"Who is this?" she asked evenly.

A faint chuckle came through the line. "Someone who understands the value of moving quietly."

The response was careful and professional — the reply of a man accustomed to circling information rather than stating it directly.

Su Wan’s gaze drifted down to the street below. "What exactly do you want?"

"Depends," the man replied smoothly. "Are you trying to acquire influence... or start a war inside Lu Conglomerate?"

The question itself revealed how much he already knew. Purchasing secondary shares during this period of succession instability was not mere investment. It was positioning for power.

Su Wan’s voice stayed calm. "If you called me, then you already know the answer."

There was a brief silence on the other end.

"You move faster than your reputation suggested," the man observed.

Su Wan did not respond. He continued quietly, "The shareholder you’re targeting is already under pressure from another buyer."

Li Chen looked up sharply. Su Wan’s expression barely changed.

"Second Madam?" she asked directly.

The silence that followed was confirmation enough. Second Madam had already begun securing shares. She was no longer simply reacting to the theft of her reserves — she was preparing structurally.

The caller spoke again. "She offered protection."

"And you?" Su Wan asked.

A trace of amusement entered his voice. "I offer information."

Information brokers inside powerful corporate circles were often more dangerous than open enemies. They sold leverage to the highest bidder.

Su Wan walked slowly back toward the table where the bags still lay partially open. "How much?"

The man laughed softly. "Straight to business. Interesting." His tone lowered. "The shareholder is frightened enough to sell now. But after this morning’s disappearance, everyone connected to the secondary branches is becoming nervous."

News of the missing shareholder had already spread.

"What do you want in return?" Su Wan asked.

"Future access," he answered immediately. "There’s going to be a restructuring inside the Lu family eventually. I prefer standing near whoever survives it."

Li Chen’s eyes darkened. Men like this never formed emotional attachments — only strategic ones.

Su Wan remained composed. "You’re assuming I survive."

"No," the caller corrected quietly. "I’m assuming you’re no longer playing defense."

The line went silent for a moment.

"I’ll send the meeting location within the hour," he said. "Bring only one person."

The call disconnected.

Silence settled heavily over the office.

Mo Chen was the first to speak. "We’re being watched already."

"Yes," Su Wan replied calmly.

Li Chen frowned. "This could be a trap."

"It could," she agreed.

Then a faint, cold smile touched her lips — small, calculating, and genuinely interested.

"But it also means they’re finally taking us seriously."

Su Wan said nothing for a moment. She walked back to the table and sat down, the private office falling quiet once more. Morning light filtered through the tall windows, illuminating the stolen materials spread carefully across the table: financial records, copied files, encrypted drives, and the strange map taken from Chairman Su’s study.

The map unsettled her most.

She reached for it slowly and unfolded it completely. The material felt wrong beneath her fingertips — not paper, not fabric, but skin. Thin, preserved, and stretched with deliberate care, the faded texture still visible beneath the markings carved across its surface.

The atmosphere around the table shifted the instant she flattened it under the light. Mo Chen’s expression hardened. Even Li Chen looked disturbed.

Under the morning sunlight, the true nature of the map became unmistakable: faint pores, uneven grain, and old scar-like stretching marks near the edges, with darker sections where the ink had settled deeper into the material. Someone had tattooed this map onto human skin.

Su Wan’s fingers moved slowly across the markings, her gaze sharpening as she studied it. At first glance it resembled an ordinary geographical layout — rivers, forests, mountain sectors, excavation zones, and hidden routes. But the proportions felt wrong. The terrain relationships did not align properly.

"This map is incomplete," she said quietly.

Mo Chen stepped closer. "Incomplete?"

"Not only incomplete." Su Wan tilted the skin carefully beneath the light. "Parts of it are intentionally misleading."

Li Chen frowned. "How can you tell?"

She pointed to the lower eastern section. "This lake shouldn’t exist at this scale." Her finger moved farther north. "And this terrain should be dry land, not swamp."

Her eyes continued scanning the surface, years of forensic-level observation guiding her. Maps followed patterns, even fake ones. This one felt deliberately layered.

She adjusted the angle toward the sunlight again. Faint secondary markings slowly appeared beneath the darker visible lines. The room fell silent.

"There’s another map underneath this one," she murmured.

Li Chen moved beside her. "You can see that?"

"Barely." Her fingers traced lightly across the surface. "The visible routes are designed to mislead anyone reading it normally. But under direct light, the hidden markings align differently."

Mo Chen quickly shifted the blinds halfway closed, concentrating the sunlight. The effect became clearer at once. Thin hidden routes emerged beneath the upper markings — broken pathways, mountain intersections, directional symbols, and several strange coded markings that were almost invisible without light passing through the skin itself.

The office grew noticeably colder.

Li Chen exhaled slowly. "No wonder Chairman Su protected this thing personally."

Su Wan remained silent, her eyes fixed on the strange skin stretched across the table. None of this had existed in the original story she remembered. Not the mine. Not the hidden routes. Not this map made from human skin. Not the underground structures operating beneath the powerful families.

Which meant something increasingly dangerous could no longer be ignored: either the original plot had hidden far more than she realized, or her transmigration had already begun changing the world itself.

Su Wan’s words faded, leaving the room in heavy silence. Morning light continued to filter through the windows, casting a pale glow over the skin map stretched across the table like something exhumed rather than retrieved from a study.

The longer they stared at it, the more unsettling it became.