Chapter Text
“Daddy, frog!”
Hua's voice is triumphant as he lifts up a half-mangled piece of green clay, his fingers sticky and stained. He holds it like it's treasure—bright eyes, a crooked smile with one dimple, and a streak of green across his cheek.
I crouch beside him on the living room mat, heart aching in that strange way it always does when I look at him too long.
“It's a very handsome frog,” I say, smoothing out one of the flattened legs. “Does he have a name?”
“Froggy,” he announces, then pauses. “Froggy, go with daddy.”
I smile. “Where?”
“Office!”
Of course. My smile falters. I'm saved by the buzzing of my phone against the coffee table.
I glance at the screen.
Incoming: FINAL MEETING MOVED TO 2PM. EXECUTIVES FROM P COUNTRY ON-SITE.
—Chen Pinming
My breath stills. The P Country delegation. I'd almost forgotten they were scheduled to arrive today—big fish circling Jianghu's waters. Bigger teeth.
I sit back on my heels, still holding Froggy. “Hua,” I said gently, “Daddy has to go to work now.”
He freezes, lower lip poking out. His fingers crush the edge of his frog. “No.”
“I know,” I say, smoothing the clay from his hand. “But I have to go, peanut.”
“No,” he pouts. “Hua not small!”
“You're exactly small. You fit in my arm like this.” I scoop him up and toss him lightly, making him squeal. He wraps his arms tight around my neck and doesn't let go.
“Hua go too,” he whispers.
“I know.”
“Hua big boy.”
“I did say that, didn't I?” I press a kiss to his soft, ink-smelling hair. “When you're big, you can sit at the big desk and boss everyone around.”
“But daddy go every day.”
I sigh into his hair. He's getting old enough to know what leaving means. Old enough to say daddy with weight, not just noise.
But not old enough to know why I never brought his other parent home. Why I haven't touched another soul since that night three years ago.
Why his face match someone else's.
“Froggy's counting on you to stay and protect the living room,” I whisper. “Think you can do that for me?”
There's a pause. A sniff.
“Okay,” Hua mumbles, loosening his grip just enough for me to set him down.
I pick up my coat and straighten the collar in the mirror. Behind me, Hua sits cross-legged on the mat again, head down, piecing Froggy back together.
I don't say goodbye. I never do. Because goodbye always sounds too final.
“Make sure he drinks his vitamins,” I instructed his nanny. The only information she knows is that Hua is my adopted son, not knowing I birthed him.
As I step out into the Jianghu sun, the weight returns—heavier than my briefcase. Heavier than every title I've ever earned.
I built Shengfang Bio, molecule by molecule after father died. I built my walls just as carefully. No leaks, no rumors, no room for questions.
No room for a man whose name I forgot.
But then again, nothing about Hua was planned.
And yet, he's the only thing that's ever felt inevitable.
By the time I step back into Shengfang Bio’s headquarters, the sun has turned harsh, cutting sharp lines across the polished tile floor of the lobby. The artificial coolness of the building wraps around me like armor. Necessary, sterile, forgettable.
Except today—today, it isn’t.
The lobby staff are unusually alert. Chen Pinming, my chief of staff, meets me at the elevators with a furrow between his brows and his phone clutched like a live wire.
“President Sheng,” he says, falling into pace with me, “the delegation from P Country is already here. X Holdings. They arrived earlier than expected.”
“Not surprised,” I mutter. “They’ve been circling our patents like vultures.”
“They didn’t just send a legal team this time.” Chen Pinming lowers his voice.
“Their CEO’s here. Hua Yong. In person.”
I pause mid-step. My shoes squeak against the floor. “Say that again?”
“Hua Yong. Himself. He asked for you directly.”
I blink.
That name—it means nothing to me. No face flashes in my mind. No meeting comes back.
But the name... it rattles faintly in my chest, like a drawer I’m too afraid to open.
Still, Hua Yong is a name that exists only in whispers. I’ve heard of him. Everyone has. CEO of X Holdings. Multi-sector empire. Absurdly powerful. Rarely seen. Some say he built his portfolio in the shadows, that his meetings happen behind mirrored glass and closed doors, that even his investors don’t see him twice.
A ghost.
And now he’s asked for me?
I nod once. “Which room?”
“Executive Lounge A. They refused the boardroom. Said it felt too... impersonal.”
Typical.
I fix my collar in the mirrored elevator wall, brushing away a smudge of green clay I hadn’t noticed. Hua’s doing. My little peanut.
I close my eyes for a beat. I can still feel his arms around my neck, his voice whispering: “Hua go too.”
You can’t, I think.
Not yet. Not until I know what the hell I’m protecting you from.
The elevator dings, and Pinming presses the glass doors open for me. My pace slows the second I enter.
There are three figures in the room, but only one stands as I approach. The others, assistants maybe, fade into the background as if by instinct.
And then I see him.
A man in a sharp black suit, slim figure, arms relaxed—but his presence floods the space like smoke. His gaze lifts to meet mine.
My pulse stumbles.
That face.
I know that face.
That mouth. That posture. The shape of him.
The business summit in P Country. The rooftop bar. The eyes like rain and obsidian. The voice that didn’t tell me his name. The man I slept with once, only once—and never saw again. The man who got me pregnant.
I told myself I wouldn’t remember.
I told myself it didn’t mean anything.
I told myself I wouldn’t try to find him, no matter how much pain an Alpha can endure.
I didn’t. I never did. Because if I had... I might’ve had to tell him the truth.
But now he’s here.
In my building.
Wearing a name I don’t recognize.
Standing straighter as I walk toward him.
“President Sheng,” he says. His voice is exactly the same. Smooth, low, certain. It slides down my spine like winter. “Thank you for agreeing to meet with me.”
I stare.
For just a second too long.
“I wasn’t told your name,” I say, managing to sound neutral. Cold. Controlled.
The man offers his hand.
“Hua Yong. President of X Holdings.”
The name still doesn’t match the night I remember. But the face does. And the silence between us sharpens like glass.
I take his hand. It’s warm. Firm. Familiar.
“Pleasure,” I say. Lie.
The assistants shift awkwardly behind him, sensing something brittle in the air.
“Shall we sit?” I gesture toward the lounge table, already laid out with contracts and crystal water bottles I didn’t approve.
We move, but I can’t stop looking at him.
Same eyes. Same voice. Same deliberate restraint.
I remember the way he touched me. The way he kissed. The way he left before I could ask—
And now he’s here. After three years. Not as a memory—but as a threat.
He smiles politely as he sits. “I’ve followed Shengfang Bio’s progress for years. You’ve done remarkable work here in Jianghu City.”
“So has your legal team,” I say coolly. “Especially in finding ways to buy up our suppliers.”
“I call it... negotiation,” he says with a tilt of his head. “But yes. We don’t usually meet resistance. I admire it.”
I say nothing.
Because he doesn’t know. He couldn’t possibly know. About the child with his eyes and my stubbornness. About the dimple. About the quiet.
He doesn’t know about Hua.
Hua.
The name hits me now with sudden clarity.
Did I choose it because of him?
No. No, I didn’t know his complete name then.
But some part of me remembered.
As we begin the meeting, I sit straighter, colder, careful not to let my mind wander. The room fills with the sound of polite business terms and thinly veiled threats. But under it all, my pulse keeps whispering the only truth that matters:
He’s here.
And he can’t know.
Not yet.
Not ever—if I can help it.