Transmigration; Married to My Ex-Fiancé's Uncle-Chapter 322; Lin family 1

The car hummed onward through the darkness, the sealed mansion long since disappeared behind them. Lu Yuze tucked the pearls carefully into an inner pocket of his jacket, close to his chest where they continued to pulse their gentle warmth.

He looked at Shuyin. Her eyes were drifting, the exhaustion finally pulling her under. The fight was gone from her body, replaced by the bone-deep weariness of someone who had given far more than she had left to give.

Her eyelids fluttered, once, twice, fighting it.

Then, from somewhere behind them, from the third car in the convoy, a small voice crackled through the security team’s open radio channel.

"Is Mama Shuyin okay?"

Chen Xiao. Quiet and earnest, the way only a small child could be.

A pause. Then Yuyan’s voice, steady despite the tiredness in it:

"She will be. She always is."

Shuyin’s lips curved, barely, just the ghost of a smile, and then her eyes closed.

This time, she didn’t fight it.

Sleep took her gently, and she let it.

Lu Yuze squeezed Shuyin’s hand gently, and she squeezed back, a silent promise.

They would be okay. All of them.

The convoy drove through the night, headlights cutting through the darkness as they left the sealed mansion behind. In the lead car, Ah Ling navigated the route to the Lin estate with practiced efficiency. In the rear, Ah Ying kept watch for any pursuit, magical or otherwise.

In the second car, Lu Yuze held Shuyin as she slept fitfully, her body occasionally jerking as nightmares of Leviathan Spawn mixed with older nightmares of her childhood home.

In the third car, Yuyan held Chen Xiao while he finally cried himself to sleep, exhausted from terror and relief.

And in the fourth car, Li Feng coordinated with his team, ensuring their approach to the Lin estate would be smooth, professional, and, if Shuyin had her way, absolutely devastating to the family that had tried to destroy her.

They soon arrived at the Lin family mansion. At the gate, the guards were surprised to see her. They knew she was out of prison, but she hadn’t shown up at the Lin mansion since her release.

They opened the gates, letting her in without question.

After the cars were parked, Lin Shuyin got out and rushed toward the mansion entrance. Behind her, Lu Yuze exchanged a glance with Ting Fei, who raised an eyebrow as if to ask, *What exactly is she planning?*

Lu Yuze could only shrug. With Shuyin, it was always best to just watch and be ready to back her play. Her life seemed to be a drama.

Shuyin burst through the mansion doors. Her father, Lin Feng, was seated on the leather couch in the sitting area, reading a business magazine. He looked up, startled, as she rushed toward him.

"Father... Father..."

She rushed in, and the moment she crossed the threshold of the sitting area, the room went cold.

Lin Feng looked up from his magazine.

And froze.

The woman standing in his sitting room barely looked like his daughter. Shuyin’s pajamas, silk, expensive, now ruined, hung off her frame in torn, singed strips. The fabric along her arms and shoulders had been eaten through, exposing skin that was raw and angry, mottled with burns that hadn’t fully healed. Burns that looked like something had wrapped around her, squeezed, and left its mark.

Her feet were bare. Dirty. The soles blackened as if she’d walked across scorched ground, and there was a dried trail of something dark and oily following her footprints across his clean marble floor.

Her hair was loose and tangled, sticking to her face in places, damp with something that wasn’t water. And her hands, her hands were the worst. The skin across both palms was blistered and red, some of the wounds still glistening with a thin, translucent fluid that caught the lamplight wrong.

She looked like she’d been through a war.

She looked like she’d lost.

Lin Feng’s magazine slipped from his fingers and hit the floor.

"Shuyin...?" His voice came out barely above a whisper. "What... what happened to you?"

But she didn’t answer. She was already moving, stumbling forward on unsteady legs, and then she was on her knees before him, her head bowed, her ruined hands trembling at her sides.

"Father... Father..." Her voice cracked. Broken. Small.

Like a child who had nowhere left to go.

Lin Feng stared at her, rooted to his seat. He’d seen injuries before, business was brutal, life was brutal, but this? This looked like something had tried to destroy her from the outside in. The burns, the rawness of her skin, the way she held herself, as if even breathing hurt.

He opened his mouth to say something, anything, but nothing came.

He didn’t know how to react to this sudden intrusion of hers. Of the state of her.

At that moment, her stepmother, Chen Madam, walked into the sitting area carrying a tray of tea.

The porcelain cups rattled as she froze mid-step.

Her eyes swept over Shuyin, the burns, the torn clothes, the bloody footprints, the trembling, kneeling figure, and the tray tilted dangerously in her hands. She set it down fast, too fast, cups clattering against the table.

She hadn’t thought Shuyin would show up here. Not after everything. But even if she had imagined it, she hadn’t imagined *this*.

For a moment, just a fraction of a moment, something flickered across Chen Madam’s face that might have been genuine shock. Maybe even fear. A creature that looked like this, that *bled* like this, appearing in her home without warning...

Then the mask slid back into place.

"My dear, why are you on your knees?" She rushed over, her voice pitched with concern so practiced it sounded almost real. She reached for Shuyin’s arm to help her up, but her fingers hesitated, just barely, before making contact with the burned skin. "What on earth happened to you? You’re *hurt*....."

She pulled Shuyin up gently...