Chapter One: A Mistaken Encounter at a Night Banquet
The hem of Tang Soft's skirt was still dripping mud when she rushed through the clubhouse's revolving door in her ten-dollar plastic sandals.
Two bodyguards pressed their walkie-talkies against her waistline, the metal casing pinching painfully. "Mr. Huo has been waiting twenty minutes," one sneered, "yet Ms. Tang still puts up a fight."
She stared at her cobweb-cracked phone screen – the looped video of her adoptive father pinned in a stinking gutter three days prior. The loan shark's knife tip picked at his collar: "No money tonight, and your father's bones will feed the river fish."
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The presidential suite's Persian carpet drank the mud from her heels as the crystal chandelier stabbed her eyes.
Huo Shenzhou loosened his tie, scarlet-tipped eyes glinting from the leather sofa. "You came to me drenched like this before, too."
His hand snapped to her neck, slamming her against the floor-to-ceiling window. The glass bit into her spine as he hissed, "Your gasps... identical to the night she leapt into the sea."
Through the haze, the 18th-floor neon sign bled crimson through the storm: _Triumph Palace_.
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When Tang Soft vomited for the third time on the bathroom tiles, Old Lady Huo's emerald ring tapped the pregnancy test.
"Two choices." The matriarch slid a contract across the sandalwood table. "Carry your father's urn to live under bridges, or sign this _Substitute Code_—"
_Article 1: Return to Lijingwan by 22:00 daily_
_Article 2: The gardenia pendant stays fastened_
_Article 3: ..._
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Tang Soft clutched the blank space in the third article of the agreement, freezing as Old Lady Huo suddenly lifted her chin with a cane.
"Article three," the old woman's withered fingers traced her collarbone, "every night before entering the master bedroom at ten o'clock—" Her voice sharpened, "you must apply three sprays of gardenia perfume."
Swathed in bathroom steam heavy with the cloying floral scent, Tang Soft stared into the mirror. She curled her hair into waves mirroring Lin Àiyīn's signature style. Huo Shenzhou's reflection watched her, his gaze glacial. "When you smile," he commanded, "raise the corners of your mouth precisely two millimeters higher."
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When Tang Soft knelt retching by the toilet for the fourth time, Huo Shenzhou coiled his tie around her wrist.
"Still pretending?" He brandished the pregnancy test slip, his sneer cutting through the humidity. "I doubled your birth control dosage that night."
Blood dripped from her lips onto the tiles. Her blurred vision caught the scratched expiration date on the pillbox—manufactured in 2019, long expired by this year.
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The instant Huo Shenzhou gripped her neck and slammed her against the bed, Tang Soft's mind flashed to her adoptive father's drunken ravings.
"If I hadn't dragged you from that fire—" A wine bottle shattered at her feet. "You'd be ashes with your whore mother!"
Now, the floor-to-ceiling windows reflected his crimson eyes, merging with the inferno that once consumed her mother.
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As Tang Soft succumbed to gardenia-scented oblivion, Huo Shenzhou replayed banquet surveillance footage.
"Target engaged." The bodyguard indicated the cheongsam-bearing waiter onscreen. "The old madam's hire."
His finger jabbed the pause button. Rain lashed the clubhouse's back door in frozen pixels, revealing faint whip marks beneath Tang Soft's soaked blouse—their angle identical to the nine lashes he'd inflicted the day Lin Ài plunged into the sea.
The fountain pen tip trembled over the third article's blank space when Old Lady Huo's cane hooked Tang Soft's collar.
"This final clause..." The crone's desiccated fingers crossed her navel, "requires gardenia balm application here nightly before entering the master bedroom at ten."
Bathroom steam thickened with the cloying fragrance. Tang Soft's memory flashed to three days prior—the misdelivered crate of white dresses. Nestled within lay a "Lin's Pharmaceuticals" balm box, its contents smeared with rust-colored residue.
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As Tang Soft pressed bloodied fingerprints to paper, Huo Shenzhou ignited a summer camp photo with his lighter.
Flames devoured the floral skirt's hem, revealing faded fountain-pen script beneath: 2009.7.23, "The Summer Camp Photo".
2009.7.23, "Forged".
"Signed." He brushed ashes into the tray, his wristwatch's second hand syncing with her pulse.
Thunder cracked. Tang Soft doubled over retching, clutching her lower back. Wind lifted bloodstained curtains, exposing the doctor whispering to the matriarch:
"Fetal bone marrow extraction at five months... That girl mirrors her mother's fate."