Against the Algorithm

Chapter 40: The Quiet Before the Reckoning

And this time, they wouldn't get her back. Because now? She had people who would burn the world before they let her fall again.

The silence that followed Jinyang's last words was weighty, the kind that settled deep into the bones, threading between the sterile hum of hospital machines and the muffled footsteps outside the door.

Lan had remained still, her hands folded neatly in front of her, her posture regal and composed as always, but her gaze had shifted—no longer appraising, no longer shielded behind the cold formality she wielded like a second skin. Instead, she looked at Yao with a gaze steeped in memory. And something far older. Something personal. "I never told you," she said quietly, her voice smooth but laced with something that almost sounded like grief. "But Yao's mother was my best friend."

Jinyang's eyes shot up, shock flickering instantly across her features.

Sicheng's gaze remained steady on his mother, but the faint shift in his shoulders told her this wasn't news to him.

Lan continued, her voice calm and unwavering as she stepped closer to the bed. "We met when we were both still girls—before marriage, before responsibility, before the world started carving at us. We were inseparable. Fierce, loyal, dangerous together when we wanted to be. And when she married, when she left... she didn't forget me." Her gaze lowered to the pale girl resting in the bed. "Not for a moment."

Jinyang stared, her throat working around the words she couldn't quite find yet.

"When Yao was born," Lan continued, her voice dipping softer, "her mother contacted me. Told me she had everything she ever wanted. A child she adored. A little girl she knew would grow to be sharp, and wild, and terrifying in all the best ways. She was making plans to move back to Shanghai and then possibly back to Shenzhen as she wanted her child and my children to be friends like we were."

Lan's voice caught for the briefest second before she recovered, her expression sharpening again with a bitter clarity. "But after they died, after the accident... I tried to reach her. I did everything. Every channel. Every lawyer. Every friend in New York I could call. But her aunt and uncle had already moved in—already seized everything." She inhaled slowly, steadying herself. "They intercepted every attempt I made. Told the estate lawyers they would handle everything. That she didn't need reminders of 'old friends.' And since I wasn't named in the will—not directly—I couldn't force anything."

"But the trust." Sicheng said, his voice low, grounding the story with the cold truth that had led to all of it.

Lan nodded. "Her mother left a trust in my care. A very old, very discreet arrangement we set up when we were barely older than the two of you."

Jinyang's brows furrowed. "You were the trustee?"

"Yes," Lan confirmed. "It was always intended to be released to Yao upon her independence. Not her age—her independence. Her mother didn't trust bloodlines. She trusted judgment. She knew her family. She didn't want them in control." She glanced at Jinyang now, her expression darkening. "And when Yao refused to return to the States... when they realized I was still alive and still watching... they shifted tactics."

"You think that's why they planned—" Jinyang stopped herself, eyes wide, mouth slightly open.

"I know it is," Lan said. "If they had succeeded in what they planned—if they had damaged her emotionally, mentally, physically—they could have petitioned for guardianship on grounds of incapacity. Claimed she couldn't care for herself. And if they had that legal foothold?" Her voice turned razor sharp. "They could have gone to court to gain control of the trust as her 'appointed guardians.' I would've been forced to sign it over to them and not to Yao."