CHAPTER NINETEEN: THE KEEPER OF SECRETS
Ming Zhao had served Lou Yan for nine years, three months, and fourteen days.
He knew the exact count because precision was his religion. He could recite Lou's schedule backwards in his sleep - the 4:17 AM tea (1.5 grams of jasmine, steeped for exactly two minutes), the thirty-seven minute meditation sessions, the way his employer's left eyelid twitched when someone mentioned his years at the monastery.
But nothing in Ming's twenty-three years of service - first to Lou's grandmother, now to the man himself - had prepared him for the hurricane named Syra Alizadeh.
---
The call came at 2:37 AM. Ming was already awake, reviewing security protocols for the Singapore merger. When Lou's private line rang, his hand hovered for half a second before answering - that fraction of hesitation the only betrayal of his surprise.
"Find these."
Lou's voice was rougher than usual, the words clipped. The photo that followed showed a crumpled receipt, the ink blurred at the creases from being carried too long in a pocket. Ming zoomed in on the product code for the artist brushes.
"By morning?" Ming asked, though he already knew the answer.
"Tonight."
Three art supply stores later, Ming stood dripping in the lobby of a locked boutique, the night manager rubbing sleep from his eyes as he processed the exorbitant after-hours fee.
"Must be some special lady," the man yawned, ringing up the last set of sable brushes in Shanghai.
Ming said nothing. He'd learned the art of silence from the best.
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The Morning After
Ming arrived at 6:00 AM sharp, expecting to find Lou already at his desk. Instead, the penthouse smelled of sesame oil and something floral - jasmine, but layered beneath it, the faint citrus tang of oil paints.
His polished oxfords clicked against marble as he entered the kitchen. Lou stood motionless by the window, staring at a half-eaten plate of eggs gone cold. Two teacups sat abandoned on the counter, one with a faint lipstick mark the color of crushed berries.
Ming's gaze swept the room - the borrowed sweater draped over a chair, the single sock peeking from under the couch, the indentation on the guest pillow that suggested someone had slept without moving all night.
"She stayed," Ming observed before he could stop himself.
Lou didn't turn. "She left."
The words were flat, but Ming heard the quiet victory beneath them. Not just that she'd come, but that she'd felt safe enough to sleep.
---
Ming had watched Lou rebuild entire companies from smoking ruins. Had seen him stare down regulators twice his age without blinking. But nothing compared to the meticulous, almost sacred patience with which he loved Syra Alizadeh.
There were the obvious gestures - the brushes, the lychee candies always in his pocket, the way he had security discreetly check her studio locks each night.
Then there were the secrets Ming would take to his grave:
- The framed sketch in Lou's desk drawer, signed with Syra's looping S, dated three years before they officially met
- The tremor in Lou's hands after their first kiss, hidden behind his back where only Ming could see
- The way his employer's voice changed when saying her name - not softer, but fuller, as if the syllables contained multitudes
Today, as Ming organized Lou's schedule, his pen hovered over the blocked-out hours every Thursday afternoon. Officially, they were marked "meditation." In reality, Ming knew Lou would be sitting in the back of Syra's art class, watching her teach street kids how to blend watercolors, that particular light in her eyes when a student grasped a new technique.
Ming's phone buzzed - a notification from the building super about Syra's leaky faucet. He forwarded it to maintenance with a priority tag Lou would never authorize but always approve.
Some loves were too fragile for words. Ming knew his role - to stand sentry at the edges of this quiet revolution, to smooth the path for a man who commanded empires yet knelt before this single, stubborn artist.
As he closed the office door behind him, Ming allowed himself one small smile. The old monk who'd trained Lou would be proud. After all, what was devotion if not its own kind of prayer?
Ming Zhao had learned the art of observation from his grandmother, a seamstress who could measure a man's worth by the drape of his sleeves. Now, as he adjusted the temperature in Lou's penthouse to precisely 22.3°C—the exact warmth Syra preferred—he wondered what the old woman would say about this delicate dance between two fractured souls. The security feed on his tablet showed Syra pacing her studio, pausing occasionally to touch the new brushes Lou had procured with such quiet desperation. Ming zoomed in just enough to see the conflicted softening around her eyes before switching off the screen. Some intimacies weren't his to witness.
The car ride to the quarterly board meeting was unusually tense. Lou sat stiffly in the backseat, his fingers drumming an uneven rhythm against his knee—a tell so uncharacteristic Ming nearly missed their exit. When the CEO of their largest competitor made a cutting remark about "distractions," Ming watched Lou's hand freeze mid-reach for his water glass. The ensuing silence lasted precisely thirteen seconds before Lou dismantled the man's argument with surgical precision, but Ming had already made a note: *Cancel all contracts with Hengxin Industries by EOD.* Loyalty, after all, flowed both ways.
That evening, Ming found Lou standing before the floor-to-ceiling windows, staring at the distant glow of Syra's studio. The penthouse was dark save for the city lights reflecting in the whiskey tumbler dangling from his fingers. "She used cadmium red today," Lou said without turning. "The toxic one she's not supposed to ingest." Ming didn't ask how he knew. He simply retrieved the bottle of chelation supplements from the medicine cabinet and set them beside Lou's keys—just in case.
At midnight, Ming's phone buzzed with an alert from Syra's neighborhood. The security detail reported she'd left her studio window open again despite the autumn chill. Ming hesitated only a moment before forwarding the report—not to Lou, who would inevitably pace the length of his study until dawn, but to building maintenance with instructions to "accidentally" adjust the central heating in her building. Some protections needed to remain invisible to be effective.
As dawn painted the sky, Ming reviewed the day's schedule. Between the merger talks and investor meetings, he'd carved out twenty-seven minutes for Lou to visit the new exhibition at the Shanghai Art Museum—the one featuring Syra's favorite Ming dynasty landscapes. He adjusted the timing twice, ensuring they'd arrive during the docent's lunch break when the galleries were quiet. Some loves spoke in brushstrokes and carefully orchestrated coincidences. Ming knew his role wasn't to intervene, but to make sure the universe left the door ajar.