Ning Anmiao lowered her eyes and watched their hands clasped together. After a moment she nodded.
“All right.”
...
True to his word, after breakfast Lu Yan told Ning Anmiao that he wouldn’t be going into the office that day. He was heading straight to the temple to see the old abbot.
If she was determined to get her body back, he wouldn’t waste a minute. Every sliver of chance had to be seized.
“If anything urgent comes up at the office, call me at once,” he said on his way out.
Ning Anmiao obediently nodded and watched him go, a faint sigh slipping free. She had never realized how powerless she felt until now.
She had grown up under the shelter of the Ning family—well-educated, raised in privilege, insulated from the darker corners of the world. Her gifts had carried her through school and career; aside from the trouble with Mrs. Lu, few things had ever truly tested her. She’d been protected her whole life—first by the Nings, now by Lu Yan.
Like a greenhouse flower, she had bloomed vibrant and lovely but fragile, unable to withstand even a little wind or rain. The thought made her heavy at heart. She swallowed the rest of her breakfast and took the car to the office.
Sitting in Lu Yan’s chair, she found herself drifting. She kept replaying fragments of their life together. In her memories he was always busy—relentlessly so. She had once complained inwardly that he was distant, that his life consisted only of work and sleep, like a machine. But she had never stopped to wonder why he worked so hard. She had never carried a fraction of the burden on his shoulders.
He, on the other hand, tended to her moods with astonishing care: remembering to buy a cake with her favorite flavors, managing little details with skill. Except for his mother’s interference, he had been a competent husband. She, she realized, had not been a competent wife.
Now that their roles had reversed, she was beginning to understand his motives—why he’d indulged his mother so persistently. She softened at the thought. That woman was his mother; she had been his companion through long, hard years.
Just then the secretary burst into the office, panic in his step. Seeing “Lu Yan” with his head bowed, some of his fear melted into relief. “President Lu—there’s been an incident.”
Lu Yan looked up. “What happened? Tell me everything.”
The secretary’s words came in a rush. One of the factories that manufactures clothing under Xinghe Capital had turned into a crime scene. A worker, dissatisfied about pay, had argued with the factory manager. In the scuffle the manager had shoved him toward the fabric-cutting machine; the man was sliced into pieces. It was gruesome, horrific.
At first the expression on Lu Yan’s face was composed, then the crease between his brows deepened as he listened. Even if this had been an accident, it involved a company under Xinghe Capital—word would travel fast. Xinghe had never had a stain on its name since its founding; a murder like this would throw the company into the eye of the storm.
“What do we do, President Lu?” the secretary wiped his brow. “This is already all over the internet—people are calling the garments ‘blood money’ and urging a boycott. Influencers are piling on. The victim’s family is causing a scene outside the factory and say they’ll bring it to the company.”
Ning Anmiao fell silent for a beat, her fingers finding the phone at her side. If the incident had blown up, it needed Lu Yan to handle it—but he should be at the temple by now, probably asking the abbot for guidance. Calling him in the middle of that would feel wrong; after all, she had told him to go. She didn’t want to seem selfish by dragging him away.
She closed her eyes and calmed herself. She’d never dealt with a crisis like this, but she’d lived in the fashion world long enough to know one thing: this was a PR problem. The issue wasn’t simply that someone had died—it was that the workers’ wage complaints gave people a reason to suspect the company’s finances. Cash flow is a company’s lifeblood; if payroll is in question, people start to doubt whether the business is healthy. The real task wasn't only to calm the grieving family—it was to stop the public from questioning Xinghe’s solvency and restore trust.
“President Lu, what should we do?” the secretary pressed, his voice trembling.
Ning Anmiao answered with a steadiness she didn’t recognize in herself.
“Export Xinghe’s payroll records for the last year,” she said. “Include exact monthly disbursement dates and total amounts. Make them clear and auditable.”
If the complaint was about wages, then transparency would be the antidote. Show the books and let people see for themselves.
She continued, adopting Lu Yan’s decisive cadence: “Understand the family’s anger, but before we do anything else, call the police to get involved. This has to go through the proper channels.”
There were always rabble-rousers ready to stir trouble—competitors or opportunists who might recruit people to blow the incident up. Handling it privately with hush money could plant a seed of future disaster; police involvement might make the situation more public, but it would cut off many avenues for manipulation.
“And find out how this spread so fast—who’s behind the early leaks,” she added. “I want names.”
She let out a slow breath and opened her eyes. “Anything else?”
Ning Anmiao’s calm, measured manner—her ability to cut straight to the most advantageous course—sounded more like Lu Yan than herself. He hunted for the most beneficial point, minimized his losses, and struck when necessary. She had been studying his methods these past days and, almost without noticing it, had begun to adopt them.
“All right, President Lu. I’ll get on it right away,” the secretary said, regaining his composure. Then, hesitating, he added, “But—President Lu, are you sure we should involve the police? Doing so might offend that—”