Chapter 297 The Young Heiress Visits

*Runze’s POV*

The studio smells faintly of fresh coffee this morning.

I am at my desk with a set of revised elevation drawings open on my laptop when the notification email arrives. I read the subject line once, then read it again.

*R.Z Practice has been selected as the lead architectural firm for the Qinghe Interstate Cultural Library and Community Complex project.*

I set my pencil down.

The Qinghe bid was the largest tender R.Z has ever entered. Four established firms from three cities submitted competing proposals. I had spent weeks drafting late into the night, sketching every structural threshold by hand before guiding my junior draftsmen through the technical render files. The selection committee had gone quiet for so long I had quietly started bracing for the other outcome.

I lean back in my chair and let out a long, slow breath.

Then I look across the studio at Siying.

She is sitting on the soft mat I keep in the corner specifically for her, surrounded by the small collection of toys I brought from home.

This is the first time I have taken her out to the studio with me, and I had dressed her carefully before we left the estate this morning. A pleated pale pink dress with delicate white embroidery along the hem, her fine hair swept up on one side and secured with a small pastel bow. She has been turning a small pale jade ring over and over between her fingers for the last twenty minutes with the focused seriousness she brings to everything she handles.

I look at her and feel the particular pull I always feel when I watch her, the one that makes me think I should take up painting, just to have something to do with it. She has my eyes and Bael’s composure and the kind of face that stops people mid-sentence.

I built a studio and won an interstate bid today and none of it feels as significant as the fact that I made her.

She looks up from the jade ring and finds me watching. Her face breaks into an immediate, radiant grin.

I pick up my phone.

Bael answers on the second ring.

“R.Z won the Qinghe bid,” I say.

A brief silence.

“Of course you did,” Bael says. His voice carries the particular quality it gets when he is genuinely pleased but won’t make a performance of it. “When did the notification come?”

“Five minutes ago.” I look at Siying, who has abandoned the ring and is now pulling herself upright against the edge of the low shelf unit, her little legs working hard beneath her pink dress. “I’m bringing Siying to Wuchen Group.”

Another pause, slightly longer this time.

“Now?”

“Now,” I confirm. “She’s already dressed.”

I can hear him moving on the other end, the quiet sound of his chair. “Give me twenty minutes.”

***

Liang Feng has the car at the studio entrance within ten minutes. The two security vehicles that followed us from the estate this morning are already idling further down the street. They have been waiting while I was inside. When I tell Liang Feng we are going to Wuchen Group headquarters instead of home, he simply nods and pulls out his phone to notify the detail.

Siying sits in her car seat beside me, one hand gripping the soft rabbit I tucked in beside her, her eyes tracking the city moving past the window with interest. She makes occasional sounds to herself, small declarative syllables directed at the passing buildings, as though she is narrating the journey.

“That’s right,” I tell her, following her gaze out the window. “That’s the city.”

She looks at me and babbles something emphatic.

“I agree,” I say.

She turns back to the window, apparently satisfied.

Liang Feng takes the main road approach toward the front of the Wuchen Group tower. As we turn onto the wide street facing the entrance, I can already see that someone has been busy.

The main entrance stands open, and Bael is waiting at the top of the front steps.

He wears a dark navy shirt, no coat despite the cool air. Shen Rui, Pei Xuan, Mu Huang, and a dozen senior executives and department heads stand in two neat lines behind him. Their arrangement is clearly deliberate. Someone planned this reception, and they hadn’t exactly been subtle about it.

Liang Feng pulls the car smoothly to a stop at the bottom of the steps.

I look up at them and feel something warm and slightly ridiculous rise in my chest.

I unbuckle Siying from her seat and lift her into my arms. She grabs my collar immediately, her eyes going wide as the car door opens and the cool air hits her face.

Bael comes down the steps to meet us.

He wraps one arm around my back, pulling me against him, then leans in and presses a slow kiss against Siying’s cheek.

She grabs his tie immediately.

He lets her hold it.

A murmur passes through the executives. Seeing the notoriously stern Chairman Wuchen soften so openly in broad daylight is clearly something none of them were prepared for.

“Congratulations,” he says quietly, his mouth close to my ear. “You brought our daughter to see me too.”

“She looked too beautiful to stay in the studio all day,” I reply, a light laugh slipping past my lips.

Behind him, Shen Rui steps forward and drops into a precise bow. “Good afternoon, Young Master Runze. We welcome the young heiress.”

Pei Xuan and Mu Huang incline their heads in greeting, followed by the senior executives, who bow respectfully in unison.

“Good afternoon, Shen Rui,” I say, offering him a warm nod before acknowledging the others with a polite smile.

Bael’s arm tightens briefly around my back before he steps to my side, his hand settling at my waist. Together, we head for the entrance, the executives following behind us.

Inside the vast lobby, staff and department assistants stand in neat lines on either side of the polished marble floor. Conversations fade as we enter, and heads turn toward the little girl in my arms.

“Young Master Runze.”

The greeting spreads through the lobby as employees bow respectfully. Most of their attention, however, remains fixed on Siying.

She is looking back at them with the calm, assessing expression she has inherited entirely from Bael, taking everything in, missing nothing, giving away very little. She studies the lobby ceiling, then the floor, then the long rows of bowing employees with the focused interest of someone conducting a thorough survey.

Eager whispers pass through the ranks.

“Young Master Runze is still so pretty in person…”

“And look at the little miss — she looks like an angel with that bow…”

“She looks like the Chairman… but she’s even more beautiful…”

Bael’s hand presses slightly more firmly against my waist as we cross the lobby. Shen Rui falls into step a precise distance behind us, with Pei Xuan and Mu Huang flanking slightly further back. The private elevator is waiting, doors already open.

Inside, Siying twists in my arms to look at the mirrored walls and sees herself reflected from multiple angles. She stares at her own reflection with deep suspicion for a moment, then reaches out toward the nearest mirror.

“That’s you,” I tell her.

She looks at me, then back at the reflection, apparently unconvinced.

The doors of Bael’s private office close behind us.

He takes Siying from my arms, settles her against his chest with practiced ease, and then draws me in against his side with his free arm, pressing a firm kiss against my temple.

Then he looks at me properly.

“Qinghe is a significant win,” he says. “But you should expect your competitors to respond to it. Some of those firms have been in this market for decades. You’ve just beaten them on their own ground.”

“I know,” I say, leaning into him. “I’ll handle the pushback when it comes.”

Bael’s eyes settle on my face with that particular look, warm and fierce at the same time, the one that means he is deciding how much to say. “If it becomes something beyond your drawings to solve—”

“Then I know exactly whose door to come crying at,” I say, tilting my face up to look at him. “Yours. With a full list of names and no mercy requested.”

The corner of his mouth pulls upward.

“My door is always open,” he says quietly.

Siying, apparently done waiting for us to finish, reaches up and grabs Bael’s face with both hands, redirecting his attention to herself with the cheerful possessiveness of someone who considers him entirely available for this purpose. He lets her, looking down at her with an expression that the rest of the building would not recognize on him at all.

The city glitters beyond the glass. The office is quiet.

Outside that door, the employees of Wuchen Group are probably still talking about the small girl in the pink dress who came through the lobby and looked at all of them as though she was taking notes.

She probably was.