SHEN YICHENG & LIN JINGXU BEDROOM (SHEN RESIDENCE) : TIME 7 AM.
Morning arrived without any chaotic ceremony from the previous night breakdown.
It didn't announce itself with pain or fear, but with something quieter - and far more threatening. Imbalance.
Lin Jingxu startled awake with the familiar heaviness in her chest, the kind that made the breath arrive half a second late, as though her body hesitated before deciding wether effort was worth it. Pale light passed through the edges of the curtains, outlining the furniture in blurred shapes in the lines of her vision. She remained still longer than usual, listening. Her heartbeat sounded too loud in the quiet room.
When instinct finally kicked in her, it was slower than she had thought. Her hand reached towards the bedside table, fingers brushing the smooth plastic of the pill organiser prepared for her by her husband in the timely manner since the start of the decade long illness she has been fighting for her family before her eyes fully opened with a sharp gasp from the pain.
It sat where it always did. Yesterday compartment was still untouched. Her chest tightened - not sharply, but with dull ache and certainty of consequences. She closed her eyes slowly trying to curb the pain.
The events of previous night along with the past returned in fragments: the documents folded with care, the conversation she hadn't intended to have, the understanding that had settled too deeply to allow to follow the routine. She remembered standing there with the pills in her palm, thinking nothing dramatic.
Just tonight.
Just once.
She hadn't felt like a rebellion. She had felt like laying something down.
When she tried to sit up, the effort failed halfway, the room tilted sharply, the edges of her vision darkening as if the dark curtains were being drawn. Her fingers clenched tightly in the sheets trying to gain the strength, but it abandoned her without any warning, and she slid back against the headboard, breath breaking unevenly. Her lungs refused to follow the rhythm.
"Yicheng --"
The voice never left her throat.
RETROSPECTIVE - THE NIGHT BEFORE
Shen Yicheng had woken sometime past three.
There was no nightmare to blame- only a shallow restless awareness that refused to allow him to sleep again. The fear of losing someone who had become the anchor of his family, a light in his dark life. The space beside him remained undisturbed, her breathing faint but uneven, and he didn't risk turning over to look. Experience had taught him that watching made restraint harder. By the fourth time he checked the clock, he gave up sleeping.
The light in the study room was switched on without any ceremony. A stack of documents waited for him, where his secretary had left them, tagged and prioritised, matters requiring his personal authorisation before morning. Overseas contracts, financing adjustments, contingency approvals that couldn't afford delay. He started working with the pen in hand.
For the initial time, progress was steady enough. His signature flowed where it was required like it always did. Figures were reviewed, margins recalculated. Yet the father into the paperwork he went, the less he became focused. His eyes caught the patterns before his mind did - and then inevitably, the past followed.
The crisis hadn't come immediately after their marriage, they were slow, and deliberate approximately two years after their marriage. That was what made it dangerous.
At the time, he had believed stability was simply because of mismanagement, minor fluctuations were dismissed as market noise-- a delayed shipment, a failed bid, but survivable, then that irregularities began to align.
Suppliers withdrew without explanation, A financing channel tightened overnight. A competitor priced just bid, enough to wound the winning bid important for the winning project, never enough to provoke inquiry.
Individually, manageable. Together, deliberate.
His pen paused mid-page.
He remembered when the pattern started emerging, amd had been named aloud.
Not by the Board Members. Not by his advisors. but by Jingxu.
They were just halfway through dinner, after the silence of cutlery has fallen down, she has taken the courage and finally spoke, it was without insistence.
"Someone is influencing upstream, these decisions doesn't benefit the market, it benefit positioning." she said.
No accusation, No certainty. Only risk.
At that time, they had listened - and pondered.
After the turbulence has passed, and the company has stabilised with Jingxu insight, that Yicheng understood the capabilities of her, and the reason why she has been carefully isolated by her own family to the extent that after marrying their daughter they never called and ask about her well being, or during any festivals as if she never exist in the world under the influence of Qiu family, and how much Qiu family control her life and then before the final blow to the Lin family, she had been married off to them.
Shen family is forever grateful that they have accepted such an honest, loyal and obedient person for him.
At that moment he had offered her the position of General Manager in the Main Branch of the company, but she refused. At that period of time, he his proposal had been straightforward, almost clinical. She was already influencing the outcomes from behind the scenes, the reason she was able to solve this crisis, because she has seen the similar patters when Qiu family was trying to weaken the Lin family. Exposure had thinned, pressure points no longer suffocate the company expansion.
When partial evidence emerge after thorough investigation half year later after company stabilised - frequent or subtle interference of the Qiu family, no one took a step forward for confrontation. The proof/evidence was incomplete, as if it was provided to them subtly as a warning not to provoke them ever again. The cost, unclear.
It was Jingxu who had solved the company crisis, Quietly.
She began attending the meetings as his personal assistant, after so much persuasion from him and his father which she had observed. She stayed at work after everyone left, reviewing contract to search for loopholes or trap set by others, and also for assumptions. She assisted him and his family in restructuring the family business internal management, and renegotiated terms with internal and external teams and corporations. Pushed every limit of her self to diversification into sectors unrelated to conflict.
"We should have exposure, If someone try to corner us, don't give them any opportunity" she said simply.
He remembered objecting it, not as a chairman - but as a husband.
The pen slipped slightly in his fingers, her set it aside, pressing his thumb against the bridge of his nose.
As time passed by, they had fought the interference, they had removed dependencies on collaterals which can bring harm to them. Every contract, every decision was carefully taken by the involvement of everyone in the family.
By the time pressure eased - it was likely redirected to someone else - Shen business had passed the alarming phase. When the shareholders questioned how they avoided the close collapse, the Shen patriarch answered plainly during the company banquet.
"We didn't fight, We adjusted our strategies", he said.
No one said her name, silently acknowledging her achievements in their heart.
As memory flashed through his mind, a soft smile appeared on his face, and he straightened his back saw the time 4:30 in the morning, and returning to the documents with renewed precision. Dawn was bit far away. The woke would be finished before the light reached through the curtains and enter and engulf the bedroom in warm lights.
After sometime he stood by the window, no longer intention to reply to mail, which has been ignored since past week, trying to read the lines on the file once - twice - without understanding them, he felt quiet uneasy, like someone pulled his heartstrings forcefully, making his breathing stop. Something tugged at him.
Not a sound, Not logic, but instinct like something is about to happen. He checked time and saw that it was time for Jingxu to be awake and ready to prepare breakfast for him with a practice eased and will knock on the door to call him out, but time has been passed and now it was 7:30.
He checked the time again, frowned and turned back and walk towards the bedroom, When he reached the bedroom, he knocked twice when he heard no answer, his heart was filled with worry, he pushed open the door and was already mid step into the room when he saw her pale face grasping for air. For a split second, he was shocked, and his mind grasp the image of her first terrible collapse when illness was discovered. Then it caught up - a panic and worry tore through him without any restraint.
"Jingxu!"
He crossed the room in to big steps, the chair in the room scraping too loudly against the tiled floor, and falling with the force. He was breathing more faster than she was by the time he reached the bed, hands bracing her shoulders, pulling her upright just enough for her to space to breathe.
"Hey- hey- look at me," he said while patting her cheeks trying to get her to stay awake, his voice tight, uneven from fear of losing her, "Don't move, try to sit."
He eyes flickered weakly., they drifted towards the table, and saw medicine untouched from previous night. Understanding struck him like a huge blow.
"Medicine?" he asked, though his eyes was set on the already filled organiser.
She shook her head, indicating as no, Her lips parted alongside but no voice came, words barely formed.
He swallowed hard, fear in his heart keeps soaring high, and after sharpening his focused he raised his voice- louder than he had ever in his years.
"Mom - Yulan - now!, Haoran!!"
The shout instantly broke their routine and every one rushed towards the bedroom, footsteps echoed down the corridor of the villa, and lights were switched on, door was pushed open and Yulan strode in first with her medical kit in her hand, hair hastily tied in the messy bun her composure calm and strong practiced since years of being in the medical field but thin while facing her own family. Shen Patriarch followed in slowly but with slight wobbly steps, cane long forgotten by the door of his own room, his face drawn with dread, Shen Haoran appeared minutes later, glasses sliding down his nose, as he knelt beside the bed without the word. Yulan now check her blood pressure, while Haoran checking her pulse simultaneously.
"How long?" he asked, fingers already at his mother wrist, worry filled in his eyes.
"Just woke up from sleep - she tried to sit up, but swayed a bit harshly and hit her head at head rest when I entered the room" he said, his voice hoarse from trying to control his tears. "She also missed a dose yesterday" he added later.
Haoran nodded at once.
"Blood pressure is low," Yulan said, "It isn't critical, elevate her legs", she added later.
They followed the instruction with great efficiency, as these steps has been practiced with ease during the past two decades. Shen Matriarch cracked the window open. Yulan adjusted the windows, after giving her first aid, while Haoran supported his mother shoulders.
"Mother" he called gently, leaning closer he added "Look at me and breathe slowly with me"
Her eyes weakly focused solely on the man standing beside his son, her husband and nodded slowly, taking slow breath, matching his son's pace.
"One, two, three..." he guided.
Her hands trembling search for support looking for his anchor, Yicheng seeing this caught it immediately, gripping her hands tightly in her hands, giving her the reassurance she needs the most at that moment.
"I'm here", he said voice hoarse, unguarded filled with unsaid emotion, he added "I'm here, you're not alone"
The small storm passed - as it always did in the past, slow , reluctantly, leaving heaviness in the family, damning the home spirit.
Yulan administrated the glucose, and Haoran administrated the required injections and medicine, which allowed his mother to fall sleep after the episode of collapse, and ushered everyone out to let her mother rest, leaving his father alone with his mother.
Only then Yicheng realised his own hands were shaking.