Chapter 6

The scent of garlic and ginger, sharp against the fading heat of lunch service, clung to Luo Chen’s clothes. He wiped down the last table in the ancestral restaurant’s main hall, the rhythmic squeak of the cloth a familiar, almost meditative sound. It was a task he performed daily, a silent testament to his place as the family’s live-in son-in-law – a glorified cleaner, a disposable fixture. He moved with an efficiency born of long practice, his gaze sweeping over the polished dark wood and the faded calligraphy scrolls that spoke of generations of culinary tradition, a legacy he was forbidden to touch. The restaurant, once the jewel of the Shen family, now felt like a gilded cage, its former glory a constant, mocking whisper. He finished, straightened, and then, as if on cue, the sharp voice of Madam Shen cut through the quiet.

"Luo Chen! Are you done dawdling? The bank called again about the auction house valuation. Your uncle's branch is making trouble, and your incompetence isn't helping!" Her words, delivered with the precision of a surgeon's scalpel, were designed to wound. Luo Chen merely nodded, his face a mask of practiced deference. Inside, a cold resolve hardened. The valuation. The rigged auction. He knew exactly what she was talking about, and he had his own plans for that particular piece of family drama.