It's 12:30 a.m., and still no call. Mengshu's logic was impeccable, her voice steady with conviction—but logic does nothing to quiet the relentless drumming of fear in my chest.

  Memories of Chunting flood my mind: his smile cracking open like dawn after I've pulled an all-nighter; how he'd stand in our kitchen, humming softly while preparing my favorite dishes; those gentle words of encouragement when my stories fell through. And those intimate moments... God, why did I always act like we had endless time?

  I've always worn my workaholism like armor—a badge of professional pride. "I'm not like other women," I'd tell myself, dismissing intimacy for the pursuit of the perfect headline, the breaking story. Now that armor feels like a prison I built with my own hands. Success tastes like ash when the one you love vanishes.

  John and David left at midnight despite their protests. I practically shoved them out the door.

  Mengshu promised I'd see him soon. When Chunting returns, I want our home to be ours alone. No other men stand between our reunion.

  The lights blaze and music plays, but they're poor defenses against the darkness that seeps through the curtain edges like poison gas. Each minute stretches into infinity.

  Then—pounding at the door. The sound shoots through me like electricity. I freeze, staring at our entrance, my heart hammering so violently I can feel it in my fingertips, my throat, behind my eyes.

  "Erjuan, open the door. It's your husband." A man's voice, unfamiliar.

  "Partner," I correct in a whisper, automatically.

  I force myself to move, each step requiring conscious command. At the peephole, I hold my breath.

  Two men built like concrete walls. On one's shoulder lies Chunting—motionless. My brain refuses to process what my eyes see. Is he breathing? Is he—

  Then I see her—striding ahead of the men with liquid grace and terrible power. Her figure commanding, her face a blade.

  I don't recognize her appearance, but that voice—

  "Erjuan, open the door." Each syllable precise as a surgeon's cut. "We got your husband back."

  Tears burst forth like blood from a wound. My fingers fumble with the lock, clumsy and desperate, vision swimming in saline grief and relief.

  Is he alive? What did they do to him? The questions pound in my skull with the same urgency as the knocking at the door.

  The door swings open. Mengshu enters first, her presence electric. Then comes the man, Chunting's limp body across his shoulders like some perverse pietà.

  He places Chunting on our sofa and exits without a word.

  I drop to my knees beside him, trembling fingers hovering over his face before finally making contact. His skin is cold—corpse cold. My throat closes around a scream. There's dried blood crusted at the corner of his mouth, a brutal bruise blooming on his temple. Only the shallow rise and fall of his chest tells me he still inhabits this broken vessel.

  "Chunting," I whisper, voice fracturing. The relief of finding him alive crashes against the horror of his condition. I stroke his hair, tears dropping onto his ashen face.

  When I cradle his face and lean in to kiss him, he jolts upright with sudden, violent force. "Don't." His eyes are wild with terror and revulaion. "Don't touch me," he gasps, recoiling as if my skin were acid against his.

  His gaze is elsewhere—seeing horrors I cannot. "I'm... contaminated," he whispers, voice splintering like glass. He wraps his arms around himself—a shield, a straitjacket. The gesture breaks something fundamental inside me.

  "What they made me do..." His entire body convulses with the effort of holding back whatever unspeakable truth threatens to spill out. I watch him retreat behind walls of trauma, the man I love burying himself beneath layers of shame so thick I fear I'll never reach him again.

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  I'm paralyzed between instinct and reason—wanting desperately to hold him, knowing it might shatter him further. My heart splinters seeing him like this: damaged in ways that transcend flesh. The gulf between us feels infinite, unbridgeable.

  "Chunting," I whisper, hands suspended in the no-man's-land between us, useless as prayers.

  Without warning, he bolts to the bathroom. The sound that follows is primal—retching, desperate gagging as he forces fingers down his throat. The realization of what this means hits me with physical force. Whatever they forced into him, he's trying to purge it from his body, from his memory.

  "Toothbrush," he pleads, voice raw, eyes wild with a desperation that terrifies me. "Toothbrush."

  He lunges for it, squeezes toothpaste with such violence the tube nearly bursts, then attacks his own mouth—a frenzied, ritualistic cleansing. He scrubs until I see pink foam, until blood mingles with mint. He's trying to erase more than physical traces; he's trying to scour away the memory that lives in his flesh.

  I stand in the doorway, petrified by helplessness. My chest feels like it's being crushed under concrete. How do you reach someone when the very thing that would comfort them—your touch—has become a source of terror? The confident, gentle man I love has become a stranger I don't know how to help. My hatred for Jun Lai crystallizes in that moment—not hot, but cold and sharp as surgical steel. I would cut his heart out with my bare hands if it would heal what he's broken in Chunting.

  A warm hand on my shoulder. I turn to find Mengshu's eyes—steady and knowing in a way that suggests she's witnessed this particular hell before. "When we found him," she says, her voice soft but unflinching, "his body was intact. But the ordeal he endured..." She chooses her next words with precision. "The trauma runs deeper than flesh. There is, however, one path to healing."

  My breath catches. "What path?" The words barely escape, a whisper beneath Chunting's broken sounds. I search her face with the desperation of a drowning woman spotting shore. In this moment, I would give anything—my career, my principles, my life—to restore him.

  She sighs, the sound heavy with the weight of what comes next. "It's a big favor. Bigger than getting him back. It will permanently end Jun Lai's threats against your life, your family. It will restore your man's dignity." Her gaze is unflinching. "But such a favor comes with a price. You must do something in return."

  "Whatever you want." The words escape before thought—pure, raw certainty.

  "Go to Beijing. See what awaits you there. Take Chunting with you."

  We take the red-eye. Mengshu remains in Shanghai, but Kevin accompanies us like a silent sentinel.

  Chunting has quieted, his eyes cleared of that wild terror. He resembles the partner I know—considerate, gentle in his movements—but he still flinches when I reach for his hand. The invisible barrier remains.

  The flight lands, and a black Rolls-Royce Phantom waits directly beneath the air stairs—the kind of power display that bypasses all normal protocols. The driver, a Black woman with military-precise hair, assesses me with clinical detachment before wordlessly opening the door. We speed through empty highways toward Fragrance Hills in the western outskirts. At an elegant villa secluded behind walls, she gestures for me to follow while Kevin and Chunting remain in the car.

  The living area could house a small art exhibition, but I see only her. Tall, commanding, with auburn hair and lips painted the precise color of arterial blood. Power radiates from her like heat from a flame.

  She is the force behind Mengshu. Fifteen years as an investigative reporter, thousands of interviews with the powerful and dangerous, yet I have no idea who this woman is. I've never seen her name on any list, never heard her mentioned in any circle.

  The realization is both terrifying and thrilling: her influence exists beyond the boundaries I can perceive, in realms I cannot access.

  She studies me as one might study a painting—appreciative yet possessive. When she speaks, her voice carries the quiet confidence of someone who has never needed to shout to be obeyed.

  "Jun Lai is among the most petty, vindictive beasts I've encountered in three decades of dealing with men." She pauses, letting silence amplify her words. "Once you're in his crosshairs, there is only one escape.”

  "What's that?" I ask, though part of me already knows the answer will demand everything from me.

  "Overwhelming force," she continues, her voice like a storm contained in crystal. "You become his nightmare. You ensure that every time he hears your name, he trembles."

  As she speaks, she seems to grow taller, more formidable. I find myself looking up at her, not just physically but in every sense that matters. And I know where this is going.

  "What do you need me to do?" My voice steadier than I feel.

  "You can't possibly offer anything equal to what I'm about to do for you," she says with a smile that acknowledges reality rather than cruelty. "The debt I'll incur, the complications I'll create for myself..."

  She's right, and we both know it. I'm a reporter with moderate influence, she's... something else entirely. What service could someone like me provide that would warrant intervention against a man like Jun Lai?

  Yet she has helped. Among countless people suffering injustice in the Republic, many with stories far more tragic than mine, she chose to intervene in my case. This is no random act of benevolence. She wants something specific.

  She confirms my thought: "I want you. You become one of us. Like Mengshu, my daughter." Her gaze holds mine, unflinching. "And I protect my daughters fiercely."