning traffic thickening as the city fully awakened around them—horns blaring in the distance, pedestrians hurrying along sidewalks still damp with dew, the pale sun climbing higher and casting long shadows across glass towers. For a while, neither Shuyin nor Lu Yuze spoke. The absence of the children in the back seat was noticeable. Too noticeable. The quiet carried a strange unfamiliarity after the morning’s gentle chaos of small voices, careful footsteps, and the soft clink of spoons against porcelain. The space where Yuyan had sat poised and Lu Xiao had leaned quietly against the leather now felt hollow, like a room suddenly emptied of its most important furniture.
Soon the car turned through the secured entrance of Yuyan Conglomerate, descending into the private executive parking level. Ah Ling brought the vehicle to a smooth, silent stop. Attendants moved discreetly in the background, security personnel stood at a respectful distance, and the polished underground level hummed with the restrained power of a place where decisions affecting entire markets were made every day. Marble floors gleamed under recessed lighting, the air carried the faint scent of leather and steel, and the low thrum of distant elevators reminded everyone that this was Lu Yuze’s domain.
Lu Yuze looked at her across the seat, his expression calm but his eyes sharp, reading her the way he read balance sheets and rival intentions.
"Are you headed to the office?" he asked, tone casual on the surface.
His eyes were not.
They were measuring whether she intended to tell him where she was really going.
Shuyin adjusted the sleeve of her cream blouse and met his gaze evenly, unflinching. "No," she said. "I have things to handle."
The answer was calm. Deliberately broad.
He understood immediately that it meant she had no intention of explaining further.
And, just as deliberately, he did not press any further.
"What things?" he asked anyway, though there was no real force behind the question—only the quiet habit of a man who preferred clarity.
She gave the faintest curve of a smile, the kind that never quite reached her eyes when secrets were involved. "The kind that don’t need a board resolution."
That almost made him smile. Almost.
He leaned closer, lowering his voice so that the words stayed between them alone. "Will those things involve danger?"
"No."
A pause.
Then she added, softer but no less certain, "If they did, I would tell you."
That was enough for him. He accepted answers when they were given plainly.
Ah Ling had already stepped out and opened her side of the car. Shuyin moved to leave, but before she fully stepped out, Lu Yuze caught her wrist lightly—not stopping her, simply holding her for one deliberate second, his thumb brushing once across her pulse.
"Be done before lunch," he said.
It sounded almost like an instruction. Almost.
She looked at him, one brow lifting in quiet challenge. "Is that a request or an order?"
"A preference."
She let out the faintest breath that could have been amusement, then leaned in and kissed him lightly—brief, private, enough. The contact lingered just long enough for the familiar warmth of him to settle against her lips.
"I’ll see you later."
She stepped out.
Ah Ling closed the door behind her with a soft, decisive click.
Through the tinted glass, Lu Yuze watched as she crossed the polished floor to the second car waiting nearby—a sleek black sedan already idling, its driver standing at attention. He kept watching, even after she slid inside, even after the vehicle began to move. His expression remained composed, but his eyes followed until the taillights disappeared up the ramp.
Ah Ling moved to the driver’s seat of their own car and started the engine.
"City Hospital," Shuyin said from the back seat.
No hesitation.
No softness.
Only purpose.
The car pulled away from the executive lot and merged back into the city streets, the morning light glinting off skyscrapers as Yuyan Conglomerate receded into the distance behind her.
Ahead, City Hospital waited.
And whatever she had come to handle there—was about to begin.
Soon, the car arrived at City Hospital a little after nine.
The morning had already sharpened into full daylight, the glass facade of the building reflecting a cold, merciless brightness that made every surface feel too clear, too exposed, as though the world itself refused to soften the edges of what was coming. Shuyin stepped out first, the jade silk of her skirt whispering against her legs. Ah Ling moved instinctively to follow, but she lifted one hand slightly, the gesture small yet absolute.
"Wait here."
He paused, then nodded once, retreating to the car without question.
She entered alone.
The lobby smelled faintly of antiseptic and polished floors, the air carrying that sterile hush unique to hospitals—nurses crossing in measured rhythm, elevators opening and closing with soft chimes, a distant monitor beeping somewhere in a ward like a mechanical heartbeat. Nothing suggested that within minutes blood would stain these clean tiles, that the quiet order of the place would fracture into screams and running footsteps.
Shuyin took the private lift up. Her expression remained composed, almost serene, the same mask she had worn through galas and boardrooms and prison corridors alike. She had come with purpose. She had lifted the curse. She had intended Lu Zeyan to wake fully, recover fully, face charges fully—conscious when the law closed around him, conscious when disgrace finally reached him, conscious when he felt the full weight of helplessness she had once endured.
But fate, as always, moved with its own cruel appetite.
The elevator doors opened with a polite ding.
She stepped into the corridor leading toward Lu Zeyan’s private room—and stopped.
Because she was not walking into a quiet hospital visit.
The entire Lu family was there.
Mrs. Lu, pale and fragile in her tailored coat.
Lu Cheng, rigid and watchful.
Lu Chen and Lu Ting, flanking their mother like uneasy sentinels.
Two family retainers standing at a respectful distance.
And in the center of them—Lu Zeyan.
Standing.
Awake.
Dressed in hospital loungewear, hair still damp from a recent wash, color returned to his face in a way that made him look almost boyish again.
He saw her first.
His eyes lit immediately, bright with a strange, fevered excitement that had nothing to do with medicine. freewebnoveℓ.com
"Shuyin!"
Before anyone could react, he crossed the distance toward her with almost boyish eagerness, arms already reaching.
And for one suspended second, Shuyin saw it clearly.
The curse had truly lifted.
The regression was gone.
His mind was clear.
He had returned.
But he had returned... wrong.
Because instead of shame, instead of fear, instead of remembering what awaited him outside these walls, he smiled.
Actually smiled.
Then reached for her hands with trembling fingers.
"You came," he said, breath uneven with raw emotion. "I knew you would come. We should stop delaying everything. We should get engaged again. No—married. Soon. Immediately. We wasted too much time already."
The corridor went still.
So still that the distant nurse station seemed to vanish.
Mrs. Lu’s face changed at once—horror flickering across her features.
Lu Cheng stiffened, jaw tight.
Because they knew.
They knew Lin Shuyin was married—but not to whom.
They knew how dangerous even this conversation could become in the wrong ears.
But they also saw Lu Zeyan’s fragile, euphoric state.
And none of them dared shatter his sudden joy with brutal truth in that public corridor.
The silence became unbearable.
Shuyin reacted first.
Not emotionally.
Instinctively.
She gently but firmly nudged his hands away and stepped back, restoring proper distance—respectful, controlled, unyielding.
"Zeyan," she said quietly, voice low and even, "stand properly."
The correction was small.
But deliberate.
He looked confused, head tilting like a child denied a toy. "Why are you standing so far from me?"
He tried to move closer again.
And then—
Everything ruptured.
A blur.
A sharp movement from behind.
No one even registered who moved first.
Only that suddenly—
Lin Yueling was there.
Her face twisted beyond reason, eyes wide with a madness born of obsession and collapse.
And in her hand—
