Against the Algorithm

Chapter 40: The Quiet Before the Reckoning

Sicheng didn't even flinch. He just leaned back slightly, one arm draped over the back of the chair, his gaze steady on his mother. "Of course you did."

Lan's mouth twitched, not quite a smile. "Do you really think I was going to sit and wait to be updated through the group chat like some casual observer?"

"She's stable," he said quietly. "High fever, severe strep, bordering on bronchitis. Dehydrated. They caught it in time."

Lan's eyes lingered on the girl in the bed, taking in the way Yao's hand clung to her son's even in sleep. The hoodie she wore was clearly his. The faint edge of platinum hair stuck to her forehead in damp curls. She looked exhausted, fragile in a way that made something sharpen in the older woman's gaze. "And you didn't tell me?" Lan asked after a beat.

"I had my hands full keeping her upright and breathing."

She nodded once, slowly. "Then you made the right choice."

Silence settled between them. But it wasn't cold.It was the pause of two people who both understood what it meant to hold something fragile and not let it break.

After a moment, Lan reached out and gently brushed a strand of hair from Yao's cheek, her fingers deft and maternal without needing to be asked. "She looks terrible," she said quietly.

"She looks better than she did three hours ago."

Another pause.

Then Lan turned her sharp gaze back to him. "She's never been in a hospital, has she?"

Sicheng shook his head. "Personally? Not since she was a child, from what she has told me."

Lan hummed low in her throat. "Well," she said, stepping back and folding her arms. "Good thing she has you." And she didn't need to say what that meant. Because she was already here. Because she had tracked Sicheng's phone. Because she'd walked in without asking permission, not as a Lu, not as a CEO but as someone who had decided that girl in the bed belonged. To all of them and most of all, to him. Lan's eyes lingered on Yao a moment longer before she stepped around to face him fully, lowering her voice, her expression shifting—something colder creeping in now, sharper. A dark smirk ghosted across her lips as she tilted her head, her gaze narrowing ever so slightly. "I've already begun my work on her aunt and uncle," she said softly. "They're hemorrhaging finances—slowly, methodically. No one will touch their name in a few weeks' time. And their daughter?" Her voice dipped lower, satisfied. "That 25-year-old brat has already been booted out of university. They couldn't afford the tuition anymore, not after I made a few calls to the right people."

That's when Sicheng's eyes turned toward her, slow and narrow, his grip tightening subtly on Yao's hand. He stared at his mother for a moment, piecing together what she wasn't saying—what he already knew. "Her cousin," he said flatly, tone no longer fatigued but sharpened to a knife's edge. "She was in on it."

It wasn't a question.

Lan arched a brow. "Your man confirmed it, didn't he?"

Sicheng's jaw tensed, his voice a low growl now, restrained only because Yao was sleeping beside him. "He did more than confirm it. He traced the money. Found the deleted texts. Every link between her and her parents. They orchestrated everything. And they were going to let it happen."

He didn't say what it was.

Lan already knew.

They both did.

"She sat back," he continued, each word growing heavier, more lethal, "and helped plan what would've left Yao broken—if my guy hadn't been there. If he hadn't stopped that bastard and cleaned it up before I even arrived—" He broke off, breathing sharp through his nose. "She knew," he muttered. "She's twenty-five, a legal adult. She helped set up an attack meant to ruin her younger 20 year old cousin's life. To destroy her. She doesn't get to play dumb or innocent."