An Irreplaceable Lifelong Pain
Nan Yu blinked, momentarily at a loss for how to address the broad-shouldered stranger standing before her. He was big and solid—someone you’d expect to meet on a construction site, not in a modest townhouse.
“You must be here to see my wife,” he said politely, his voice low and rough. “I’m her husband—Ye Xiao.”
Nan Yu nodded. Something clicked into place: this man was likely the true father of the child in Wen Ying’s belly.
The little house was snug and warm inside. Wen Ying greeted her at the door; when she saw Nan Yu she rose and smiled brightly. “Miss Nan, good afternoon.”
Nan Yu returned the greeting and watched her. Wen Ying had grown a bit plumper, her cheeks rosier—there was a softness about her now, the kind of contentment that settles over a woman after marriage.
After a brief exchange of niceties, Nan Yu congratulated her on a smooth delivery and handed over the gift she’d brought. Wen Ying took it with a smile and said the baby had just fallen asleep; she could show her the nursery later.
Ye Xiao didn’t interrupt the two women. He poured them hot water, reminded Wen Ying to take care of herself, and then excused himself.
“He’s your husband?” Nan Yu asked once they were alone.
Wen Ying nodded and smiled faintly. “His name’s Ye Xiao. Codename: Nightwatch.”
“And you?”
“Nightingale.”
Wen Ying laid it out plainly. “Both Nightwatch and I work for Mr. Tan.”
She didn’t bother to hide it; she said it like stating a fact. Nan Yu’s face betrayed no surprise. She simply inclined her head. “I had a feeling.”
“Mr. Tan told you?” Wen Ying asked.
Nan Yu hesitated, then shook her head. “I only guessed.” She recalled the day at the civil affairs office—how Ye Xiao had shoved her by accident, the calluses on his palm, the quick, uncompromising way he had steadied her. Not many people reacted like that unless they’d been trained. It was a tiny detail she’d filed away and only now connected.
Wen Ying flushed with an embarrassed apology. “I’m sorry, Miss Nan. I was panicked that day. I didn’t control my strength and I hurt you.”
Nan Yu waved it off. She wasn’t interested in small grievances. What mattered was the revelation that Tan Linyuan had been operating against the Shen family long before this point—he’d even planted Wen Ying so close to Shen Yanche.
“Does your business with the Shen family stem from a personal grudge, or were you acting on orders?” Nan Yu asked.
Wen Ying’s smile faded. “Both. A personal grudge, and I was obeying orders.”
She didn’t wait for Nan Yu to prod; the story poured out of her. Years ago Wen Ying’s parents had been decent, respectable people running a small manufacturing business in Jiangcheng. The Shen family came to buy the land the factory sat on. At first the Shen family painted a rosy future—promises of a good price, access to resources among Jiangcheng’s elite. The Wen family were small-town business owners; it sounded like the chance to finally move up.
But when it came time to sign the papers, the Shen family changed the terms maliciously. They tried to cheat the Wen family out of their land with a lowball offer. The Wen parents refused. What followed was uglier than Wen Ying could hold.
“The Shen family’s people came back and—” Wen Ying’s voice broke. She clenched her fists until the knuckles whitened. “They came in the middle of a storm and tore our factory down with force. My parents ran into the factory to stop them… they—” Tears rose in her eyes. “They crushed them like they were nothing. They drove the excavator right through everything.”
Nan Yu offered a tissue and squeezed Wen Ying’s hand. There was no comforting remark that could erase the memory of parents taken so brutally. Losing parents that way was an abyssal darkness that swallowed up a life. No amount of time could fully mend it; it left a raw, permanent ache.
“They’re monsters,” Wen Ying said, her voice steadier now but burning with hatred. “They killed without remorse. They deserve to go to hell.”
She wiped her face, inhaled slowly, and went on. The Shen family’s deeds didn’t stop at land-grabbing. They dressed themselves in fine suits and behaved like gentlemen while running extortion and worse behind closed doors.
A recollection suddenly came back to her. “A few years ago,” she said, “I overheard Shen Yanche on the phone with that brutal old man—their patriarch—plotting something. I heard Shen Yanche say, ‘We grew up together; there’s no need to kill both their parents.’” Wen Ying’s voice spat out the words like a curse. “How cold-blooded. He’d poison even someone he grew up with.”
At those words Nan Yu’s muscles tensed. Phrases like “we grew up together” and “no need to kill both parents” settled into place in her mind like clues on a board. The pattern was becoming clearer—and far more sinister.
“Those father and son are beasts,” Wen Ying said. “They let innocent people die and think it’s nothing. They’ll pay.”
Nan Yu tried to soothe her, but her own thoughts had gone elsewhere. The threads Wen Ying had spun strengthened her suspicions: Tan Linyuan had been setting the stage against the Shens for a long time, and Wen Ying’s placement close to Shen Yanche was no accident.
Before she left, Wen Ying showed Nan Yu some of the things she’d learned to stay safe during her pregnancy. They talked quietly for a while, and Wen Ying insisted Nan Yu visit again whenever she liked.
“Is it inconvenient for you and your husband to go into the city?” Nan Yu asked as she prepared to go.
Wen Ying nodded. “Mr. Tan has severely weakened the Shen family, but we’re safer staying here for now.”
“It’s so remote,” Nan Yu said. “You can’t stay hidden forever—children grow so fast.”
Wen Ying and Ye Xiao exchanged a look, fingers laced, eyes set with a resolve that steadied them both. “We’ll go back when the Shens are brought to justice. Then we’ll live openly under the sun again.”
Nan Yu left with a hollow feeling. Wen Ying’s story had stirred up an uneasy clarity inside her, but it was still only that—suspicion. Rumors and memories weren’t the same as proof.
She climbed into the car, her thoughts rolling like a storm. She didn’t notice that the driver in the front seat had changed.