Chapter 10: Echoes of the Reckoning and a Game Reversed
The silence in the study was suffocating.
Lin Yuhan stood still, not because he needed to—but because he wanted Shen Mochen to feel the weight of it. The weight of being exposed. The weight of standing across from someone you thought you buried—only to find they've returned with your future in their hand and your sins in their memory.
Shen Mochen wasn't speaking. His breath was shallow, and his face, always composed and clean-cut, had fractured into something raw. Something scared.
"Yuhan," he finally said, voice thick and hoarse, "What you said… that wasn't just a metaphor, was it?"
Yuhan didn't answer immediately. Instead, he walked to the desk, lifted the teacup he had left untouched earlier, and took a deliberate sip. When he turned to face him, his voice was cool and frighteningly calm.
"You think this is about a deal? About Genesis Innovations?" Yuhan shook his head. "I was erased. Deliberately. By someone I once… trusted." The pause was deliberate. Heavy. "But I remember it all. The crash. The silence. The way you looked at Meili that night like she'd done you a favor."
Shen Mochen paled. "That's—"
"—not something I should know?" Yuhan finished for him. He tilted his head slightly, studying the man who used to command boardrooms like a god. "Mochen, you always prided yourself on being ten steps ahead. Now you'll spend the rest of this game trying to figure out how I already saw the ending."
Mochen took a shaky step forward. "This is crazy. You're talking like you… like you've lived it already."
"I have."
And with that, Lin Yuhan walked away.
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The Next Day
Mochen did what any powerful man does when he's afraid: he tried to control the narrative.
His teams swept the city, combed financial networks, interrogated data trails. How had Lin Yuhan gotten so strong so fast? Who backed him? Where did the capital come from? The deeper they dug, the more they realized—Yuhan had no weaknesses left to exploit.
Meanwhile, Meili—her reputation bleeding out—resorted to old tricks: playing the victim.
She summoned their parents under the guise of concern, her eyes red-rimmed, her voice trembling with practiced tremors.
"Lin Yuhan is not himself," she said, sitting between them like a fragile porcelain doll. "He's saying impossible things… accusing Mochen, accusing me… I'm afraid he's losing touch with reality."
Their mother's brows knit with concern. Their father looked unsure. Meili knew where to hit.
But the moment Lin Yuhan stepped into the room, that illusion shattered.
He was dressed in black today. Not out of mourning, but out of quiet power.
"I thought you might say that," he said. Calm. Measured. Devastating.
With a flick of his fingers, he projected a series of documents from his tablet to the wall screen.
A bank transfer. An off-shore account. The exact sum Meili had "lost" from the charity years ago.
Followed by a screen capture of her acquiring shares in the same company that swallowed the textile factory she insisted their mother abandon.
"And here I thought we were all just imagining things," he said lightly.
Meili stood up, face drained of all color. "Those could be fake—"
"Let's not insult anyone's intelligence, Meili," he cut in. His voice didn't rise. That made it worse.
"You're not worried about my 'mental state.' You're worried about the truth finally sticking."
Meili burst into tears and ran from the room. For once, nobody followed her.
---
Later That Night
Lin Yuhan was sitting by the window, legs tucked beneath him, staring at the lights of the city he now held in his hands. He didn't smile. He didn't cry either.
His phone buzzed once.
A message from Mochen.
> "We need to talk. My office. 9 AM. Don't be late."
Yuhan stared at the message, then calmly deleted it.
He'd go, of course. But not because Mochen said so.
He'd go because Mochen was finally dancing to his tune now.
And if there was one thing Yuhan had learned since waking up from death, it was this:
He would never again bow to someone who tried to bury him.
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