The next morning brought clouds—thick and gray, like the sky was holding its breath.
Tang Yueru sat in the study alone, flipping through one of the Lu family's photo albums the housekeeper had handed her. "To help you feel more at home," the woman had said with a kind smile.
But nothing in this place felt like home.
Page after page revealed stiff portraits—fundraising events, corporate awards, charity galas. Lu Shenyan in a tailored suit, arms behind his back, that familiar stoic face.
Until she turned a page… and paused.
It was a photo.
One she hadn't seen before.
He looked younger—maybe five years. Still cold, still composed… but there was something different in his eyes. Like he hadn't yet learned how to shut the world out.
Beside him stood a woman. Late thirties. Beautiful. Regal.
And in her eyes… pain.
---
"Who is she?" Yueru asked the housekeeper later.
The older woman hesitated. "Mr. Lu's mother."
"Is she still alive?"
A long pause.
"No. She passed away many years ago."
Yueru stared at the photo again that night. There was a sadness in it—a silence louder than any scream.
Something in Lu Shenyan's past had frozen him in time.
But what?
---
That evening, as if summoned by her thoughts, Lu Shenyan returned early.
She heard the door open downstairs and instinctively stood straighter. When he appeared at the study door, she tried not to look like she'd been waiting.
He noticed anyway.
"You didn't go out today," he said.
"I didn't feel like pretending."
He stepped inside. No jacket. Sleeves rolled up. Hair slightly damp from the rain.
"You looked through the family albums," he said.
She nodded.
"I saw a photo. Of your mother."
Silence. He didn't move.
"She looked sad," Yueru said softly.
He didn't blink. "She was."
"Why?"
Lu Shenyan's lips twitched. Not into a smile. Into a wound.
"Because she loved a man who couldn't love her back."
Yueru's chest tightened.
"And she stayed?" she asked.
"She did," he said. "Until it destroyed her."
---
They stood in silence for a moment too long.
"I'm not her," Yueru whispered.
He looked at her—sharp, searching. "I know."
"Then stop treating me like I'm going to break."
That surprised him.
"You think I'm trying to protect you?" he asked.
"I think you're afraid of feeling anything at all."
Another silence. Deeper this time.
Then, unexpectedly, he stepped closer and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear.
"I don't know how to love someone, Tang Yueru."
She didn't flinch.
"I never asked you to."
But the space between them… it burned.
---
That night, she dreamed of stormy skies and locked rooms. And of a boy behind a glass wall, screaming with no sound.
And somehow… she knew it was him.
---