[Penthouse — Floor 99 — September 16, 7:24 PM]
The elevator doors opened to dead air.
Four hundred square meters of open living space spread out before them, bathed in the amber glow of city lights.
Floor-to-ceiling windows wrapped the entire floor in glass, and beyond them, the financial district sprawled below like a map. The tallest buildings in Jiangcheng barely reached halfway up to where they stood.
Their footsteps echoed on the hardwood as they stepped inside — too loud, the way sound always carried in places where no one lived. Everything was tasteful, everything curated, and none of it had ever been touched. A thin film of dust covered the kitchen counter, catching the amber light from the windows in a faint golden haze.
But the more Lin Feng looked at the space before him, the more he noticed something he couldn't quite believe.
Su Qingxue was staring at them from every corner of the room.
Or rather, pictures of her were.
A silver frame on the entry console, polished and positioned so it was the first thing anyone saw walking in. Another on the living room shelf.
The dining table, the side table by the couch, the kitchen counter half-hidden behind a jar, even the wall beside the staircase.
Framed photos — dozens of them — but every single one was the same woman, smiling from every surface like a gallery dedicated to a single subject.
What kind of lunatic was that Lin Feng?
Lin Feng dragged a hand down his face.
"What the—"
Lin Weiwei's face went white. Her throat worked once, hard, and her voice came out flat and controlled in the way that meant she was anything but.
"How many."
It wasn't a question.
Zhang Tingting sucked in a breath through her teeth. Her shoulders pulled up around her ears and her eyes darted across the frames — every single one exactly where she'd placed them two months ago.
Oh god, I forgot about these.
She didn't answer. She just moved — across to the entry console in three quick steps, picking up the silver frame and laying it face-down with a soft click of glass against wood.
Then the shelf — click.
Then the dining table — click.
Her hands were fast but not steady, and on the fourth frame she fumbled the edge and caught it against her hip before setting it down harder than she meant to.
Lin Weiwei grabbed the frame beside the staircase and flipped it hard enough to rattle the wood.
Then the side table — slap.
Then the kitchen counter — slap.
She moved through the space with sharp, clipped steps, each frame put down like she was hammering nails.
Xiao Yue looked at both of them, then at the living room shelf where three more frames sat in a neat row. She pulled her hair back over one shoulder and stepped forward.
"Looks like we're doing this first tonight."
She picked up the first one, set it face-down hard, and reached for the next without breaking stride.
They spread across the floor after that — three people dismantling a shrine without another word. Lin Feng opened the kitchen cabinet above the stove and found Su Qingxue in a sundress, tucked between two mugs.
Both mugs had her face imprinted on them, too.
He closed the cabinet.
I'm not even surprised anymore.
.......
While the three women gathered the frames into a large trash bag they'd found under the kitchen sink, Lin Feng lingered at the hallway entrance to the east wing, glanced both ways, and picked a direction.
The first door on the left opened to a guest bedroom — queen bed, floor-to-ceiling windows with curtains drawn, en-suite bathroom. The second was nearly identical. He tried the next door and found a study, then a powder room, then a storage closet that someone had stocked with folded linens.
Su Qingxue smiled at him from the nightstand in the first guest bedroom. He flipped it and kept moving.
She was on the study desk too, propped against a lamp. And in the powder room, taped to the mirror at eye level like a reminder to brush your teeth and think about the love of your life.
That man was clinically insane. He literally worshiped her like some goddess or something.
He climbed to floor 100.
He pushed open the double doors at the end of the hall and stopped. The master bedroom could have fit his room at the mansion twice over — a bed wide enough for four people, draped in grey linens that had never been slept in. He ran his hand across the duvet and his fingers left a trail in the dust.
The rooms branching off from the master suite were just as untouched. A second study with empty bookshelves. A sitting room where the cushions still held their factory creases. One room had nothing in it at all — just four walls and a window.
Then he found the walk-in closet. It ran the full length of one wall, fitted with racks and shelves and drawers, all sized and spaced for a woman's wardrobe.
Every shelf was bare.
Yet, in terms of Su Qingxue, it was far from empty. She was on the master bedroom nightstand, on the sitting room windowsill, and inside the walk-in closet, framed and hung on the wall like she was already there in spirit waiting for her clothes to arrive.
Lin Feng added them to the growing pile in his arms and kept climbing.
Past the master suite, a narrow staircase led upward to a door he hadn't noticed from below. He pushed it open with his elbow — arms still full of Su Qingxue — and stepped out.
The open sky hit him like cold water.
A rooftop structure sat above floor 100, a small housing unit with its own door and a compact living space visible through the windows. Beyond it, a swimming pool glittered under the early stars, its surface perfectly still, reflecting the moon in a bright oval that wavered in the evening breeze.
And beyond the pool — a helipad, marked with a faded H on concrete.
And lo and behold, Su Qingxue. This time printed on metal and bolted into the rooftop floor.
Dear heavens… what is wrong with that Lin Feng?
Lin Feng set two armfuls of frames down by the door and walked to the edge of the roof.
The wind hit him first. Sea wind — not the sheltered kind that moved between buildings at street level, but the real thing, coming straight off the sea with nothing between it and him but open air. It pulled at his sleeves and pressed cold against his chest.
He looked down. The nearest tower barely reached his waist from this angle, its roof a grey rectangle dotted with ventilation units. Beyond the city's edge, the sea stretched out in both directions — dark water catching moonlight in long silver streaks, curving with the coastline until it disappeared into the horizon.
Above him was nothing but the stars.
No adjacent buildings tall enough to see up here. Private airspace. One access point.
This isn't an apartment. It's a compound in the sky.
The moon hung directly ahead, bright and full and close enough to feel personal.
I truly am in an alien world.
He stood there for a moment longer, then turned and went back inside.
.......
[7:35 PM]
Lin Feng came down the staircase to floor 99, bringing two armfuls of Su Qingxue portraits with him. The sounds of the photo purge had migrated upstairs — frames clicking against wood somewhere above him. The three women were still working through floor 100.
He crossed the main hall toward the windows.
He didn't look at the walls. His eyes were already on the glass — on the city spread out below like a strategic map waiting to be read.
He stood near the cold window and looked down.
The financial district's towers clustered directly beneath him. He could see their rooftops — flat grey rectangles with elevator housings, radio towers and helipads.
The Zhao family's real estate empire. The Chen family's textiles conglomerate. The Shen family's entertainment industry. Three empires, all visible from one window.
And in the original novel, every single one of them falls. Not to war, not to competition — but to one man's bed. Their heiresses, their matriarchs, their wives, even their sisters, even my stepmother Jiang Mei. All of them drawn into Long Tian's orbit one by one, and their families' wealth following right behind them like dowry.
This penthouse was supposed to be part of that. The crown jewel of Jiangcheng, turned into the protagonist's personal whorehouse — and the four greatest families in the city reduced to his in-laws, too busy competing for his attention to notice he'd swallowed them whole.
No, that would be the wrong way to describe it. They allowed themselves to be swallowed by him whole.
He exhaled through his nose.
Brilliant, actually. If you're a bastard.
His eyes tracked back to the Zhao family's flagship tower directly below, their name blazing in neon across the rooftop.
Though the acquisition of this place is interesting. Why would the Zhao family — who rejected Lin Zhentian's marriage proposal, whose daughter screamed at the mere mention of his name — let him buy the two most valuable floors in their building?
Because they weren't selling him an apartment. They were handing him a noose. Forty million yuan from Lin Group shares — that idiot's stake in his own family's company, liquidated and transferred directly into Zhao family assets.
They didn't need to attack the Lin family. They just let the fool bleed himself dry and said thank you.
But that was that Lin Feng.
And I am not him.
He stared down at the rooftops of his rivals.
Three families. Three industries. Every marriage alliance blocked. Every daughter and wife and sister already marked as Long Tian's future conquests — whether they know it or not.
But those women aren't just prizes. Each one of them sits at the center of a family's power structure. Zhao Lingshuang is the sole heir. The Shen twins control their father's entertainment pipeline. Chen Rouya IS the Chen family — she runs it, not her husband.
Not to mention the lesser heroines still buried in those families, their vassal clans, and the underworld.
Long Tian doesn't see that. He sees beauty ratings and conquest targets. He collects women the way children collect trading cards — by rarity, not by what they can actually do.
And that's his weakness.
Lin Qingwan's voice from that early morning, crisp over the ruined doorway: "The ones I blame are still out there. And I haven't forgotten them."
Neither have I, sis.
Behind him, footsteps descended the staircase. Frames clicked softly upstairs. The apartment was coming alive — windows open, air moving, the shrine being dismantled room by room.
The old Lin Feng had nothing. An obsession. A bleeding bank account. A building full of photos of a woman who was never coming.
I have what he never did.
I have myself. I have Weiwei and Yue. I have a… my good sister Qingwan.
He could hear Zhang Tingting's voice on the floor above, saying something to Lin Weiwei about a frame wedged behind a dresser.
And from the looks of it, I also have Tingting on my side. She's a heroine too.
And I have this view.
His palm pressed harder against the glass.
The old me built this place for a woman who didn't want it.
I'll use it for something better.
And with them, we will take control of this city.
One industry at a time.
.......
He turned around, still carrying two armfuls of Su Qingxue's portraits.
Three pairs of eyes hit him at once.
Zhang Tingting, Lin Weiwei, and Xiao Yue stood in a loose semicircle near the main hall's interior wall. They had come down the stairs while he was at the window, finished with the upper floor, ready to regroup.
And they were staring at him with identical expressions of pure, undiluted disgust.
Lin Weiwei's gaze moved from the portraits in his arms to the wall behind him, then back to his face.
"Big Brother. You are literally holding her face while standing in front of her face." Her voice was flat. "Do you not see the problem here?"
What?
Lin Feng turned around.
The wall he'd walked past without a second glance. The wall he'd been standing with his back to for the last five minutes. The wall that occupied the entire central surface of the main hall, visible from the entrance, the staircase, and the kitchen.
Su Qingxue.
Painted floor to ceiling. A full mural, six meters wide, rendered in warm oils with gallery-level technique. She was smiling — that careful, composed smile from a thousand photos — except this one was permanent. Built into the architecture. Part of the building itself.
The portraits in his arms suddenly felt very heavy.
Zhang Tingting's hand came up to cover her mouth. Her face had gone red from the neck up. "So that's what the painter was for…"
She was staring at the mural the way someone stares at a car crash they caused.
"You hired a painter?" Lin Weiwei turned on her.
"He asked me to find someone who could do large-scale oil work." Zhang Tingting's voice was small. "He said it was for the living room. I thought — I don't know what I thought."
I didn't do this. That was the OTHER GUY. I've been inside this body for TWO DAYS.
Lin Feng opened his mouth to say something — anything — and realized there was absolutely nothing he could say. He closed it again.
Xiao Yue stepped forward and studied the mural with her arms crossed. She ran her eyes across the surface the way she'd run them across the building's load-bearing walls earlier — clinical, evaluating.
"That's oil paint on raw plaster." Her voice was flat and precise. "It's not coming off. Not tonight."
The kitchen was very quiet.
"We'll need someone here tomorrow to repaint the entire wall," she continued, already pulling out her phone. "White base coat, two layers minimum to cover the pigment. I'll make the call in the morning."
"And tonight?" Lin Weiwei asked, her jaw still tight.
Zhang Tingting was already moving. She turned on her heel, walked to the guest bedroom, and came back with two thick blankets folded over her arms. She knew the exact closet.
"Tonight we cover it."
Xiao Yue nodded once. She headed toward the utility area near the elevator bank — she'd spotted a step ladder on her way in — and came back carrying it one-handed.
Lin Weiwei looked at both of them. Looked at the mural. Then she walked to the elevator, pressed B, and disappeared.
She returned four minutes later carrying a power drill and a box of screws from the SUV's emergency kit.
Zhang Tingting held the blanket up against the wall. Xiao Yue steadied the ladder. Lin Weiwei raised the drill.
BRRRT.
The first screw bit into plaster and anchored the blanket's corner to the wall. The sound echoed through the empty apartment like a gunshot.
BRRRT. Second screw. Upper right.
BRRRT. Third. Center top.
Not tape. Not pins. Not thumbtacks.
Screws.
They worked in silence after that. Zhang Tingting positioned the blankets — she knew the wall dimensions, knew how much fabric was needed. Xiao Yue held the ladder steady and passed tools when needed. Lin Weiwei drove every screw herself, each one sunk into the plaster with more force than was strictly necessary.
In six minutes, Su Qingxue's face disappeared behind two layers of thick grey fabric, anchored to the wall at twelve points.
Lin Weiwei lowered the drill and stared at the covered wall, breathing harder than the work justified. Xiao Yue folded the step ladder and returned it to the utility area. Zhang Tingting smoothed a wrinkle from the blanket's edge.
After that, nobody said a word.
.......
[7:42 PM]
"I'll cook."
All three women said it within two seconds of each other.
Lin Feng looked at them. Zhang Tingting, sleeves already pushed up. Lin Weiwei, moving toward the fridge she'd never opened. Xiao Yue, scanning the counter layout with the efficiency of someone optimizing a workspace.
"Tingting cooks."
Lin Weiwei's head turned. "Why her?"
"Because she's a chef." Lin Feng said it simply. "Her family runs a noodle shop. She's been cooking there since she was twelve."
The logic was bulletproof. Lin Weiwei looked at Zhang Tingting — at the calloused hands, the practical ponytail, the way she'd already located a cutting board — and couldn't argue.
"Fine." Lin Weiwei's tone was clipped but not hostile. "But we're staying in the kitchen."
"Of course," Xiao Yue said, already pulling a stool to the kitchen island.
Then she paused, her eyes dropping to Lin Feng's arms.
"Are you planning to hold onto those all night?"
Lin Feng looked down. He was still carrying the last two armfuls of Su Qingxue's portraits, clutched against his chest like a man who'd forgotten he was holding a bomb.
Lin Weiwei pinched the bridge of her nose. "Big Brother. Put. Them. Down."
He walked to the hallway near the elevator door and stopped. Trash bags lined both sides of the corridor — dozens of them, black plastic bulging with frames and glass, stacked two and three high against the walls. The hallway looked like a scene from one of those hoarding intervention shows, except instead of old newspapers and cat toys, it was all one woman's face.
This is genuinely disturbing.
He added the portraits to the nearest bag, face-down, and walked back to the kitchen without looking at them again.
When he reached the island, something on the countertop caught his eye.
A small pile of electronic components sat in a neat cluster near the edge — tiny circuits, wires no thicker than a hair, and what looked like miniature microphones, all carefully extracted and laid out like a dissected insect collection.
He knew exactly what they were.
"We swept the apartment while you were on your little tour," Lin Weiwei said, leaning back on her stool with her arms crossed. There was a note of pride in her voice she wasn't bothering to hide. "Fifty devices. Light fixtures, power outlets, behind mirrors, inside the ventilation grates — everywhere."
"I also cut several anomalous wiring runs," Xiao Yue added from the end of the island. "Hardwired feeds disguised as building infrastructure. Whoever installed them knew what they were doing."
Lin Feng looked at the pile of extracted electronics on the counter. Fifty bugs in a penthouse that nobody lived in.
So they've been casting their nets over this place all along.
"This place is clean now," Lin Weiwei said. Then her expression soured. "Except for that... abomination on the rooftop."
"The metal one," Xiao Yue said. Her tone could have frozen the kitchen sink.
"Bolted into the floor," Lin Weiwei muttered, shaking her head.
"I'll deal with that one myself tomorrow." Xiao Yue's voice was flat and final, the way someone sounded when they'd already picked the tool and were just waiting for daylight. "It's coming off if I have to bring an angle grinder."
Zhang Tingting opened the fridge — still fully stocked, just as it had been when she'd checked it on the way in. She pulled out vegetables, eggs, and a wrapped cut of pork, setting them on the counter without comment.
Nobody asked who had filled it. At this point, the answer was obvious.
This'll work.
She started a pot of rice and began prepping vegetables while the other three settled around the kitchen island. Lin Weiwei perched on her stool across from Lin Feng. Xiao Yue took the end seat, back straight, hands folded.
The kitchen filled with small sounds — the hiss of the rice cooker, the rhythmic tap of Zhang Tingting's knife against the cutting board, oil heating in a pan. The first real sounds this apartment had ever held.
For a moment, nobody spoke. The mural was covered. The photos were down. The bugs were out. The windows were open and the evening air moved through the space like it was learning how to breathe again.
Then Xiao Yue set her hands flat on the counter.
"So." Her eyes fixed on Lin Feng. "The moon."
Lin Weiwei straightened on her stool.
Zhang Tingting's knife paused mid-cut.
"Why were you talking about going to the moon?"
The question hung in the kitchen air, mixed with the smell of heating oil and rice steam. Three faces — Zhang Tingting from behind the cutting board, Lin Weiwei from across the island, Xiao Yue from the end — all turned toward Lin Feng.
Waiting.
.......
Xiao Yue's hands stayed flat on the counter. Her posture was straight, her expression composed, her eyes fixed on Lin Feng like she was waiting for an equation to resolve.
She's not asking about the moon.
Lin Feng leaned back on his stool and let her gaze sit. The rice cooker clicked softly behind Zhang Tingting, and oil hissed in the pan — small sounds filling the space between the question and whatever came next.
At the lake, I asked Tingting what they want. What they would do if I wasn't in the picture.
And now she's turning it around. What do I want from them.
He looked at Xiao Yue — at the careful blankness she'd arranged on her face, the fingers pressed just slightly too hard against the countertop. Then at Lin Weiwei, who'd stopped pretending to examine her nails and was watching him with that dangerous older-sister alertness.
If I say something about them, it'll sound like the hallway all over again. Another restaurant order.
But the truth is…
"Nobody's been there," Lin Feng said.
Xiao Yue blinked.
"You told me at the lake — launches failed, the treaty froze everything, nobody's even tried in centuries." He rubbed the back of his neck and looked toward the windows, where the city lights were sharpening against the dark. "And everyone just... accepted it. Like the sky has a ceiling and that's fine."
He paused. Dropped his hand.
"It's not fine. I don't know why yet. But it bothers me."
The oil popped in the pan. Zhang Tingting's knife had stopped mid-cut, a thin slice of ginger hanging from the blade.
Xiao Yue studied him for a long moment. Her lips parted once, closed, then parted again.
"That's what you've been thinking about? Since the park?"
"Yeah."
Lin Weiwei's stool scraped against the floor as she shifted forward. "Big Brother, why does that matter? Nobody goes to the moon. Nobody needs to go to the moon. It's just — it's up there."
"But why not?" Lin Feng turned to her. "You're a computer science student. Doesn't it bother you that there's a wall you can't get past?"
Lin Weiwei opened her mouth, closed it, and looked away.
"... Of course it does."
The admission came out grudging, almost angry. She folded her arms and looked away.
"The hardware crashes. Every two months, sometimes weeks, even days. Memory errors that corrupt entire builds. I've lost — you don't even want to know how many hours I've lost to hardware failures." Her fingers dug into her own sleeves. "The software side is fine. Better than fine. I could build things that would—"
She stopped herself. Shook her head.
"It doesn't matter. The hardware won't hold it. It's like trying to paint a masterpiece on wet paper. The paper keeps falling apart."
"And nobody knows why?" Lin Feng asked.
"Nobody knows why," Xiao Yue answered from the end of the counter, quiet but precise. "That's the real problem. It's not that we can't fix it — it's that nobody understands what's breaking it in the first place."
She leaned forward, her elbows finding the counter.
"I've read every published study on microtransistor degradation. Same ancient papers citing the same ancient papers, all of them over a thousand years old."
She gestured with one hand, a rare show of frustration.
"I've even built circuits in my spare time — different shielding configurations, different layouts, different materials. Same results every time. Same degradation patterns that were documented a millennium ago."
Her hand dropped.
"The research is dead. And the treaty made sure no one would ever write new ones."
"Micro— what did you call them?" Lin Feng caught himself a beat late.
"Microtransistors." Xiao Yue glanced at him. "The components inside electronics. The smallest functional unit of a circuit. You really didn't pay attention in school, did you?"
"I really didn't."
Lin Weiwei snorted. "He spent four years staring at one woman instead of a textbook. Of course he doesn't know what a microtransistor is."
The jab should have stung. Instead, Lin Feng just nodded once and turned back to Xiao Yue.
"So how small can you make them?"
Xiao Yue's jaw tightened — not at him, at the answer.
"Two hundred and forty nanometers. That's the limit. We've been stuck there for one thousand four hundred years."
"One thousand four hundred years?"
"Give or take." Xiao Yue spread her hands flat on the counter again.
"Every attempt to go smaller failed. The circuits became unpredictable — random errors, system crashes, total breakdowns."
She shook her head.
"Nobody ever figured out why that specific size was the barrier. And then the treaty made sure nobody ever would."
Lin Feng kept his face still and his voice even.
"And the space program — the electronics dying at altitude. Is that the same problem?"
"Similar," Xiao Yue said. Something in her posture shifted — straighter, more engaged, the Business Management major disappearing behind the girl who read research papers at midnight.
"Different expression of it. At ground level, electronics degrade slowly. At altitude — around sixty or seventy kilometers — they just die."
Her voice went flat.
"Total systems failure. Every launch. No exceptions."
"Big Brother, this is basic stuff," Lin Weiwei cut in. She'd leaned forward on her elbows now, mirroring Xiao Yue without noticing. "Everyone learns this in middle school. The technology freeze, the failed launches, the—"
"I know. I was a terrible student." Lin Feng held up both hands. "Humor me."
Lin Weiwei huffed but didn't stop. "Fine. The point is, the hardware is broken and nobody can fix it. So we build around it. Redundant systems, constant backups, error correction. My entire field exists because the hardware can't be trusted."
"And that doesn't make you angry?"
"It makes me furious."
The word came out harder than she'd intended. Her cheeks colored slightly, and she pulled back on her stool.
From behind the cutting board, Zhang Tingting cleared her throat.
"My phone is three years old and the screen glitches three times a day." She was slicing ginger again, steady and even. "My dad says his generation's phones lasted three years too. My grandpa's? Same thing."
She shrugged without looking up. "I don't know anything about microtransistors. But even regular people notice."
The pan sizzled as she slid the ginger in. The kitchen filled with a sharp, clean fragrance that cut through the stale air of the apartment.
"We even have frozen dumplings here," Lin Weiwei said, looking at the contents of the fridge.
Zhang Tingting walked over, took the container from her, and popped the lid. She looked at the dumplings for two seconds and closed it.
"I'll make fresh ones."
"You don't have to—"
"The quality of this one isn't that good already." She was already pulling flour from the pantry. "Store-bought wrappers are too thick. They don't crisp right."
She started working dough — measuring by feel, adding water in a thin stream. Her other hand reached back to adjust the heat under the vegetables without looking.
"Medium heat, lid on for four minutes, then lid off to crisp the bottom," she said, more to herself than anyone. "The wrapper has to be thin enough to blister but strong enough to hold the filling. Pork and chive, if there's chive."
She opened the fridge, found chive, and pulled it out without breaking stride.
Lin Weiwei's eyebrows rose. Xiao Yue's mouth twitched at the corner — not quite a smile, but close.
Zhang Tingting had already turned back to the counter, knife moving through the chive in quick, even cuts, each piece exactly the same length.
She was talking about filling ratios when Lin Feng stopped hearing her.
This is very interesting. A technology ceiling. Research restrictions. Hardware degradation. Space barrier. They all look so random.
Yet somewhat… connected?
What is going on here?
Those are the problems. But problems need resources to solve.
What resources do I have?
Actually, that's not the right question. A better question is…
What exactly does the Lin Group actually DO?
Zhang Tingting was saying something about sesame oil when Lin Feng turned to Lin Weiwei.
"Weiwei."
Something in his voice made her straighten.
"What does the Lin family actually do?"
The kitchen went quiet. Even the dumplings seemed to stop sizzling.
Lin Weiwei stared at him. Her lips parted, but nothing came out. Then her brow creased — not in anger, not in confusion, but in something that sat between the two and couldn't decide which one to become.
Big Brother… he actually finally asked this question.
But…
She looked around — first to Xiao Yue, then to Zhang Tingting, and finally back to Lin Feng.
At the end of the counter, Xiao Yue's eyes moved from Lin Feng to Lin Weiwei, reading the silence between them.
Zhang Tingting held a spatula in mid-air, forgotten.
The question hung over the kitchen island like the last frame of a chapter that refused to turn.
.......
[Zhang Tingting] ★☆☆☆☆☆☆ (1-Star Heroine)
├─ Previous: 12
└─ Current: 10 (-2)
[End of Chapter 34]