When Hye Won finally got a proper look at Han Chen under the morning light, her eyes widened in exaggerated surprise. "Yah! How did you get so tanned at night?" she blurted out, poking his cheek with her index finger.
The change was subtle - where his skin had once carried the translucent pallor of polished jade, common like idols in makeup, it now held the warm undertones of a normal person. To ordinary eyes, he simply looked healthy. But to Hye Won, who'd spent years memorizing every faint vein beneath his marble complexion, the difference might as well have been night and day.
Her own transformation recently was more pronounced. Since breaking through to Master realm last month, her movements carried unconscious grace, her Innate energy now refined into something more substantial. People would feel certain pressure gazing at her up close, simply due to the growth of soul.
Han Chen caught her probing finger mid-poke. "Tanned? At night?" he deadpanned, though his eyes crinkled at the corners. "Maybe you've just forgotten what normal people look like after staring at mirror for too long."
"What happened? you look like you suddenly missed me very much?" She curiously asked.
" Well I had some progress, and my strength increased somewhat and .... yeah, that's it."
...
...
Few more months passed in normalcy. uneventful. Han Chen and Hye Won navigated university and private life with the ease of partners long accustomed to each other's rhythms. Their fourth year approached its end, they both had research works on law and specializations.
Yue Lan had become a near-daily presence in their lives, her mental communications as routine as sunrise. Her fortunes had swelled under Han Chen's guidance, and she'd begun quietly supporting Horizon group's research—investing, but never interfering. "Discovery favors chaos," That was Han Chen's advise for her.
Days earlier, a petty dispute over inheritance had shaken Yue Lan's grandfather. The old man, already frail, had exerted himself in anger—and collapsed. Now, in the sterile ICU of the hospital. Yue Lan pressed trembling hands to his chest before he was isolated, trying to borrow life- law energy from Han Chen into his failing body to heal. It refused to release. Han Chen's power, a grace, had never been meant for this man twice.
Nurses mistook her clawed grip for panic and pulled her away. Only Hye Won saw the truth: Yue Lan wasn't just grieving. She was screaming across the corridor between their souls.
"Han Chen! How can you call this mercy? He's—he'speople ! Doesn't that matter?!"
Hye Won remained silent. This was Han Chen's boundary to enforce.
"I made you no promises about him, think about your request...," his voice came, calm as ever. "You are familiar to me. He is not. His death alters nothing—not the world's balance, not your end. He has lived well over a 100 years."
"And if saving him was mygreatest wish?" Her mental voice splintered. "If I carry this regret until itrots? What if it becomes the crack that whatever demon you say exploits to—"
Han Chen showed her.
Suddenly, Yue Lan's vision expanded—through hospital walls, into cancer wards crammed with withered bodies, ICUs where mothers clutched at children's frail hands, men and women in agony, victims, clinics where the poor bled out untreated. A thousand agonies, raw as open nerves.
"Do you weep for them all?" Han Chen asked. "I saved Hye Won's mother from cancer's grip. I helped your mother's illness to recede, I saved my parents from certain death. I didn't help them increase lifespan. These werechoices, not duties. Shall I now chase every flickering soul? Your grandfather? The stranger gasping next door? The millions beyond?"
A pause. The vision faded.
"I have drawn my circle. You stand within it. But immortal fate for those wehappen to favor? That is not life—it is a chain. Karma won't impose because you wish it to be, nor does Heart demon. Otherwise, I would not have this life at all."
Yue Lan's hands unclenched. For a long hours, she and relatives including her mother watched her grandfather's chest rise, fall - then still. When she turned away, the stillness that followed wasn't the crushing devastation she'd anticipated, but something quieter and peaceful. Han Chen had been right - no guilt coiled in her stomach, only the strange lightness of a debt finally settled.
This man, this proud Yue family patriarch, had quietly defied tradition when it mattered most. He'd opened his ancestral halls to an illegitimate daughter, her mother when society would have seen her cast aside. Even in his final days, he'd ignited this feud - not out of senility as the relatives claimed - but to ensure his talented granddaughter received what little justice he could offer: To make her lead her line of status as a Yue member and a share of the family assets as belated compensation for the motherly love he'd failed to provide. Even after extending life, he is powerless in the face of fate.
This time, Yue Lan was ready. In some alternate version of events, a car accident might've knocked her out of the picture during the chaos that followed his death, but not now. She'd stayed sharp and in control. When he passed, the family business put on a public show of mourning—black suits and polished press statements. But behind closed doors, in the sleek offices and sprawling estates, the real struggle kicked off.
The next morning, her phone buzzed with the first of many messages from the Yue family's legal team: "Emergency board meeting, 10 AM. Yue Ming presiding." She let out a dry chuckle. They couldn't even wait a few days to pretend they cared—she walked into the asset hearings composed and unfazed.
The day after the funeral, the family gathered in the Yue estate's ancestral hall. The air was thick with sandalwood and unspoken resentment. Yue Tianlong, Yue Ming's father and the new head of the family, sat at the table's head. To his right was Yue Ming; to his left, Yue Lan's mother, Yue Meifeng, who'd found some stability thanks to Han Chen's discreet support. A lawyer opened the will with a formality that felt almost out of place.
Here's what it said:
Yue Tianlong: 32%—the steady earners like FDA-approved drugs and supply chains. Board & Trusts: 30%—split up to keep power in check. Yue Ming: 23%—the flashy stuff, like clinics and media companies. Yue Lan: 19%—Horizon Biotech, a few lesser-known companies, and the Kyoto estate. Yue Meifeng: 3%—a token gesture, though Yue Lan was clearly the one in charge of it.
Yue Tianlong smirked. "Biotech? That sinking ship?" He didn't bother asking why the lab's payroll was funneled through offshore accounts, why its research files had vanished, or why the Kyoto estate's demolition kept hitting snags.
Yue Ming, now the COO of the family conglomerate and a big shot on several boards, didn't hesitate to question her claim in front of everyone. He didn't say it outright, but the implication was clear: she wasn't true family, not out of wedlock, just a clever outsider they'd let in. She didn't react. Yue Lan stayed quiet—she didn't need to explain. Those details were her advantage. The law didn't care about family ties; it cared about documentation.
*
*
Long before this, Yue Lan had dug into Horizon Biotech's research division. While her relatives wrote her off as an overzealous CFO, she'd spent nights poring over scientist profiles, funding trends, and Han Chen's recollection of memory about news of a hidden project tied to a rare virus cure in past life. She'd figured out that Horizon's "Project Nightshade" was chasing something big—a treatment for a lab-made virus called Xenotype-7 that caused cancer-like mutations.
The lead researcher, Dr. Sofia Lim, was brilliant but risky, experimenting on animals with no clear results yet. Based on her own efforts and Han Chen's vague naming of a researcher named Sophia, she was sure. Yue Lan had seen the potential early.
At her grandfather's last birthday, when he was frail and in a wheelchair, she'd quietly asked him to hand her the struggling biotech division. "I'll turn it into something the I and you can be proud of," she'd said. "I don't want trouble with the others." He'd looked at her with tired but approving eyes—he'd always liked her understated drive.
Her inheritance wasn't the biggest slice, but it was enough to spark a fight. Yue Ming and his father, Yue Tianlong, accused her of twisting her grandfather's arm, shuffling assets through shady trusts, and overstepping her role. With Han Chen's help gathering proof, she faced them head-on when they dragged her to court in Hong Kong within two days of the will's reading. The charges? Misconduct, breach of duty, stealing intellectual property, and manipulating a vulnerable old man—plus some low blows about her mother's mental state.
Yue Ming's team went all out to smear her. Fake videos popped up online showing her "admitting" to fraud, her hairbrush was tampered with to fake drug use, and doctored logs placed her in Macau during key moments. She didn't panic or lash out. In court, she was steady and methodical. Her defense was airtight: every move she'd made was time-stamped and approved well before her grandfather's health faded.
Auditors confirmed the money trail was clean. Two family lawyers swore her grandfather had planned it all himself. Yue Ming threw gossip and grainy footage at her, but she didn't budge. Her final words to the judge? "Facts needed, not stories." Suits and counter suits followed.
_____
The ruling came down clean: no wrongdoing, everything legal, and a warning to Yue Ming's side to drop the petty lawsuits. The courtroom went silent. Yue Ming clenched his fists, Yue Tianlong stared blankly, and Yue Lan just nodded to the judge before walking out, saying nothing to anyone.
Yue Ming's PR team pushed coordinated attacks on social media, spreading innuendo about Yue Lan's ethics. They avoided direct accusations but implied she'd exploited grey zones in corporate law. Yue Lan didn't engage. Instead, she disappeared from public channels. A tight circle of advisors ran quiet counter-operations—correcting records, submitting legal clarifications, and tracing bot amplification campaigns to third-party contractors loosely tied to Yue Tianlong. No drama, just evidence.
Inside Horizon Biotech, word of her steady leadership began to circulate—first through internal staff channels, then in biotech investor forums. The contrast to Yue Ming's public chaos was stark enough to mute the smear campaign.
While all of this was happening, Yue Lan waited for the perfect moment to split away from Yue Group.
*
*
On Horizon research grounds:
Sublevel B4 – Access Code: Null; No signal. No logs. All surveillance was local, off-grid, and overwritten every 12 hours.
At the heart of the chamber, essence beast Primate Subject-714 strained against its restraints, sinews coiled like steel cables beneath shaved skin. Dr. Sofia Lim's gloved hands hovered over her tablet, her voice clipped as she dictated findings: "Three hundred eighty percent increase in voluntary muscle contraction. Meridian permeability collapsed entirely. Neural phase-lock at sixty-three hertz under stress—aggression stabilized, not organic."
Yue Lan stood apart, her gaze fixed on the data collection and encryption terminal beside her. Han Chen's lattice system flared to life at her touch, fractal patterns spiraling across the screen. Neural signatures—hers alone—twisted the data into an indecipherable knot. No backups. No mercy. The truth dissolved into the machine's belly, leaving no trail.
Lim's footsteps sliced through the silence as she entered the control room. "This isn't an immune response," she said, her voice fraying at the edges. "The subject's entire physiology is rewriting itself. We need external review."
"External review?"
Yue Lan turned, her smile a blade sheathed in silk. "Xenotype-7 Viral Antibody Optimization—Null Variants. File it under antibody research. Say nothing." The words hung like a guillotine. "No journals, Sofia. No whispers. Only progress."
Lim hesitated, the weight of the unspoken bargain pressing down: Autonomy. Funding. A lifetime's work unchained—if she buried the truth in daylight. Her nod was barely perceptible. By dawn, the specimen and data chips lay entombed in titanium vaults. Upstairs, oblivious teams shuffled through blind-task protocols, their work fractured into meaningless fragments.