Chapter Sixty-One – The First Name on the List
The city had grown quiet — deceptively quiet — as if it were holding its breath. Horizon Gate's towers gleamed like steel sentinels under the late afternoon sun, casting long shadows over the streets below. From above, everything seemed orderly. Predictable. Safe. But Xinyue knew better. Every corner of the empire she had built contained cracks, and every crack hid a story, a secret, or a mistake waiting to be exposed.
She stood in her apartment, overlooking the city, a tablet in her hands. The screen displayed a new list — the first of many she had begun to compile. Names, positions, loyalties, betrayals, and vulnerabilities. Her handwriting would never appear on it, nor would her signature. Everything about it was encoded, invisible to prying eyes. But each name was a spark — capable of igniting chaos in the right moment.
Jun, leaning casually against the doorframe, broke the silence. "The first name?"
Xinyue's lips curved faintly. "The first name is the easiest to break. It's always the most obvious — the one everyone thinks is untouchable." She tapped the tablet. "And yet, they have no idea how fragile he is."
Jun nodded, but his eyes were wary. "You're making him a target before the rest even know the war has begun."
"That's the point," she replied. Her gaze drifted back to the river, where reflections of lights flickered across the dark water. "Fear spreads slowly. But if the first piece falls correctly… everything else will follow like dominoes."
Li Wei didn't know it yet, but the first domino would be him.
He spent the morning digging deeper into Horizon Gate's internal networks, unaware that Xinyue had already anticipated every move he might make. Each audit trail he followed, each file he decrypted, led him closer to understanding the true extent of her influence — yet never far enough to catch her.
When he arrived at the executive lounge for their afternoon meeting, the weight of information pressed on him like an invisible hand. He carried a folder of records, but the real burden was the knowledge he now had: Xinyue's history, her family's erasure, the subtle patterns of control she had exerted over Horizon Gate's systems. He also carried a quiet, undeniable truth — despite everything, his heart refused to view her as the enemy.
She was waiting. Calm. Collected. Radiating a control that only came from someone who had survived impossible odds.
"Jun says you've been busy," Xinyue said, voice soft but edged with awareness.
"I've uncovered more than I expected," he replied. His eyes flicked to hers, sharp and searching. "And yet… something tells me I haven't scratched the surface."
"You haven't," she admitted. "But the surface is enough for now."
He frowned, sensing both caution and invitation in her words. "Surface is never enough with you, is it?"
Her lips quirked. "You should know by now — it's never been enough."
The first name on her list was carefully chosen. A senior director, publicly untouchable, privately unstable. His loyalty was performative, his ambition insatiable, his ego larger than his sense of caution. Xinyue had observed him for months, tracking every misstep, every whispered conversation, every hidden weakness. He had no idea that within the next seventy-two hours, every carefully curated decision he had made would begin to unravel.
The first strike was subtle — a misdirected memo, an altered resource allocation, a whispered rumor seeded with precision. Nothing overt, nothing traceable, but enough to make him question his own judgment. Xinyue watched it all unfold from her tablet, satisfaction blooming quietly.
Jun noticed the slight curve of her smile. "You're enjoying this more than you let on."
"Control is intoxicating," she said. Her eyes, however, were distant. "But fear… fear is beautiful. Fear sharpens people, forces them to show who they truly are."
And now, as the first name wavered, as the carefully built façade of confidence began to crack, Xinyue allowed herself a moment of rare, private satisfaction.
Li Wei, oblivious to the invisible threads now ensnaring the first target, studied the river from the lounge's glass wall. He was thinking about Xinyue — about the choices she had made, the empire she had quietly built, the power she wielded — and the love he had never fully let go.
He didn't know that every step he took was already anticipated, measured, and turned into leverage. And yet, in his mind, he made a promise: I will protect her, even if I don't understand the war she has chosen to fight.
The sun dipped lower, painting the city in molten gold and long shadows. The first domino had been nudged.
And somewhere in the shadows, Xinyue allowed herself a private thought:
Let the house of glass begin to shatter.