Xu Haoran's door clicked shut behind him with the same quiet precision he used in the kitchen earlier. The city outside had long since fallen into its hushed rhythm, a chorus of distant cars and occasional wind brushing against the windowpanes. Inside the apartment, silence returned as the dominant presence.
He didn't go to the dining table. The food he made earlier remained untouched, now slowly losing its warmth.
Instead, Haoran made his way into his room—his sanctuary. Not the master bedroom Wu Yuting used, but the one he had quietly claimed for himself, with its spartan walls, stacked shelves, and the worn desk in the corner. A desk that now held the folder Uncle Zhou had given him.
He sat down slowly, his fingers running over the leather edge of the folder. When he opened it again, the names stared back like ghosts of the past. Names he hadn't heard in years. Names that had once toasted wine with his father, Tianji. Names now tied to betrayal.
Jianhong.
His cousin. His father's brother's son.
The same boy he used to play sword fights with in the garden. The same one who cried when they skinned their knees together. The same boy who had, over the years, shed innocence and replaced it with ambition sharper than any blade.
Haoran leaned back in his chair. His eyes moved from the papers to the shadowed corner of the room, and then beyond—into memory.
He had spent his teenage years cut off from the noise of the upper halls. While Tianji was busy patching cracks in the Xu family, trying to appease greedy relatives with shares, titles, and hollow promises, Haoran had wandered elsewhere.
The key to the basement library was something only his father and he possessed. Tianji had never bothered to visit, too wrapped up in the weight of legacy. But for Haoran, that hidden vault of knowledge became both a refuge and a battleground.
There, he devoured books. Not just novels and history tomes, but medical texts, political strategy manuals, training blueprints—anything that could make him sharper, faster, stronger. That room became his mentor. Uncle Zhou, during those years, guided him in secret, reinforcing what the books couldn't teach with discipline and experience.
But then Tianji fell ill.
At first, it was fatigue. Then, memory lapses. Then came the specialists—paraded in one after another with growing desperation. No one could offer a solution. Not even the ones paid more than surgeons in the capital. Jianhong offered help, of course. He put on the face of a dutiful nephew, bringing rare herbs and attending every physician's consultation.
But Haoran knew better.
Jianhong was adding poison to the wound, not healing it. He wanted Tianji to fall. And once he realized Haoran had caught on, the threats began. Subtle, then violent. Haoran left before the noose could tighten. Fled without a word, carrying nothing but his training, the knowledge he earned, and the bitterness of being discarded.
He traced the edge of the folder again.
Now Jianhong was planning to consolidate control. He had promised the others bigger salaries, foreign trips, new cars—benefits that would make loyalty easy to buy. And many had taken the bait. People who once knelt before Tianji were now bending to Jianhong's schemes.
Haoran's fists clenched.
He wasn't interested in the throne, the money, or the empire. But when it came to Wu Yuting—his wife—he wouldn't allow her to become collateral. Not again.
A soft creak interrupted his thoughts.
His eyes flicked toward the door. The light from the hallway spilled into the room, and in the doorway stood Wu Yuting. She wore a loose robe over her clothes, hair pinned up loosely, her face half-shadowed by the dim bulb from the corridor.
"I saw your light was on," she said, her tone unreadable. "It's late."
Haoran gave her a slight nod. "Couldn't sleep."
She stepped in, eyes sweeping over the desk. Her gaze brushed the file, but he was quick—his hand closed it casually, as if it were just an old notebook.
"You working on something?" she asked, now leaning against the doorframe.
He gave her a short smile, forced and thin. "Just trying to apply for a few jobs. Don't want to be a house-husband forever, right?"
Wu Yuting looked at him for a long beat. There was doubt in her eyes—subtle but present. Yet she didn't press further. Instead, she offered a small, dry laugh.
"Well, that'd be a surprise." She crossed her arms. "I'll leave you to it then."
She turned to go, paused, then added over her shoulder, "Don't stay up too late. I don't want you falling asleep over the stove tomorrow."
He gave her a small nod again. "Goodnight."
The door clicked shut.
Once the silence returned, Xu Haoran allowed the mask to fall again. His hand opened the folder. Not to read it again—he had memorized most of it already. But to remind himself what was at stake.
In the corner of the desk, another item caught his eye.
A black card. Thin, matte, elegantly embossed. Uncle Zhou had given it to him earlier, quietly slipping it into the folder. It was linked to a secure account with a million dollars—Zhou's way of giving him a safety net.
But Haoran had no intention of using it. He had told Zhou that before, and he stood by it now.
He didn't need their money. He needed truth.
He needed a plan.
And he needed time.
Tianji had chosen legacy over love. Had ignored his son in favor of feeding the family's insatiable hunger for influence. But Haoran still remembered the way his father used to sit beside him during his illness, apologizing with his eyes for all the years they had lost.
The world had turned its back on him.
But now, Xu Haoran was turning to face it.
And he wasn't going to run again.