The guard swallowed. "We haven’t confirmed the identity yet."

Lu Shaohan’s expression hardened. "Then why report incomplete information?"

The guard’s posture stiffened. "Because... the person appears to already belong inside the residence."

The corridor fell silent. Somewhere deeper in the estate, a door closed softly.

The threat surrounding the Lu family no longer felt external.

It was already inside the house.

The guard’s words landed heavily. Someone had entered the eastern corridor before the attack. The cameras failed at that moment. The women arrived the next morning. And at the center stood Su Wan—not as evidence, but as timing.

"Continue reviewing the footage," Lu Shaohan said. "Movement logs for everyone in the eastern wing last night. No discussion outside security."

The guard left.

The residence felt suspended. Lu Shaohan walked toward the western wing. Toward her. He didn’t believe she had orchestrated the pregnancies—too many variables beyond her control. But she might have discovered the operation and moved against it alone. That unsettled him more than direct betrayal.

He stopped outside her door and he remembered what she had said in the hospital bed: You really do want to get rid of me. He had dismissed it as an injury. Now fear implied awareness.

He opened the door and Su Wan sat near the window, reading. Documents spread beside her, injured arm supported. She looked up without surprise.

"President Lu," she said, closing a file. Her tone was too even.

"You’re working," he said.

"I dislike wasting time."

She didn’t look like someone who was recovering but rather like someone who was preparing.

"The cameras outside the eastern corridor failed last night," Lu Shaohan said.

"Is that supposed to surprise me?" she asked.

"No. But someone entered that corridor shortly before the attack."

Her fingers stilled. Not fear—recognition.

"You already considered that possibility," he said.

"In a house like this? An attack from outside would have worried me less."

She wasn’t denying suspicion. She was confirming it.

"And yet you stayed," he said.

"Did I have somewhere safer to go?"

No softness. Only realism.

The atmosphere tightened—mutual suspicion, mutual awareness. Neither fully understood the structure moving around them.

For several moments neither of them spoke, the atmosphere between them having shifted into something more dangerous than open accusation—suspicion lingered beneath every word, sharpened by the growing realization that neither fully understood the structure now moving around the Lu family.

Lu Shaohan’s gaze lowered to the documents spread across the table beside her. "What are you looking at?" he asked as he stepped closer, his tone calm but his attention sharpened once more.

Su Wan did not answer at once. Instead, she reached for the stack, separated one prepared folder from the rest, and slid it across the table toward him. "What you need to sign."

His eyes narrowed faintly before he picked up the document. The moment he opened it, the atmosphere in the room changed. It was a contract—not about the women or business, but structured entirely around her. Detailed clauses outlined financial settlements, property transfers, medical guarantees, private security retention, and custodial authority over the child she carried, all prepared with cold, methodical care.

Lu Shaohan flipped through the pages in silence, then looked up at her. "What makes you think I’ll sign this?" He tossed the folder back onto the table.

Su Wan met his gaze without embarrassment or defensiveness. "If you don’t, then I have no reason to continue staying inside the Lu Residence."

The room fell silent. This wasn’t jealousy or emotion—Su Wan was negotiating for herself.

"You prepared divorce conditions before the situation was even verified," he said.

"Exit conditions," she corrected, her voice steady. "The difference matters."

The silence deepened because it did matter. Divorce implied emotional collapse, while an exit strategy implied anticipation and preparation.

Lu Shaohan’s gaze returned briefly to the documents. "You think I’m going to replace you."

Her lips curved faintly, though no warmth reached her eyes. "Powerful families become unpredictable when succession gets complicated, and suddenly there are multiple women carrying potential heirs connected to your bloodline." Her fingers rested lightly against the edge of the contract. "I would rather negotiate while everyone is still calm."

There was no outrage, no possessiveness, no wounded pride—only self-preservation. Most women in her position would have demanded reassurance and loyalty, but Su Wan asked for compensation structures and control over her own vulnerability, as though marriage itself had always been secondary to security.

"You really don’t care about the women," he said quietly.

"I care whether their existence reduces my position," she answered, her honesty sharpening the room at once. "If you intend to create a larger household structure around future heirs, then my terms should be established before emotions begin interfering with judgment."

His gaze darkened slightly. "You speak as though this is a merger negotiation."

Her expression barely shifted. "Isn’t it?"

The silence that followed stretched heavily between them because in families like theirs, perhaps it always had been.

Lu Shaohan’s gaze remained on her even after the room fell silent again.

The contract lay open between them, its pages slightly disordered from where he had tossed them back moments earlier. Beneath the muted afternoon light, fragments of legal text glinted faintly against the polished wood—cold clauses, calculated figures, carefully drafted protections that reduced marriage, succession, and separation to structured terms.

Su Wan sat across from him without retreating. She made no attempt to soften the conversation or explain herself away. Her injured arm rested carefully against the armrest, held almost too still beneath the loose sleeve that hid the bandage.

The pain had not faded; it showed in the subtle tension of her posture and the occasional tightening of her fingers against the fabric. Yet she refused to acknowledge it, treating it as secondary to the negotiation unfolding between them.

For some reasons Lu Shaohan found increasingly difficult to ignore, that composure irritated him more than open fear could ever.

His eyes lowered briefly to the contract before returning to her face. For the first time since entering the room, something in his expression shifted visibly. The restraint he carried remained intact, but beneath it genuine frustration broke through the calm he usually maintained so effortlessly.