She sat in the underground parking garage of the hospital for ten minutes before finally driving to the apartment she had rented temporarily in the western part of the city.
It was where she had stayed before returning to the Shen family. The apartment was on a high floor, had an excellent view, and the security wasn’t bad.
Most importantly…
No one knew she lived there.
But the moment she parked in the underground garage, she spotted a familiar black Bentley parked nearby.
Ye Chen was leaning against the driver’s door, looking as though he’d been waiting for quite some time.
The moment he saw her get out of the car, he straightened immediately.
His expression was far more complicated than before.
Gone was the arrogant confidence he had worn just two days ago.
“You’ve been following me?” Shen Nian asked calmly as she locked her car.
“I just wanted to talk.”
“There’s nothing for us to talk about.”
She walked past him.
Ye Chen hurried after her, stepping in front of her path.
“I heard what happened with the system last night.”
“So?”
“Shen Nian…”
“Who are you, really?”
The moment the words left his mouth, even he thought they sounded ridiculous.
Until yesterday, Shen Nian had been nothing more than the Shen family’s long-lost biological daughter in his eyes—a girl who had grown up outside the family. Even if she was a little sharp-tongued, he had assumed it was simply because she resented her circumstances.
But things were different now.
A woman who could steady the situation while the old madam’s life hung in the balance…
A woman who could connect directly to the Shen Group’s core system from a hospital room and stop a cyberattack…
There was no way she was as ordinary as she appeared.
Not to mention…
That name on the pop-up window.
Zero.
Even the Ye family’s cybersecurity team had spoken of that name.
“What does that have to do with you?”
Shen Nian looked at him coolly.
Her gaze made something tighten in his chest.
He had never taken her seriously before.
Yet now, standing in front of him without doing anything extraordinary, she gave him a feeling he couldn’t grasp.
“I’m only trying to warn you.”
His tone hardened slightly, as though he still refused to lower his pride.
“Having an identity like Zero isn’t a good thing. If you really are Zero, there’ll be plenty of people coming after you.”
“Are you warning me…”
“…or reminding yourself not to underestimate someone again?”
Shen Nian pressed the elevator button without sparing him another glance.
“Ye Chen, you’re not here because you’re worried something might happen to me.”
“You only realized that the woman you tried to throw away like garbage yesterday…”
“…might be worth far more than you ever imagined.”
The words struck with merciless accuracy.
For a moment, Ye Chen’s expression became unbearably ugly.
But he couldn’t deny it.
“So Young Master Ye finally learned how to care about someone?”
A faint smile curved Shen Nian’s lips.
“Too bad.”
“You’re too late.”
Ye Chen frowned.
“Do you have to be so absolute?”
“What else would you have me do?”
She walked around him.
“Should I thank you for bringing your lawyer yesterday to break off the engagement?”
His face stiffened.
“What happened yesterday… I acted impulsively.”
“No.”
Shen Nian finally stopped and looked back at him.
“You simply thought I’d be easy to get rid of.”
“So why are you here now?”
“What do you want?”
“I…”
He stopped.
Because even he couldn’t answer that question.
Had he come to find out how many cards she still held?
Or simply to salvage a situation that was slipping completely out of his control?
Seeing his silence, Shen Nian stepped into the elevator.
Just before the doors closed, Ye Chen thrust out his hand to stop them.
“Shen Nian.”
“What happened in the garden last night…”
“Wan’er and I…”
“It wasn’t what you think.”
Shen Nian smiled.
“Does explaining that now change anything?”
“It does.”
“For you, maybe.”
The elevator doors slowly closed, leaving Ye Chen’s troubled face outside.
The first thing Shen Nian did after returning to her apartment was turn on her computer.
The silence tonight was too abnormal.
Qin Shuya had just suffered a setback.
Another lead connected to Gu Chengshan had been exposed.
There was no way they would simply sit still.
The moment she connected to her monitoring system, an alert suddenly appeared in the corner of the screen.
Someone was probing the ports on her computer.
So they’d finally come.
A cold glint flashed across Shen Nian’s eyes.
Her fingers flew across the keyboard.
Within seconds, she had reversed the probe and traced its route back.
The result surprised her.
It wasn’t Gu Chengshan’s people.
It originated from inside the Shen residence.
More specifically…
It was Shen Wan’er’s tablet.
She was searching through Shen Nian’s old IP records.
Leaning back in her chair, Shen Nian slowly smiled.
The fake heiress really wouldn’t give up until she hit the wall.
She tapped a few keys and slipped directly into the tablet’s cloud synchronization.
The next second, files flooded the screen.
Secretly recorded videos.
Chat screenshots.
Tutorials on editing hidden-camera footage.
There was even a memo boldly titled:
“Plan for Dealing with Big Sister After She Comes Home.”
The first item read:
1. Cry first, so everyone thinks Big Sister is rejecting me.
The second:
2. Get Brother Ye Chen on my side and have him publicly support me.
The third:
3. If she asks about the jade pendant, say Mom gave it to me.
There was even a fourth and fifth item.
The fourth read:
If Grandma changes her attitude, act weak first, then ask Aunt for help.
The fifth was even more despicable:
If necessary, use Aunt Su’s situation to provoke Dad.
After reading everything, even the faint smile on Shen Nian’s lips disappeared.
She wasn’t surprised.
She was disgusted.
Continuing through the synchronized files, she soon found a video saved earlier that morning.
In it, Shen Wan’er sat in her room crying during a video call.
The person on the other side never fully appeared on camera.
Only part of her chin…
And a pearl earring.
Qin Shuya.
“Mom can barely protect me anymore.”
Shen Wan’er sobbed uncontrollably.
“Grandma wants to throw me out of the main house, and Brother Ye Chen is starting to waver…”
“Auntie, what should I do?”
“What are you panicking for?”
Qin Shuya remained as composed as ever.
“You can give up the house for now.”
“The bank cards can be frozen.”
“The more difficult things become, the more you need everyone to see you as sensible, pitiful, and innocent.”
“But Shen Nian has already started investigating…”
“Let her.”
Qin Shuya sneered.
“The more she uncovers…”
“…the sooner she’ll die.”
The video ended there.
Shen Nian stared at the final sentence for several seconds.
The warmth vanished completely from her eyes.
She compressed the entire video together with the memo and the secretly recorded footage into one encrypted file.
Tomorrow…
They would all come in handy.
Before she could shut down the computer, the doorbell rang.
At this hour, no one would come without a reason.
Shen Nian walked to the door and looked through the peephole.
It was Shen Yanzhou.
She opened the door.
He stood outside with his suit jacket draped over one arm.
His face looked exhausted.
He had clearly been running all day without rest.
“How did you know I was here?” she asked.
“I checked your license plate.”
“It wasn’t difficult.”
He glanced at her.
“I’m not here to drag you back.”
“Then why are you here?”
“To give you this.”
He handed her a kraft paper envelope.
Inside was a set of apartment keys…
…and an access card.
“The apartment in the southern district.”
“It’s close to both the company and the hospital.”
His tone remained stiff.
“It’s empty anyway.”
“You can stay there for now.”
Then he took out another note listing the address and entrance codes.
“I replaced all the security guards downstairs.”
“I’ve also informed property management.”
“They won’t let strangers upstairs.”
After a brief pause, he added,
“If you need anything else…”
“Just tell me.”
This was no longer simply about offering her a place to stay.
It felt more like an attempt to make up for every time he had stood on the wrong side.
Shen Nian looked at him but didn’t take the envelope.
“What does this mean?”
“It doesn’t mean anything.”
Shen Yanzhou clearly wasn’t good at this sort of thing.
Even his voice sounded awkward.
“The old residence isn’t safe anymore.”
“Only now?”
She looked up at him.
His expression froze.
After a long pause, he answered quietly,
“…Maybe it never was.”
“We just never saw it.”
“So your conscience finally caught up with you?”
Her words left him speechless.
After a while, he said quietly,
“What happened at the gate last night…”
“I didn’t handle it well.”
It wasn’t quite an apology.
But it was very close.
Shen Nian didn’t make things harder for him.
She accepted the keys and set them on the shoe cabinet.
“Anything else?”
“Yes.”
Shen Yanzhou looked directly at her.
“I’ve suppressed the news about Zero.”
“Only the people in the hospital room know.”
“But I won’t be able to keep it quiet for long.”
“Then don’t.”
“Do you know what that means?”
“It means a lot of people will start reevaluating me.”
She met his eyes.
“And it also means…”
“…the Shen family can no longer treat me like some ignorant burden who doesn’t understand anything.”
She spoke calmly.
As though she were merely stating an undeniable fact.
This time, Shen Yanzhou didn’t argue.
He simply stood there looking at her for a long moment.
For the first time, he truly understood…
His sister had never returned hoping to be accepted.
She had come back…
To overturn the entire game.
After a moment of silence, he nodded.
“You’re right.”
His agreement actually caught Shen Nian by surprise.
“There’s one more thing,” he said.
“The board is holding an emergency meeting tomorrow.”
“People from Lu Capital will be there too.”
“The Lu family?”
“The new partner for the Yunqi Harbor project.”
He paused.
“The man leading the delegation is Lu Chengyan.”
“He’s not easy to deal with.”
Shen Nian silently committed the name to memory.
Her expression remained unchanged.
After Shen Yanzhou left, she sat back down in front of her computer and replayed the secretly recorded video.
The half-hidden pearl earring.
The familiar voice.
And the words—
The more she uncovers, the sooner she’ll die.
They lodged in her mind like a thorn.
Just as she was about to shut down her computer, a new email appeared.
Sender: Unknown
The attachment contained only four words.
One Old Photograph
Shen Nian opened it.
The photograph showed a young man wearing a white shirt standing at the end of a hospital corridor.
He was turning his head toward someone outside the frame.
Outside the picture, only a hand braced against the wall was visible.
Half of the wrist could be seen.
There was a faint old wound along the wrist bone.
It belonged to Su Lan.
More importantly…
In the lower-right corner was a timestamp.
Three days before Su Lan disappeared.
On the back of the photograph was a string of handwritten numbers.
They could have been a hospital room number.
Or perhaps an archive reference.
Shen Nian copied the numbers down.
Her instincts told her they weren’t left there by accident.
She enlarged the photograph once more.
The younger Gu Chengshan stood calmly at the end of the hallway, his collar slightly open.
He didn’t look like someone passing by.
He looked like someone waiting.
Meanwhile, outside the frame, Su Lan was supporting herself against the wall.
The injury on her wrist still looked fresh.
It wasn’t the kind of wound caused by bumping into something.
It looked more like the mark left behind after a struggle.
Shen Nian stared silently at the screen.
Her chest tightened.
If this photograph hadn’t been taken by chance…
Then who had taken it?
Why send it to her only now?
More importantly…
Whose side was that person on?
Night gradually settled outside the window.
The apartment was so quiet that the only sound was the soft hum of the computer’s cooling fan.
Leaning back in her chair, Shen Nian tapped the desk thoughtfully before finally saving the string of numbers in a separate encrypted folder.
Starting tomorrow…
She would be investigating more than just Gu Chengshan.
She would also begin searching for the mysterious person who had been hiding in the shadows, quietly feeding her clues.
And she had a feeling…
That person wasn’t far from the Shen family.
They might even have been right under her nose all along.
Tomorrow…
She would personally pull on that thread until the truth came loose.
After archiving all the files on her computer, she added another layer of proxy routing to every surveillance camera inside and outside the apartment.
By the time she finished, dawn was almost breaking.
Traffic on the elevated highway outside gradually increased.
The eastern sky slowly brightened.
The city was waking up.
But Shen Nian knew…
It wasn’t the city that had truly awakened.
It was the game itself.
Ye Chen’s late-night visit hadn’t been about explaining himself.
Shen Yanzhou hadn’t offered her an apartment simply out of guilt.
And the secretly recorded videos and contingency plans on Shen Wan’er’s tablet certainly weren’t the foolish antics of a naive young woman.
Everyone had begun to make their move.
And only now did Shen Nian truly realize…
That one more step forward would take her straight into the filthiest secrets the Shen family had buried for years.
But she wasn’t afraid.
She had never feared filth.
What she feared…
Was filth remaining buried for so long that, in the end, she would no longer know where to drive the knife.
Now…
The knife was already in her hand.
All that remained…
Was to find the first person who truly deserved its edge.
And she would.
Very soon.
Then she would cut straight through them.
Without mercy.
Without looking back.
Not even one step.
Never.
Not once.
Never again.