Outside Meilkes Hotel - 5:30 PM

Bai Liang's fingers trembled as she dialed, her voice sharp with desperation when Shen Ji answered.

"Come and get your fiancée," she hissed into the phone. "She's in there with Lu Rowan."

There was a pause on the other end, then Shen Ji's laugh—confident, dismissive. "Bai, you're being dramatic. Mei wants to scare us, that's all. Lu Rowan could never be involved with someone like her. She's nothing—a charity case playing dress-up."

"I saw them together! He was holding her hand, treating her like—"

"Like what? Like she matters?" Shen Ji's voice carried cruel amusement. "Come home with me. We'll wait for her there. When she realizes her little tantrum isn't working, she'll come crawling back."

Bai Liang stared up at the hotel's glittering windows, her reflection fractured in the glass. Something cold settled in her stomach, but she forced herself to believe Shen Ji's confidence.

"Fine," she said, but her voice cracked slightly. "We'll wait."

Meilkes Hotel, Penthouse Suite - 8:30 PM (Previous Evening)

The room service cart held two glasses and a bottle of wine that Lu Rowan had ordered without asking her preference. Mei sat curled in the corner of the plush sofa, her legs tucked beneath her like a small animal seeking shelter.

"You don't have to drink it," Lu Rowan said quietly, noting how she held the glass but didn't lift it to her lips. "I just thought... after today..."

"I've never had wine before," Mei said, her voice barely above a whisper. She took a small sip and made a face. "It tastes like sadness."

The observation was so unexpected, so strangely poetic, that Lu Rowan paused with his own glass halfway to his mouth. "Sadness?"

"Bitter, but in a way that makes you want more of it." She took another sip, studying the liquid like it held secrets. "Like how some people stay in situations that hurt them because at least the pain is familiar."

Lu Rowan watched her carefully. There was something fragile about the way she moved, the way she seemed to expect the world to strike at any moment. "Is that what you've been doing? Staying because the pain was familiar?"

Mei was quiet for so long he thought she wouldn't answer. When she finally spoke, her voice was distant, dreamlike. "Do you know what it's like to be grateful for scraps? To convince yourself that cruelty is kindness because it's wrapped in a roof over your head?"

"Mei..."

"I used to have a little music box," she continued, as if he hadn't spoken. "My parents gave it to me before they died. It played 'Für Elise' and had a tiny ballerina that spun. Mrs. Liang gave it to my cousin when I was eight because she said it was 'taking up space' in my drawer."

She took another sip of wine, and Lu Rowan noticed her hands weren't shaking anymore. "I cried for three days. But then I told myself I was being ungrateful. That I should be thankful they let me keep anything at all."

"That's not gratitude," Mei said, her voice rough. "That was survival."

Mei looked at him then, really looked at him, and he saw something in her eyes that made his chest tighten. "Sometimes I forget there's a difference."

They sat in silence as the city lights twinkled below them. Lu Rowan found himself wanting to ask a hundred questions, to understand every hurt that had taught her to make herself so small. But something told him that pushing would only make her retreat further into herself.

"The wine isn't so bad now," she said eventually, and when she smiled, it was the first genuine expression he'd seen from her.

6:45 AM - The Next Morning

Mei's eyes opened slowly, consciousness returning like a gentle tide. Warmth surrounded her, and for a moment she couldn't remember where she was. Then she turned her head and froze.

Lu Rowan was sleeping beside her on top of the covers, still fully clothed in yesterday's shirt and trousers. His face was peaceful in sleep, the sharp edges of his usual intensity softened. His dark hair had fallen across his forehead, and she had the strangest urge to brush it away.

He was really handsome, she realized, heat flooding her cheeks. Not just in the polished, corporate way she'd noticed before, but in a way that made her stomach flutter with unfamiliar warmth. The strong line of his jaw, the way his lashes cast shadows on his cheekbones, the slight part of his lips as he breathed.He was perfectly handsome and it made her blush

She knew she had a lot to handle today.

Her phone showed more than twenty missed calls: Shen Ji, Mrs. Liang, Bai Liang. The digital evidence of their fury glowed on the screen, but for once, their anger didn't make her smaller.

She found a hotel notepad and wrote carefully:

If you can't find me on the phone in 2hours, come to The Woods House Number 202, Phase 2. If they say I am not there, check the basement and you will find me in the room next to the toilet.

She left her number at the bottom and placed the note where Lu Rowan would see it.

Before she lost her courage, she walked out of the suite and into the morning that would change everything.

Lu Rowan's Suite - 7:15 AM

Lu Rowan found the note and read it twice, his blood chilling at the casual way she'd written about being locked in a basement room "next to the toilet."

"Arthur," he called, his voice tight with controlled fury.

His assistant appeared immediately, coffee in hand. "Boss?"

"What kind of family locks someone in a basement?" Lu Rowan's hands shook slightly as he held the note. "Next to the toilet, Arthur. She wrote it like it was normal."

Arthur's face darkened as he read. "We're going there now."

"In two hours, she said. She wants time to face them first." Lu Rowan's jaw clenched. "But if she's not out in exactly two hours..."

"We'll tear that place apart boss," Arthur finished grimly.

The Woods Residence - 8:00 AM

The front door of the Liang house stood like a gateway to hell. Mei paused before it, her hand on the brass handle, remembering every time she'd walked through this door as a frightened child, a grateful teenager, a broken young woman.

Today, she was someone else entirely.

She stepped inside.

The slap came before she even saw Mrs. Liang move. The crack echoed through the marble foyer like a gunshot, sending Mei stumbling sideways, her cheek exploding in fire.

"You ungrateful whore!" Mrs. Liang's voice was a shriek that bounced off the cathedral ceilings. "Sleeping with men outside—not any man, but your cousin's fiancé!"

Mr. Liang emerged from his study, his face carved from stone, more furious than she'd ever seen him. "We are busy with your wedding arrangements, and you're destroying our family's reputation!"

Shen Ji stood near Bai Liang, pacing like a caged animal, his face twisted with humiliation. "Did you think you could embarrass me? Make me look like a fool?"

Bai Liang's eyes were red-rimmed with tears of rage. "How could you do this to me? To us? After everything we've given you!"

The accusations came like physical blows, each voice overlapping the next in a fury that would have broken the old Mei but this Mei right here was the one who had chosen her own husband now, who had tasted freedom briefly she stood straighter with each attack.

"I slept with him," she said quietly.

The words cut through their shouting like a blade through silk. Silence crashed down on the room.

Mrs. Liang's face went white, then purple. "You what?"

"I slept with Lu Rowan yesterday . It's done."

The explosion that followed was volcanic. Mrs. Liang lunged forward, her hands reaching for Mei's throat, but Mr. Liang caught her wrists.

"You lying little bitch!" she screamed. "You can't! What about the contracts with Shen Ji's family"

"You can marry Bai Liang to him and it's a win to him because he likes her ," Mei said with devastating calm. "I'm no longer available for arranged marriage. I belong to someone else now."

Shen Ji's face contorted with rage. "This is impossible. Lu Rowan would never want someone like you"

“You saw for yourself yesterday”she said looking at Bia Liang

The silence that followed was so complete Mei could hear her own heartbeat. Then, like a dam breaking, chaos erupted.

Mrs. Liang broke free from her husband's grip and struck Mei again, harder this time, sending her crashing into the wall. "You've destroyed everything! Everything we built!"

"Twenty years!" Mr. Liang's voice boomed like thunder. "Twenty years we fed you, clothed you, gave you a life, and this is how you repay us?"

Bai Liang's sobs turned louder. "He was supposed to be mine! Mine!"

Through the pain, through the screaming, Mei felt something she'd never experienced before: the intoxicating power of having nothing left to lose.

"Take her," Mr. Liang commanded, his voice deadly quiet now. "Lock her in the basement."

As rough hands grabbed her arms, as she was dragged toward the door that led to her childhood prison, Mei smiled.

Because in exactly one hour and forty-three minutes, Lu Rowan would come for her.

And this time, she wouldn't be alone.

The basement door slammed shut and in the darkness, Mei began to count down to her freedom.