Lin Xiaoxia tightened her grip on Xu Yuan's hand, her touch an anchor in the storm of his awakening. She could feel the tremors running through him—the seismic shift of a man discovering his entire life had been a carefully constructed illusion.
"If you really are part of that family," she said softly, "it changes nothing about who you are now. The Xu Yuan I love—the one who brings me coffee at midnight, who cries at bad movies—that's you. Not some legacy forced upon you."
Xu Yuan looked up, his eyes reflecting fragments of a fractured past. Her words seeped into the cracks, temporary glue holding him together.
"But what if... our meeting wasn't accidental? What if—"
"Then we'll rewrite it." Her thumb brushed his knuckles. "We'll make it ours anyway."
The resolve in her voice steadied him. Drawing a shuddering breath, Xu Yuan focused on the memories surfacing like debris from a shipwreck:
His grandfather's warnings about the ring—not just a symbol, but a seal. A lock placed on their bloodline's power until deemed worthy.
And the key?
A sacred relic. "Should it fall into outsiders' hands..." The old man's voice echoed, "...catastrophe beyond reckoning."
Lin Xiaoxia's stomach dropped. The pocket watch. Had that been the relic all along?
With Xiaoya's help, they dug deeper into the Silver Family's shadowed history. Each uncovered layer revealed more alarming truths:
Their influence spiderwebbed through governments, corporations, eras.
And now—something monumental was in motion. A plan centuries in the making, its gears finally turning.
The signs appeared within days:
A flicker of movement at the edge of vision.
Their apartment violated—nothing stolen, only eerie symbols scrawled on mirrors in dust. The same markings as inside the ring.
Xu Yuan traced one with trembling fingers. "They're not just watching." His voice hardened, something ancient glinting beneath. "They're calling me."
Outside, streetlights flickered.
Somewhere, a clock struck thirteen.
Lin Xiaoxia felt it then—the gathering storm, the precipice they stood upon.
And in Xu Yuan's eyes, the first spark of something sleeping no more.
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