The tea room was a palace in miniature.
Latticed wood panels filtered soft amber light, casting patterned shadows across the tatami floor. A low red lacquer table stood in the center, flanked by silk cushions, and at the far end, beneath a hanging scroll of ancient calligraphy, sat Madam Yan. Regal. Unmoving. The dragon guarding the gates.
Lou entered first, his hand still wrapped protectively around Syra's. When they approached the table, she bowed politely.
"Thank you for the invitation," Syra said softly.
Madam Yan gestured to the cushion across from her. "Sit, Persian."
Syra froze mid-kneel.
"I'm Chinese too," she said, lifting her chin.
Madam Yan didn't blink. "Only when convenient, I imagine."
Lou stiffened beside her. "Nai Nai—"
"I raised you with discipline and discernment, Lou Yan," she said, pouring hot water into a delicate clay teapot. "Not to be blinded by a beautiful face or sweet rebellion."
Syra sat slowly, keeping her gaze even. "I don't use my heritage as a convenience. I carry both. Equally."
"Then act like it."
A beat passed. The steam rising between them was the only movement in the room.
Madam Yan began the ritual with practiced grace, pouring the first wash of tea into a basin. "Tell me, Miss Alizadeh. Do you know the difference between jasmine and dragonwell?"
Syra didn't flinch. "Jasmine calms the heart. Dragonwell clears the mind. Both require restraint to brew properly."
Lou pressed his lips together to hide a smile.
Madam Yan's brow arched slightly—the smallest crack in her unyielding mask.
She pushed a cup toward Syra. "Then pour."
Syra picked up the teapot with steady hands. Not too fast. Not too slow. No drops spilled. When she set the pot down and offered the cup, she met Madam Yan's gaze without hesitation.
"It's an honor to share tea with the woman who raised Lou Yan."
Madam Yan took the cup.
Tasted.
Said nothing.
For a long moment, the silence stretched taut as wire. Then—
"You speak Mandarin with a Southern lilt. Your Persian carries a Tehrani sharpness. Your Chinese mannerisms are... theatrical."
Syra felt the sting. And resisted the urge to retreat.
"I'm not trying to be perfect," she said. "I just want to be honest."
"Pretty words," Madam Yan murmured. "But honesty does not make a wife."
"And obedience doesn't make a husband," Syra said quietly.
Lou almost choked on his tea.
The silence that followed was glacial.
Then—Madam Yan laughed. A short, sharp thing. Not amused. But intrigued.
She looked at Lou. "She's sharp. And stubborn."
"I know."
"She'll test you."
"She already does."
Madam Yan set her teacup down. "Then perhaps I underestimated her."
She turned to Syra. "But I am not easy to impress. This family does not survive on poetry and paint."
Syra inclined her head. "I never asked for easy."
Madam Yan stood, her long sleeves sweeping the floor. "Then let's see if your roots grow deep enough to weather this storm."
And just like that, she swept from the room, leaving behind the faint scent of sandalwood and salt.
Syra exhaled for the first time in minutes.
Lou leaned closer, his lips brushing her temple. "She didn't hate you."
"She called me Persian like it was an insult."
"She calls me CEO like it's an insult."
Syra blinked.
Then laughed.
And in that sacred, bitter-sweet laughter, something between them anchored itself a little deeper.
---
There were things about Lou Yan no one knew.
Things that lived beneath the tailored suits and immaculate restraint, beneath the empire he'd built and the silence he wore like armor.
He was a prince—not in title, but in blood.
The Lou family had once ruled provinces in the final days of the Qing Dynasty, and though they relinquished their power long before the revolution, their legacy lingered like incense smoke. They became caretakers of the sacred instead—custodians of ancient temples, guardians of spiritual lineage. They did not deal in politics. They dealt in reverence.
Lou Yan was born into a lineage steeped in structure, grace, and expectation. Raised within the hallowed grounds of a centuries-old monastery, he had taken his first steps on worn stone carved by a thousand monks before him. His lullabies were chants. His toys were carved from sandalwood. While other boys learned football and arithmetic, Lou learned silence.
It was tradition.
Every firstborn male of the Lou family was raised as a monk until the age of twenty-one. No exceptions. No questions. A sacred rite passed down through generations, binding them not just to the divine, but to discipline. To stillness. To duty.
He had shaved his head before he lost his first tooth. Meditated for hours before he learned multiplication tables. Spoke rarely, but listened with an intensity that unsettled even the elder monks.
By eighteen, he could recite sutras in seven dialects. By twenty-one, he'd passed every spiritual rite expected of him. Then, as was his right, he chose to leave. Not in rebellion—but in clarity.
His soul had found peace in silence.
But his mind?
His mind needed challenge.
So he turned to the world his ancestors had withdrawn from. Within five years, he built a tech empire from the ground up—YanTech. Not for wealth, but for purpose. They developed revolutionary medical processors, neural-mapping chips, AI for surgical robotics—tools meant to ease human suffering, to offer clarity where pain once reigned.
But his success did not free him.
It merely shifted the weight.
His family, though proud, never stopped watching. Judging. Waiting for him to honor the other half of his legacy.
Marriage.
For centuries, the Lou family had only married women from certain bloodlines—old, prestigious families who understood both tradition and sacrifice. There were expectations. Contracts. Whispered names. Syra was not on the list.
Not Persian-Chinese. Not self-made. Not loud with color and soft with defiance.
Not her.
And that was why his grandmother—his Nai Nai—had come unannounced. To see the woman who had shattered generations of order simply by existing in Lou's heart.
To remind him of his duty.
To make him choose between lineage and love.
And that… was a choice Lou Yan no longer intended to make.
He would have both. Or nothing at all.