"Get out!" Lan Lingshan snatched up the coffee cup from the desk without a second thought and hurled it at Lin Xi, her lips curling into an icy smile. "Considering you bear the surname Lin this time I'll let it slide, but if I hear anything like that again I swear to God I will kill you."

Lin Xi found herself splattered with coffee, yet when Lingshan spoke those words she forgot even to wipe them off her clothes, frozen in place as pallid terror overtook her features. "Y-you...I'm going to tell Auntie..." Her voice trembled on the brink of a sob.

"Out!" Lan Lingshan's expression hardened with impatience before she pressed the intercom button. The bodyguard arrived swiftly to drag the quivering, disheveled girl from the room. Startled into silence, Lin Xi didn't even cry out as they hauled her past the threshold and shut the door behind them.

Coffee pooled across the office floor like spilled ink when Lan Lingshan took Ning Yunhuan's hand and led her toward the inner chamber. The elevator there would take them directly to his private suite on the top floor. Once inside, he gently combed fingers through her hair as they ascended.

"What made you come looking for me?" His handsome features were serene now, all traces of fury from moments ago erased by that faint smile which softened him into a picture of elegant poise.

Ning Yunhuan hesitated after staring at his reflection in the elevator mirror. She'd intended to ask about borrowing men for surveillance but instead found herself breathless with questions. "Who is Liu Yan?" The name had slipped out before she could stop it, revealing her sudden panic that two years together - even as mother of his child - hadn't brought them true intimacy.

"I don't know her." His answer came flatly honest. Truly no memory stirred at the name from Lin Xi's lips just minutes prior. Seeing doubt flicker in Ning Yunhuan's eyes, he added with rare patience: "I really have no idea who that is."

She knew better than to question his pride. Two clear denials from a man like him meant finality - yet her heart still clenched at the admission.

"What else about your past haven't you told me?" The words tumbled out before she could censor them, immediately regretting their rawness as Lan Lingshan's fingers soothed her furrowed brow.

"Curious about who I was close to?" he asked with that disarming smile while his cool fingertips traced patterns across her skin, each featherlight touch igniting a shiver of anticipation.

Ning Yunhuan tilted away instinctively yet lingered in the closeness she couldn't resist. "I just wanted to ask..."

"No one." He tightened his embrace as he kissed behind her ear where tiny chills danced along her neck. "No one at all."

His family had long since conditioned him against such attachments - how could one afford weakness when beauty might be exploited? Years ago he'd used that very strategy to eliminate several lustful cousins, and now maintained the same vigilance toward women. With fastidious standards and deep-seated aversion to even casual contact with others' touch, his wariness had become second nature.

Still, Ning Yunhuan's trembling form pressed against him betrayed her own desires as much as his. "No...we're not at home." She tried to push away but found herself ensnared in the tension building between them.

When they emerged from the bathroom later, he wrapped a robe around her shoulders while she lay drowsily in his arms. Only then did she remember: "I wanted to borrow some of your men."

As she recounted the encounter with Gu Shao Tao at Ning Yuncheng's home that afternoon, Lan Lingshan was already nodding in approval. "Tomorrow." He paused before adding: "My parents are returning."

The announcement made her tense like a bowstring beneath his hands as he dried her hair. With hesitant voice she asked: "Are they...amiable?"

His hand stilled mid-motion. "Amiable? Why would you need to interact with them?"

The Lan family's parenting model had bred cold, calculating heirs capable of ruthless power struggles, but left little room for genuine familial bonds. As the current patriarch, Lingshan's father had grown distant by necessity - too afraid of losing his son in the brutal inheritance battles to form attachments that might cloud judgment when making lethal decisions.

Ning Yunhuan noticed now what she hadn't before: how Lan Lingshan handled every aspect of her care while leaving their infant son in complete charge of nannies. The contrast struck with new clarity.

"I'm shocked," she murmured, watching him rearrange the pillows behind her head as he dried her hair. No longer intimidated by his cold demeanor, she now saw something different beneath it all.

He knew this shift instantly and didn't pursue the topic further. Instead he enjoyed how easily she settled into his arms, content in their unspoken understanding.

True to form, within two days five men were assigned - three for Gu Shao Tao's surveillance, two for Ning Yuncheng's - when early that morning Mrs. Ning called frantically: her husband had been attacked at the apartment complex gate on his evening walk. The security guard had barely intervened in time.

As Ning Yunhuan rushed to organize her five operatives, she knew instinctively this was no random assault against such a mild-mannered man as Mr. Ning.