The teahouse was an island of curated tranquility amidst the churning, neon-lit chaos of the capital's central district.
Inside a private room tucked away from the prying eyes of the paparazzi, the steam from a pot of tea rose in delicate, spectral curls between Assistant Han and Chen Ying.
Assistant Han watched her with the clinical, unblinking eye of a man who had spent a decade filtering lies for the Yang family. He was looking for a crack, a tremor, or a hint of the "villainous bully" Wang Bai had described.
But as he observed Chen Ying, he felt a deepening sense of unease. She sat with a spine of tempered steel and an effortless, quiet grace that even rivaled those of the Hidden Families.
He was already half-convinced that the girl currently residing in the Yang manor was nothing more than a ghost of a fraud, but he needed the cold truth before he could move against her.
