CHAPTER 74: CHAPTER 74; MRS LU TAKEN HOSTAGE 1

"Ah-Ling," Shuyin called out, her voice carrying firmness despite its weakness. "Which car can you drive us in? I need you to take us back to the mansion using a secret route. No main roads. No tracked paths. No one can follow us."

Since the woman was literally stuck to her neck with a blade, she would have to bring her along. And definitely not in the same car as Yuyan and Lu Yuze, she didn’t want to endanger them with whatever chaos was about to unfold.

Who knows when she can suddenly go feral?

Ah-Ling processed this impossible request with the kind of professional efficiency that made him invaluable. "The backup vehicle, Madam. Let me bring it around."

He gestured to one of the other drivers, who immediately ran to fetch a different sedan, identical to the first but unmarked, without the distinctive plates that would identify it as belonging to Lu Yuze’s fleet.

"I want that sedan," Shuyin specified, pointing to a particular vehicle. "That one. And you drive. No one else."

"Understood, Madam."

" Shuyin..." Lu Yuze was worried for her safety but calmed down slightly when it was Ah Ling driving her.

" Geez! You are so whiny!" She muttered amused and not actually angry. She understood his worries perfectly well.

The backup sedan pulled up, and Ah-Ling quickly transferred from the first vehicle, leaving Yuyan with another trusted guard. He opened the rear door of the new sedan and stepped back.

"Get in," Shuyin said to the woman. "Back seat. You can keep the knife if it makes you feel safer, but you’re wasting your energy. If I wanted you dead, you’d already be dead."

The woman hesitated, clearly torn between suspicion and desperate hope, then climbed into the back seat, dragging Shuyin with her. They settled in awkwardly, the blade still pressed to Shuyin’s throat but with slightly less pressure now.

Ah-Ling slid into the driver’s seat, his movements calm and professional despite the insanity of the situation. Lu Yuze’s sedan, with Yuyan safely inside, pulled into position behind them, and several guard vehicles formed a protective convoy at the front and rear.

"Drive," Shuyin ordered. "Use the northeast exit. Take the industrial route. Stay off the highways."

"Yes, Madam." Ah-Ling pulled out of the parking lot smoothly, the convoy following in tight formation.

As they left the hospital grounds behind, Shuyin finally allowed herself to relax fractionally. "Now you can let go of my neck. We’re clear of the hospital. No one’s following us."

The woman’s hand trembled, but she didn’t immediately lower the blade. "How do I know you’re not just taking me somewhere else? Some other facility? Some other prison?"

"Because," Shuyin said wearily, "I don’t work for them. I don’t care about their protocols or their medications or their legal obligations. I’m just someone who recognizes desperation when I see it."

She reached up slowly, carefully, and pushed the blade away from her throat. The woman let her, too stunned by everything that had happened to resist.

"I’m sorry," the woman whispered, the scalpel finally dropping to the car floor. "I actually didn’t mean to... I was just so scared, and you were there, and I thought..."

"I understand. I perfectly understand." Shuyin’s jade eye began to glow faintly as she accessed the last reserves of her power. A single pearl-like tear formed at the corner of her eye, rolled down her cheek, and dropped into her palm.

She caught it and, before the woman could react, shoved it into her mouth.

The woman’s eyes went wide with shock. She tried to spit it out, tried to cough it up, but the pearl dissolved instantly like sugar in water, the medicinal essence spreading through her system before she could stop it.

"If I wanted to kill you, you’re just a weak human," Shuyin said matter-of-factly as the woman gagged and gasped. "So I don’t care about threatening you. But you should actually be glad you met me. Consider this medical treatment. Though you should pay some fees for me rescuing you."

The woman’s body, which had been running on pure adrenaline and fear for hours, suddenly flooded with the pearl’s restorative properties. Clarity returned to her mind, not the false calm of sedatives, but genuine mental clarity. The trembling in her limbs ceased. The panic that had been driving her actions faded into something more manageable.

And then, with that clarity, came the crushing weight of everything she’d endured.

She broke down.

"I didn’t expect him to treat me like this," she sobbed, words pouring out in a torrent. "I’ve loved him for so many years. I’ve done everything for him. Everything! I built his career from nothing, used my family’s connections, my parents’ money, and sacrificed my own ambitions so he could climb higher and higher. And he’s taken everything from me in return."

Her voice cracked with heartbreak and rage.

"He’s taken my company, the one my parents left me. Transferred all the shares to himself through legal manipulation. He’s taken my kids, convinced the courts I’m an unfit mother. He’s seized every asset, every account, everything my parents worked their lives to build. And now he wants me admitted to a psychiatric hospital permanently, declared legally incompetent so he can control it all without interference."

She looked at Shuyin with eyes that had seen too much betrayal.

"But I’m not sick. I’m not crazy. I just... I’m not crazy! He just wants to silence me... Permanently."

Shuyin listened with her usual detachment, though something flickered in her jade eye, perhaps recognition of a familiar pattern.

"Ooh," she finally said. "Humans are like that? Then why do you even love a man that much? Don’t you think you’re the stupid one? You truly are crazy for loving another human you were never born with that much!"

It was blunt to the point of cruelty, but somehow, hearing it stated so plainly made the woman laugh, a broken, bitter sound.

"Yes," she admitted. "I was stupid. I believed in love. In partnership. In the vows we made. I was an idiot."