Transmigration; Married to My Ex-Fiancé's Uncle-Chapter 315; Lu Yuze & Shuyin 4

"Lu Yuze..."

"Shuyin." He took her hand, his thumb tracing circles on her palm. "I know this started as a business arrangement. You needed me to help cure Yuyan, and I needed..."

He trailed off, realizing that what he’d needed then and what he needed now were two entirely different things.

She watched him, her expression carefully neutral. "When did it change for you?"

"When?" He considered the question, his gaze never leaving hers. "The moment you looked at Yuyan like she was your own daughter. The moment you did everything to protect her and me, even when you were dead on your feet, completely drained, but you still thought to reassure me first. That’s when I knew this marriage would never be just a contract for me."

Shuyin remained still, her face betraying nothing, but her fingers curled around his, a small gesture that spoke volumes.

"You proposed this marriage," he continued. "You set the terms. But somewhere along the way, you became the most important person in my life, and I don’t want to pretend otherwise anymore."

For a long moment, she said nothing. Then, in a voice that was quieter than usual but no less controlled: "This wasn’t supposed to happen."

"No," he agreed. "But it did."

She looked at him, really looked at him, and for once, allowed a crack in her armor. "I don’t do weakness, Lu Yuze. I don’t do vulnerability."

"I know." His smile was slight but genuine. "You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met. But strength and love aren’t mutually exclusive."

"Love." She tested the word as if it were foreign. "You’re saying you love me."

"I am."

She exhaled slowly, and when she spoke again, her voice held a thread of something that might have been uncertainty, a rare thing for Shuyin. "I proposed this marriage as a transaction. I needed you to agree to let me try to save Yuyan when no one else could. You needed a stable home and a place in society. It was logical. Practical."

"It was," he agreed, waiting.

"But logic doesn’t explain why I stayed up those three nights in your study, helping you prepare for that board meeting. Or why I can’t seem to function properly when you’re not around. Or why the thought of this being just a contract anymore makes me feel..." She paused, searching for words she rarely allowed herself to use. "Empty."

He lifted her hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. "Then stop thinking of it as a contract."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that."

Shuyin studied him for another long moment, then something shifted in her expression, not quite a softening, but an acknowledgment. "You’re absurd, you know that?"

"You married me anyway."

"For Yuyan," she countered, but there was no heat in it.

"Keep telling yourself that."

And then she did something that surprised them both, she leaned forward and kissed him. It was brief, controlled, but unmistakably deliberate.

When she pulled back, her composure was firmly back in place. "I cursed my father with damp socks?"

"You did."

"That’s actually pretty clever."

"I thought so too."

They sat in silence as the evening deepened outside, and though Shuyin didn’t say the words aloud, didn’t allow herself the vulnerability of a confession, the way her hand remained in his spoke clearly enough.

After a long stretch of comfortable quiet, Lu Yuze broke the silence. "Let’s travel."

Shuyin’s fingers, which had been tracing idle patterns on his chest, stilled. "To where?"

"Anywhere." His voice was thoughtful. "Somewhere we can rest. Bond without the weight of everything else."

She resumed her lazy movements across his chest. "The company needs our presence. We’ll find time, but not now."

"Have you heard?" he asked, shifting topics.

"About what?"

"Lu Zeyan’s condition has completely spiraled. He’s regressed to the mental state of a one-year-old. Can’t do anything for himself, can’t even form words."

"Karma works hard," she murmured, her tone deliberately disinterested, though her fingers continued their deliberate path across his chest.

Lu Yuze suppressed a knowing smile. Karma, indeed. He strongly suspected Shuyin’s hand in Lu Zeyan’s deterioration, some spell or curse she’d woven with that formidable magic of hers. But it wasn’t his problem. Everyone reaped what they sowed, and Lu Zeyan had sown nothing but betrayal and cruelty.

"I need to go back to the Lin family," Shuyin said abruptly, her mind already calculating her next moves. "I’ll stay there for three days, maybe longer."

"What are you going to do there?" He was curious and searched her face. She had told him the original Shuyin was dead. Now, what was she going to do there? She wasn’t Shuyin... He felt like there were some things he didn’t actually understand at all.

"I’m using the original Shuyin’s face, can’t I exact revenge on them for her?" She was the only one who knew the truth. It wasn’t that she was using Shuyin’s face, but that Kailani’s soul had transmigrated into Shuyin’s body.

"I don’t understand." He honestly didn’t.

"You don’t need to understand. Just know that I’m Kailani and Shuyin... We are both... We are one." How was she going to explain it without exposing the truth?

He brushed all thoughts away and let it be the way she wanted.

Lu Yuze’s body tensed beneath her hand. "You don’t need to go there. You can work from here, handle whatever you need remotely."

"I have to go." Her voice was firm, leaving no room for negotiation. "There are things I need to do in person before I come back."

"Then we’ll all go, me, the children, and security." His tone matched hers in finality.

"No." She pushed herself up slightly to look at him. "If you show up there, they’ll know I’m married to you. I don’t want that revealed yet. You know what kind of sensation it would create."

"We can find a viable excuse," he countered, already problem-solving. "No one would doubt it. You...