Chapter 82; Chen Ru 2
A chill moved through the room at the implication. Routine. Trust. The ordinary exchanges of care during a difficult pregnancy that no one had thought to examine too closely.
A knock sounded at the door. One of Lu Shaohan’s men entered, his face grave as he crossed to his employer and lowered his voice. "Young Master. We reviewed the surveillance footage from two nights ago. A servant delivered medication to Madam Chen Ru’s room."
The room sharpened around the words. But the man continued, his voice dropping further. "Residence management does not recognize her. She has no file. No employment record. And after leaving Madam Chen’s room, the same woman was seen entering the western guest room corridor."
The western guest room. The room Su Wan had occupied. The room where the medication had been discovered hidden in the bedside cabinet. The revelation did not bring clarity. It layered another shadow over what had already felt too neatly arranged. Lu Shaohan remained silent, his expression unreadable, but the quiet friction he had felt earlier deepened into something more certain. A son had been born to him under circumstances that should never have occurred. The Chen family stood in this room demanding accountability for blood that had nearly been spilled. And the evidence against the woman whose name he carried continued to align with a precision that felt less like discovery and more like design. For the first time since the investigation began, the truth did not feel closer. It felt as though it were deliberately receding, leaving only the uneasy certainty that someone inside the Lu Residence had orchestrated this with far more care than anyone had yet understood.
The room remained deathly silent after the security officer finished speaking. No one moved. The weight of what had just been revealed settled over every person present like a second layer of air, heavier than before. The western guest room—the same room where Lu Shaohan and Su Wan had spent the previous night, the same room where the medication tablets had later been discovered hidden in the bedside cabinet—had now been directly connected to the unknown servant on the surveillance footage. Old Master Lu’s expression darkened at once, his gaze sharpening as he turned toward the security officer.
"Are you certain?"
"Yes, Old Master," the man replied, lowering his head respectfully. "We reviewed the footage multiple times." He stepped forward and placed a tablet on the table, the screen already glowing with the paused image. Grainy surveillance footage from the Lu Residence began to play, the timestamp in the corner marking 8:17 p.m. A servant dressed in the standard uniform appeared in the frame, carrying a tray with practiced ease. Her head remained lowered beneath a dark cap, and a medical mask covered the lower half of her face, leaving only a pale jawline and calm eyes partially visible. Nothing about her appearance stood out as unusual, and perhaps that was what made the image more unsettling than if she had looked obviously out of place.
The footage shifted. She entered Chen Ru’s room. Seven minutes later she emerged, the tray now empty in her hands. Mrs. Chen’s face paled visibly at the sight, while Chairman Chen’s expression hardened into something colder and more controlled. Chen Ru’s elder brother clenched his fists at his sides until his knuckles whitened. Old Master Lu’s voice cut through the quiet with cold precision.
"Enhance the footage."
The technician complied at once. The image enlarged, but the woman’s face remained frustratingly obscured by the angle of the cap and the mask. Only the faintest outline of her features could be seen—nothing that could be matched to any known person. The footage advanced to 8:46 p.m. The same servant appeared again, this time walking through the eastern corridor with a steady, unhurried pace that suggested she belonged exactly where she was. She turned toward the western wing without hesitation, moving directly toward the guest room corridor. The temperature in the room seemed to drop as the implications settled. Mrs. Chen drew in a sharp breath. Chen Ru’s brother looked toward Lu Shaohan, his voice tight.
"What does this mean?"
No one answered. The footage continued in silence. The servant stopped briefly outside the western guest room, then stepped out of the camera’s view into a blind spot. Three minutes later she reappeared, still empty-handed, and walked away down the corridor as though she had simply completed another ordinary task. Gone. As if she had never been there at all.
The security officer swallowed before continuing, his voice tightening. "We cross-checked all employee files. There is no match. Every servant employed by the Lu Residence has identification files, employment records, and biometric registration. This woman exists in none of them."
Old Master Lu’s eyes narrowed dangerously. "No match?"
"None, Old Master."
Chairman Chen’s voice broke the silence that followed, calm on the surface yet carrying an anger cold enough to freeze the air between them. "So someone infiltrated the Lu Residence. And not only entered freely—she entered the private quarters of a pregnant woman under your protection." No one could refute the accusation. The Lu Residence had always prided itself on security tighter than most government compounds, yet an unknown woman had walked through its halls as though she belonged there, carrying something that had nearly cost Chen Ru her life and forced her child into the world far too soon.
Chen Ru, who had remained silent and still beneath the blankets, slowly turned her head toward the frozen frame on the tablet. Her pale brows drew together with visible effort, her breathing growing uneven as she stared at the blurry image. Mrs. Chen immediately leaned forward, concern sharpening her voice.
"Ru’er?"
Chen Ru’s eyes remained fixed on the screen, her fingers trembling slightly atop the blanket. When she finally spoke, her voice was weak, barely more than a whisper, yet every person in the room heard it clearly.
"I... remember something."
The atmosphere tightened at once. Even Lu Shaohan lifted his gaze toward her. Chen Ru swallowed painfully, her eyes never leaving the image of the servant’s partially visible wrist where the sleeve had ridden up slightly in the footage.
"Her hands..." she said, her voice shaking with the strain of pushing through the haze of medication and trauma. "There was a scar. A burn scar on her wrist."
The words landed with quiet force. Scars could not be hidden as easily as faces beneath caps and masks. For the first time since the investigation had begun, they possessed something concrete to follow—a detail that existed outside the neatly arranged evidence that had pointed so cleanly toward Su Wan. Lu Shaohan remained silent, but the quiet friction he had felt earlier deepened. A son had been born to him under circumstances that should never have been allowed to happen. The Chen family stood in this room demanding accountability for blood that had nearly been spilled. And now, just as the evidence against the woman whose name he carried had seemed to align with perfect, damning precision, a single fragile thread had emerged that refused to fit neatly into that same picture. The truth had not drawn closer. It had simply revealed another layer of shadow beneath the surface, one that suggested whoever had orchestrated this had been careful enough to leave almost nothing behind—except, perhaps, a scar that could not be erased.
The two words seemed to linger in the air long after Chen Ru had spoken them. A burn scar. The steady beeping of the monitors suddenly felt louder against the thick silence that followed, each rhythmic pulse marking the fragile line between the lead they had just been given and the exhaustion that had overtaken the woman who had provided it. Chen Ru’s face had grown even paler, fine beads of sweat forming along her forehead as her breathing turned uneven from the effort of pushing through the haze of medication and trauma. The attending physician stepped forward at once, his voice low but firm.
"Madam Chen should rest. Her condition remains unstable."
No one in the room paid him any attention. For the first time since the investigation had begun, they possessed something concrete—a detail that existed outside the neatly arranged evidence that had pointed so cleanly toward Su Wan. Old Master Lu’s eyes sharpened at once.
"Which wrist?"
Chen Ru slowly closed her eyes, trying to .....