Some smiles are meant to wound.
AiLi had just begun to find a rhythm to the silence — a way to exist inside the Deng mansion without being swallowed by it.
The maids spoke little. The walls were too high for her thoughts to climb. Even Zhou — the man who had promised to "own" her — hadn't spoken much since the dinner.
It was, in its own strange way, peaceful.
Until the storm knocked at her door in six-inch heels.
"Miss AiLi, you have a visitor," the maid announced, her voice unnervingly neutral.
AiLi blinked. "Visitor? Who?"
"She says… she's family."
That was the first lie.
Because the woman waiting for her in the drawing room wasn't family.
She was danger in red.
Mei Ling.
Zhou's ex.
Gorgeous. Poised. Older. Sharp where AiLi was soft, deadly where AiLi was delicate.
She sat like she owned the place, legs crossed, a designer purse cradled in her lap like a sleeping dagger.
"You're prettier than I expected," Mei Ling said, eyes sweeping AiLi from head to toe. "Though I was told you still carry crayons in your schoolbag."
AiLi smiled, sweet and tight. "Only the glitter ones."
Mei Ling laughed — soft, slow, like silk unraveling. "Adorable. Tell me, how does it feel? Being married to the most feared man in Shanghai?"
AiLi sat across from her, legs tucked under the cushion. "I don't know yet. We haven't exactly played house."
Mei Ling's eyes glinted. "Oh, but you will. And when you do… you'll understand why girls like you are better off loving fairytales. Not devils."
There it was. The venom wrapped in velvet.
"Funny," AiLi said, her voice steady despite the lump in her throat. "You talk like someone who lost her devil and still wants him back."
Mei Ling's smile flickered. "Careful, little girl. This world eats innocence for breakfast."
AiLi tilted her head. "Then it's a good thing I bite."
Later that evening, AiLi found Zhou in the garden — practicing martial strikes with Li Chen as the sky burned orange. He moved like a weapon forged by wind and wrath, every motion clean, brutal, beautiful.
She watched from a distance until he noticed her.
"What did she want?" he asked, not missing a beat.
AiLi shrugged. "To see if your new bride could talk."
Zhou threw one final blow, knocking a training dummy flat before walking toward her.
"She's dangerous," he said simply. "Don't be fooled by pretty faces."
AiLi looked up at him, defiant. "Neither should you."
He paused — just a second — before that rare smirk curved his lips.
"You're starting to sound like my wife."
"I am your wife," she whispered. "Or did you forget?"
His eyes dropped to her lips for a beat too long.
"I never forget what's mine."
That night, AiLi couldn't sleep.
Not because of fear.
But because Mei Ling had left behind more than perfume and poisonous words.
She had left a file.
A file with a photo.
Of AiLi.
As a baby.
Being held by a man who wasn't her father.
On the back, scrawled in red ink:
"Does he know what blood truly runs in your veins?"