Ming considered himself unshakable. In his decade as Lou Yan's assistant, he'd negotiated billion-yuan mergers, redirected scandalous headlines before they could catch fire, and once physically tackled a tech journalist trying to sneak into a press room. He'd handled Lou's schedule with the precision of a neurosurgeon and the calm of a monk.
But even he hadn't been prepared for this version of Lou Yan—brooding, distracted, smiling at thin air, and worst of all…humming.
It started after Syra entered the picture.
At first, Ming thought it was indigestion. Lou would pause mid-meeting, glance out the window like he was calculating wind speed, then make an obscure comment like, "She prefers firmer persimmons."
Then came the smiling. Not his usual amused smirk or polite corporate grin. Actual smiling. Soft. Real. The kind that made board members twitch in confusion.
Ming had watched with mild horror as Lou once adjusted his cufflinks three times before walking into a video call. Three. Times.
Then came the biggest shock: Lou Yan arrived to work fifteen minutes late. Twice. Ming nearly called security.
Now, standing outside the boardroom, phone in hand and espresso forgotten on the windowsill, Ming watched the news of Syra's gallery success flood the morning feeds. Reviewers called it "audacious," "transformative," and "visceral." But Ming had seen the transformation firsthand—not in the paintings, but in the man who used to calculate risk like he calculated breath.
Lou Yan was in love. Deep, dumb, irreversible love. And for the first time in Ming's life, he realized something else:
The man who'd once been more myth than human was finally, completely, wonderfully mortal.
He sighed. "Well," he muttered to himself, tapping out another calendar adjustment to squeeze in Lou's fifth reschedule this week, "guess I'm going to need a better emergency kit."
Because if Madam Yan was sharpening her knives—and Ming had no doubt she was—things were only going to get more interesting.
He adjusted his tie, sipped his lukewarm espresso, and braced for war.
‐---
Madam Yan watched the garden from the west balcony, her gaze cutting through the chrysanthemums like a scalpel. The conversation from the dinner table still echoed in her mind. Syra Alizadeh-Li, with her too-honest eyes and too-loose hair, had made an impression—not the kind Madam Yan wanted, but a powerful one nonetheless.
She sipped her tea slowly, the porcelain cup warm in her fingers. Behind her, Dr. Zhou Meilin had long since departed, her goodbye polite, her silence more telling than any complaint. Madam Yan didn't blame her. In another life, she would have admired the girl—dignified, graceful, bred for this life.
But admiration did not win wars.
And Lou Yan—her grandson, her heir, her quiet storm of a boy—was currently in the garden kissing a woman who didn't come from legacy, but from paint.
Madam Yan set down her tea.
It wasn't that Syra was Persian. Not entirely. Madam Yan had lived through too many years and seen too many kinds of marriages to be bothered by bloodlines. But Syra was unpredictable. Chaotic. Dangerous in the way only artists and heartbreakers could be.
She saw it in the girl's posture—the way she held herself like someone always ready to run. In the smart mouth. In the storm she carried behind her eyes. The kind of woman who inspired legends.
The kind of woman who burned dynasties to the ground.
And Lou… he had never been more alive. She hated it. She admired it. She feared it more than she let herself admit.
He had changed since Syra. Softer in some places, sharper in others. More deliberate. More dangerous. The monk had fallen. The man had risen.
"You shouldn't have brought her here," Madam Yan whispered to no one, the night wind tugging gently at her qipao. "Now I have to choose between the legacy and the living."
And that, more than anything, terrified her.
---
From the shadowed corridor, one of the old household staff watched silently. He had served Madam Yan since her own girlhood. And he had never seen her more unsure than tonight.
The girl with paint on her hands might just win.
And perhaps, for the first time, the family might survive it.
-----
Madam Yan sat alone, her gaze fixed on the rippling surface of the koi pond. The tea had gone cold in her hands. Her lips pressed into a line, unreadable as ever, but her fingers trembled ever so slightly around the delicate porcelain.
She had not expected that girl to fight back. Not like that.
Syra Alizadeh-Li was supposed to be a fleeting mistake. A muse at best. A rebellion Lou would outgrow. That's how it had always worked in their family—romance was an interlude; marriage was a transaction. And Lou Yan had always been the most dutiful of all her grandchildren. Silent. Focused. Devoted to legacy like it was religion.
Until her.
Madam Yan's jaw clenched.
Syra's beauty was the dangerous kind. Not delicate. Not docile. It was wild and defiant—like a flame that refused to be tamed. She was Persian and Chinese, yes, but she moved like a woman born of wind and chaos. And that chaos had undone her grandson.
She had seen it in Lou's eyes when he looked at her—that quiet, shattering softness. That ache. That longing.
No Lou man had ever looked at a woman like that. Not even her late husband. Not even the first Lou, whose portraits hung in temples they had built.
She stood slowly, brushing invisible dust from her qipao. Her reflection in the pond wavered, fractured by wind. For a moment, she didn't recognize herself—not the woman who had once rewritten entire genealogies to protect the family name, who had buried daughters too spirited to conform, who had taught sons to be stone before they learned to be boys.
She stepped back from the water.
That Syra had called out Meilin. That Syra had seen the cruelty behind duty. That Syra had walked away with fire in her eyes and Lou chasing after her...
Perhaps she had underestimated her.
But that didn't mean she approved. Approval would take more than rebellion.
More than beauty.
More than love.
Madam Yan turned toward the house, her spine straight despite the weight on her shoulders. The night was far from over. And if Syra truly wanted a place at this table, she would need to fight harder than she ever had before.
Because tradition didn't bend for emotion. Not in this family.
And certainly not for chaos.