Chapter 3 - The Red Stamps
The Civil Affairs Bureau on Central Avenue was crowded, noisy, and smelled of stale tobacco and wet umbrellas.
Lin Chen stood in line between a young couple in matching pink sweaters who couldn't stop kissing each other's cheeks, and an elderly pair who were filing for divorce with the quiet, methodical efficiency of people dividing a grocery bill.
Beside her, Lu Zongheng stood out like an obsidian monolith in a puddle of mud.
He had spent ten minutes in the back of a luxury van parked in the alley behind the tea shop. He had emerged wearing a midnight-blue suit cut from English wool, his hair brushed back from his high forehead, the smudge of ash gone from his jaw, replaced by the faint, masculine scent of cedarwood and high-end aftershave. The transformation was so total that the clerk at the window had looked at his ID card twice, then at him, then at Lin Chen's faded jeans and canvas sneakers.
"Sign here," the clerk said, stamping a form with a dull thud-thud. "And here."
Lin Chen took the red ink pad, pressed her thumb into the sticky wax, and planted it onto the paper beside Lu Zongheng's neat, dark print.
When the two small red booklets—the marriage certificates—were handed across the counter, she held hers between two fingers as if it were a live grenade.
Husband: Lu Zongheng. Wife: Lin Chen.
"Congratulations," the clerk said without looking up. "Next."
They walked out onto the stone steps of the bureau. The rain had started again, a fine, cold drizzle that turned the asphalt greasy. A long, black Maybach pulled up to the curb, its tinted windows reflecting the gray sky.
A man in his fifties, with silvering hair and a posture like an old soldier, stepped out holding a giant black umbrella. He opened it over Lu Zongheng's head first, then quickly adjusted his position to cover Lin Chen.
"Young Master," the older man said, bowing slightly. "The Old Master has been waiting at the manor since two o'clock. He knows you didn't attend the morning strategy meeting."
Lu Zongheng glanced at his watch—a sleek piece of platinum with no numbers on the dial.
"Did he say who else was there?"
"Master Lu Guowei and Miss Lu Miaomiao arrived an hour ago," the driver replied smoothly. "They brought the legal team from the Hengfeng Group."
Lu Zongheng's mouth tightened into a hard, dangerous line. He turned to Lin Chen, offering his arm.
"It seems our performance starts earlier than planned," he said. "Are you ready, Mrs. Lu?"
The title hit her like a bucket of ice water. Mrs. Lu.
May you like
"I haven't even changed my shoes," she said, looking down at her canvas sneakers, which were now soaked through at the toes.
"Good," Lu Zongheng said, his fingers closing around her forearm with gentle but absolute strength as he guided her into the back of the Maybach. "My family hates poor people. Your shoes will give my uncle a stroke before we even reach the appetizer."
