Chapter 4

That night, Lu Zhi did not return to the apartment but went to the Bai Family Residence instead.

Aunt Wang, knowing they had been at the hospital all day, had specially prepared a hearty late-night snack. Lu Zhi didn’t touch it, going straight upstairs. After washing up, she lay in bed and slept.

This body had already been at the end of its rope, and without resting today, her head was already heavy and muddled.

After sleeping for a while, she hazily heard knocking. Lu Zhi looked at the fluorescent digital clock on the bedside table: 12:10 AM.

Bai Lu stood in the hallway holding a tablet, her eyes still lingering on the spreadsheet numbers on the screen, the fingers of her right hand unconsciously at her mouth, nibbling. There was no movement from the room. She raised her hand and banged twice more with an air that suggested she wouldn’t stop until the door was opened today.

Thankfully, a moment later, the door was opened from the inside. Lu Zhi appeared in the doorway wearing a dark green silk slip nightgown. The silk’s texture made the green subtly shimmer under the light, setting off her snow-white skin and pale, jade-like limbs. She had clearly been woken from sleep; her hair was somewhat messy, her body leaning slightly against the doorframe. The languid expression on her face hadn’t yet faded, only her soft, delicate eyelids lifting gently to reveal a pair of black eyes that seemed to hold floating ice and shattered jade.

Bai Lu was momentarily stunned, her gaze flickering over Lu Zhi’s delicate collarbone before meeting her eyes, only to be startled by the unconcealed sharpness within them.

“Something wrong?” Lu Zhi’s words were concise, her voice icy.

“I… you… I, I didn’t know you were resting…” Bai Lu lowered her hand, stammering for a reason she herself didn’t understand.

Naturally, Lu Zhi didn’t believe her nonsense. Her gaze withdrew from Bai Lu’s face and landed on the tablet in her hand—precisely the financial statements she had told Bai Lu to ask Secretary Li for today.

“I-it’s this, the thing you asked me to get from Uncle Li today. He gave it to me.” Bai Lu quickly raised the tablet, pointing a finger at a spot on it. “I can’t quite understand it. Uncle Li said this can’t be shared externally, so I had to come ask you…”

Bai Lu had no idea she could speak so earnestly. The righteous confidence she’d had while knocking was long gone from her face, replaced by the obedient look of a good student.

Then she saw the woman before her straighten up and take a slight step back. Bai Lu’s heart relaxed. Just as she thought it meant she could follow in, the door slammed shut with a bang, nearly hitting her nose.

Bai Lu stood bewildered outside the door for two seconds. Coming to her senses, she stumbled back a step in disbelief, staring wide-eyed at the closed door. Her arm lifted and fell, lifted and fell, but ultimately she didn’t dare knock again. Her face flushed red with frustration.

Glancing back angrily every few steps, she returned to her own room. She tossed the tablet onto the bed and let out a few suppressed squeals, puffing herself up like a pufferfish.

Still not satisfied, she switched the tablet to the chat interface and pressed hard on the voice message button: “Fei’er, Shen Qing is my absolute most hated person! No one else even comes close!”

The next morning, Lu Zhi was eating breakfast alone in the dining room while Bai Lu was still sleeping in. Today wasn’t a weekend or a holiday. Normally, she should have already been at school for classes, but the household staff had long grown accustomed to the Eldest Miss’s dislike for studying and penchant for skipping class. Almost no one took the initiative to remind her to attend school on time.

Lu Zhi naturally didn’t do so either. After finishing breakfast, she didn’t go to the hospital but headed straight to the art studio.

Shen Qing’s art studio was located in an inconspicuous alley in the city center. A cat pet store was to its left, a tea house to its right. She had bought the standalone two-story courtyard house in the middle. The first floor served as a gallery café, and the second floor was her own studio and rest area.

Upon entering the alley, the most eye-catching feature was the entire wall covered in roses in her courtyard. Carefully tended, red, pink, and white blooms clustered together, covering the wall—it was incredibly beautiful. She pushed open the small wooden gate to the courtyard. Inside was a forty-to-fifty-square-meter yard scattered with pebbles and plants like Monstera and Snake Plants. The winding path was laid with wooden decking, and a few tables with woven black rattan chairs were scattered across the open space.

Since it was early, no one was in the shop yet. She crossed the courtyard into the interior, which was decorated in a wood-themed style. The left and right walls mostly displayed richly colored oil paintings, with some ink wash paintings and watercolors placed in various corners, casual yet not cluttered.

The girl on the early shift was already tidying up behind the counter. Hearing a sound, she looked up and smiled, calling out, “Sister Qing.”

Lu Zhi smiled, ordered a latte at the counter, and went up to the second floor.

Although Shen Qing’s gallery café was more of a hobby project, it had surprisingly done quite well. Apart from the cost of buying the building, daily operations could at least break even. She cared about this place; usually, when she was in a bad mood, aside from going on shopping sprees with friends, she’d mostly hole up here.

By the window on the second floor studio still stood Shen Qing’s last painting. Due to insomnia, her mood had been very low these past days, and her paintings were predominantly dark-toned. A piece of linen on the easel held a base layer of gloomy blue. From far to near, layer upon layer, it was built up and covered over, slowly intensifying into a viscous, suffocating blackness. Only a single dot of white in the distance, seemingly dripped on in a hurry, created a jarring sense of being out of place.

Shen Qing had painted a sea late at night. That speck of white was supposed to be moonlight, yet to be properly blended in when she received a call and left.

“Sister Qing, coffee.” The girl carried a mug and knocked on the doorframe.

“Hm, thanks.” Lu Zhi took it and placed it on the nearby table.

The girl came over to look at the set-up easel, turning her head. “This is what you didn’t finish the day before yesterday. Are you going to continue today?”

Lu Zhi shook her head and said, “No, leave it as it is.”

The girl let out an “Ah,” somewhat puzzled, but didn’t ask further. Smiling at Lu Zhi, she went back downstairs.

In the afternoon, people gradually trickled into the shop, many of them young women taking photos under the roses, their laughter and chatter filtering up. The studio’s soundproofing was quite good; she only heard them when she came out onto the second-floor balcony.

On her phone, Bai Lu had sent her a message: Shen Qing, is our family going bankrupt?

Bai Lu rarely initiated contact with her. She had probably finally understood those numbers on the spreadsheet. Putting aside everything else, just the persistently high figures in the debt column were enough to be startling at a glance.

Lu Zhi put her phone down and didn’t reply.

A staff member came to call her, saying the takeout they ordered had arrived. She acknowledged and was about to go inside when she suddenly sensed a gaze from below.

She turned back. A young woman sat at the table near the flowering wall in the first-floor courtyard. She wore a sheer blouse over a black slip dress, her limbs slender and elongated. Her body was relaxed, leaning back against the chair, chin slightly raised. The line of her jaw was exceptionally elegant. Her eyes, full of a smoky allure, seemed to have landed on Lu Zhi out of sheer boredom.

Lu Zhi watched as the young woman met her gaze. Instead of looking away, she raised her chin with an air of ease, a silent greeting.

Lu Zhi smiled too.

After a simple lunch, she tidied up the second floor slightly and prepared to leave. The young woman was already gone when she walked out of the courtyard. Not thinking much of it, she went to the open-air parking lot across the street, drove out, and headed to the hospital.

Father Bai was resting, so she didn’t disturb him. She first asked the doctor about his condition, receiving the same old advice: he needed more rest, to calm his mind and avoid worry, and not to overwork himself.

Secretary Li sighed. He was intimately familiar with the Bai family’s situation. The company’s current state was no less precarious than walking a tightrope every day. Telling Father Bai to drop work and rest now was like telling a man dying of thirst to dream of water.

“Lulu also came earlier, stayed for most of the day before leaving.” Secretary Li, having also watched Bai Lu grow up, spoke with a familiar closeness. “She asked me for company materials yesterday, which gave me quite a shock. And today as well, she pestered me with a bunch of questions about the company.”

“I heard from her that you told her to come find me?”

Lu Zhi nodded. “Bai Lu has grown up. Bai Hao isn’t here. The affairs of the Bai family will eventually have to be taken up by her. We can’t keep treating her as a child.”

Secretary Li was surprised, staring at her for a long moment without speaking.

Lu Zhi looked up, uttering a puzzled, “Hm?”

Secretary Li snapped out of it with a wry smile and shook his head. “Only Miss Shen would think that Lulu could shoulder the burden of the Bai family.”

Lu Zhi smiled. “Bai Lu is only twenty-one, a prime age to learn how to do things. Indulging her in the past was one thing, but now her father is ill. She is the sole child of the Bai family; she ought to step up. The reason everyone doesn’t think this way is simply that they tacitly assume she isn’t capable.”

The “everyone” she spoke of naturally included Father Bai and Secretary Li—the very people who had doted on Bai Lu since childhood, yet were now the ones not taking her seriously.

Secretary Li looked a bit embarrassed. Although Lu Zhi’s words carried no reproach, he couldn’t help but feel abashed. “Lulu normally just enjoys having fun too much.”

“At twenty-six, the General Manager of Chenzhou Group was still getting thrown in jail for brawling in a bar to win a prize. He still took over, didn’t he? What does liking to have fun mean?”

Secretary Li pursed his lips, wanting to say something but ultimately said nothing.

Lu Zhi didn’t mind either. Although Shen Qing had married into the Bai family, she had her own life. Her maiden family, while not fabulously wealthy, possessed a prestige in educational circles few could match. Shen Qing’s parents also loved their daughter dearly. Even if the Bai family collapsed, she was merely a widow of the Bai family. Once Bai Hao died, the ties between the two families were severed, and she could naturally withdraw unscathed. Saying this now was merely fulfilling a moral obligation of sentiment. Whether they listened or not didn’t matter much to her.

Unexpectedly, two days later, Father Bai suddenly asked her about this matter.

Father Bai had come home to recuperate by now. In his high position, he didn’t know how many pairs of eyes were watching from below. Even a hospital stay had to be carefully timed, fearing that lingering too long would cause those people to stir.

Luckily, with a large family and great wealth, a private doctor usually stayed in a guest room for emergencies.

All the lights in the study were on, but not harshly so—clearly the butler had specifically adjusted the brightness. Father Bai had just finished a teleconference, his expression still carrying traces of fatigue. Only his eyes stubbornly refused to yield, still shining with a sharp, keen light.