Of course — here is the continuation in close, natural American English, keeping the character dynamics and the quiet, ominous tone intact.
The afternoon sunlight in Changning Alley was gentle and warm.
It wasn’t the glaring summer sun, but the soft golden light unique to autumn.
It fell across the stone-paved road like a thin layer of golden sand.
The door of Guichen Studio was half-open, warm yellow light spilling through the gap and blending with the sunlight outside until the boundary between them was almost impossible to distinguish.
Sheng Chengxiu sat by the window, an untouched cup of tea beside him.
Today he was wearing a thin dark-gray jacket, more casual than on any of his previous visits, as though he were simply meeting a friend as part of an ordinary routine.
His gaze rested on Su Muchen, natural, restrained, and as polite as ever.
Su Muchen sat behind the counter with a document spread open in front of him.
He looked much better than he had a month ago. The puffiness and dark shadows beneath his eyes from prolonged lack of sleep were gone, and even his speech had slowed somewhat. His expression and posture were far more relaxed.
He really was more relaxed than he had been a month ago.
But that relaxation wasn’t because of Sheng Chengxiu.
It was because Guichen Studio had finally returned to his hands.
Su Muchen’s tone was calm, neither deliberately friendly nor deliberately guarded.
“The ownership issue has finally been resolved.” His fingers lightly brushed the edge of the document. “The procedures took a long time, but they’re finally all done.”
Guichen Studio had officially returned to his hands.
Su Muchen felt a sense of relief. So far, everything had gone smoothly.
Because Sheng Chengxiu hadn’t made a single move.
Sheng Chengxiu merely listened with a faint smile.
At the same time, he was observing.
When Su Muchen said that, there was a looseness in his voice, the kind that came from finally being able to let his guard down.
His shoulders were no longer slightly tense as they had been during their previous meetings, and even the movements of his pen had become more unhurried. Unlike before, he no longer seemed eager to finish speaking as quickly as possible.
In the past, all he had shown Sheng Chengxiu was wariness and a cold gaze.
But now, Sheng Chengxiu was looking at someone who was slowly accepting his circumstances.
Not someone giving up resistance, but someone discovering that perhaps he no longer needed to resist quite so much.
The change was subtle.
But Su Muchen’s tone, speaking pace, expression, and eyes weren’t lying.
And this was precisely the state Sheng Chengxiu wanted.
He wanted Su Muchen to gradually lower his guard. That would make the next stage of his plan much easier.
He had waited for a month.
During that month, he had done nothing except make appointments, visit Guichen Studio, and discuss the details and progress of the charity project with Su Muchen.
Nothing more.
There was only one person standing between them—
Su Jinye.
At that moment, Su Jinye was sitting in another corner of Guichen Studio, casually looking down at his tablet.
He looked as though he wasn’t listening to their conversation at all.
But Sheng Chengxiu could tell that it was merely an act.
Through the surveillance cameras throughout the front room of Guichen Studio, the tablet, and that pair of glasses, Su Jinye was keeping watch over him and everything happening around Guichen Studio.
The three of them occupied separate corners of the studio, maintaining a delicate balance, a superficial peace that was entirely false.
Sheng Chengxiu’s gaze drifted toward the corridor leading to the back room.
The first night he had come to Guichen Studio, that corridor had still been open.
Now there was a metal door there, blocking the view.
A modern electronic lock had been installed on the door, completely at odds with the antique atmosphere of Guichen Studio.
Su Muchen suddenly seemed to remember something.
“By the way, we may need to adjust the meeting schedule after this. Guichen Studio is now closed every Tuesday, so we won’t be able to schedule meetings then.”
Sheng Chengxiu nodded slightly without asking anything in particular.
In the past, Guichen Studio had always been closed on Mondays. He had known that for a long time.
Now it had been changed to Tuesdays.
He wondered whether that was to accommodate the “abnormal phenomenon” or whether it was another trap laid by Xiao.
When the meeting ended and Sheng Chengxiu walked out of Guichen Studio, the sunlight had already begun to slant.
He got into his car and leaned back against the seat, replaying their conversation, Su Muchen’s expressions, and his body language in his mind.
Su Muchen’s body language really had relaxed.
The tone in which he spoke about the property rights was genuine. That feeling of finally being able to let his guard down hadn’t been acted.
But Sheng Chengxiu also knew—
Su Muchen had never been someone who lowered his guard easily.
If his relaxation was genuine, then it meant he really was gradually accepting life at Guichen Studio.
If it was fake, then someone was teaching him how to act.
He remembered the first time he had met Su Muchen.
Back then, the other man hadn’t been willing to say a single word more than necessary.
Now he would voluntarily bring up the property rights and Guichen Studio.
A person couldn’t possibly change that much in a month.
Unless—
He had begun to trust the person standing before him.
Or—
He wanted the person standing before him to believe that he had begun to trust him.
The car drove smoothly out of Changning Alley.
In the rearview mirror, the door of Guichen Studio was closing, shutting the light behind it.
By the time he returned to the study at Shaohua Center, the sky was already dark.
Unlike the clear weather during the day, thick clouds hung heavily over the city, with low rumbles of thunder sounding from time to time.
But the rain had yet to fall.
Sheng Chengxiu opened the drawer on the left side of his desk and took out several documents, spreading them across the tabletop.
The first was a record of observations from the past month.
He had already gone over it many times. Now he simply wanted to confirm it once more.
Guichen Studio had always been closed on Mondays.
That was information he had known for a long time.
Today, it had been changed to Tuesday.
Xiao sometimes appeared at a logistics center belonging to Chenghui Group in that dark-red sports car.
Sometimes the car would stop in the alley behind Guichen Studio.
Sometimes it would take an undetermined route, circle around, and then return to Changning Alley.
The times, durations, and routes were never fixed.
They were consistent with what he had observed in the past.
He turned to the second document.
It contained records of abnormalities detected by the surveillance cameras around the back room of Guichen Studio.
Over the past month, except on Mondays, the surveillance around the back room had experienced a brief abnormality at midnight every day. The footage would turn to static or interference for roughly ten to fifteen minutes before returning to normal.
The phenomenon was consistent with what he had observed in the past.
It was also consistent with the abnormality that had occurred when Su Muchen was imprisoned on the island.
The only difference was that the surveillance abnormalities around Guichen Studio’s back room had previously occurred at irregular times.
But over the past month, they had become extraordinarily consistent.
Sheng Chengxiu’s finger paused on the page.
He theorized that perhaps the door had opened.
Perhaps Su Muchen was using the door.
Opening the passage that led to the other world.
He had never tried sending people near Guichen Studio at those times because he knew that line couldn’t be severed.
If it were severed, he would no longer be able to continue observing how the door operated.
He set the document down and opened the third.
It contained interior photographs taken during his first consultation.
He had brought an extremely discreet pinhole camera that wouldn’t be detected by scanning equipment and had photographed the entire process.
His gaze settled on the corridor leading to the back room.
There was now another door there, made of metal blast-resistant material. It appeared to require fingerprint and facial recognition to enter, and perhaps something else as well.
He remembered the layout of Guichen Studio.
That door hadn’t existed before.
It had been installed after the incident in which he kidnapped Su Muchen.
The purpose was obvious:
They didn’t want him to see what was behind it.
The fourth document was a map.
Not an electronic one, but a paper map.
It showed a rough layout of the interior of Guichen Studio. It wasn’t complete, having been redrawn from all the information he had been able to obtain.
The surrounding area of Guichen Studio was also marked on it.
Sheng Chengxiu had used different colored pens to mark various lines and symbols across the map.
It was extremely messy, and only he could understand it.
Sheng Chengxiu placed the three documents and the map side by side on the desk, as though piecing together a picture that was still missing several fragments.
Every indication suggested that Su Jinye was deliberately arranging certain things for him to see and investigate.
Some were different from before.
Some were exactly the same as what he had observed in the past.
True and false information were interwoven.
He stared at the documents.
Then he pulled out the second surveillance record.
Every day.
Midnight.
Fixed.
Ten to fifteen minutes.
It was too regular.
So regular that it didn’t seem natural.
It was more like…
Someone had deliberately arranged it for him to see.
Sheng Chengxiu suddenly smiled.
“Su Jinye, are you hiding the door… or are you telling me—”
His finger lightly traced the recorded times.
“That the door is right here?”
The study fell silent again.
He neither immediately dismissed the possibility nor immediately believed it.
Because he knew very well—
A truly sophisticated trap never hid the truth.
Instead, it placed the truth right before someone’s eyes.
And let that person walk toward it of their own accord.
Step into the trap with their own body.
“You must have set a trap at Guichen Studio.”
His gaze swept across the layout map.
“The question is, how many?”
He sat there for a long time, studying the map.
Outside the window, the sky was changing from deep blue to pitch black.
He picked up a pen and marked several locations.
Surveillance blind spots.
Entrances and exits.
Possible escape routes.
Possible locations of the “door.”
When he finished marking the final spot, the tip of the pen paused against the paper for a moment.
Then he set it down, took out his phone, and made a call.
The phone rang twice.
The call connected.
“Mr. Sheng.”
“Begin preparations. Be ready to act at any time. I’ll notify you once the timing is right.”
The person on the other end listened carefully in silence.
Sheng Chengxiu gave his instructions.
“Guichen Studio. Same operation code. Four teams. Perimeter security, snipers, close protection, and emergency extraction. Arrange everything as soon as possible. I want the complete plan tomorrow.”
Finally, he added one more instruction.
“Without my order, no one is to approach Guichen Studio.”
“Understood.”
The call ended.
Sheng Chengxiu put down his phone.
In his mind, he began constructing the scene that would eventually unfold.
His objective had always been clear—
Obtain the door and the Key.
This was only the first step.
But he and his ancestors had spent a very long time getting this far.
He also knew that even if Su Jinye were eliminated, another Gatekeeper would take his place.
So the first thing he had to do was see the door with his own eyes.
Witness the door.
Confirm whether it was truly what he had imagined.
After that, he would slowly deal with Su Jinye and Chenghui Group, and finally take the door and the Key for himself.
It was a long road.
It wasn’t a plan that could be completed in a day, two days, or even a year.
Now, he had learned to wait.
The surveillance cameras and the people he had sent couldn’t tell him what the “door” truly was.
Only by seeing it with his own eyes could he understand.
Now that the Gatekeeper—Su Jinye—had shown his sincerity and extended an invitation to him…
Wouldn’t it be rude to refuse?
◇◆◇◆◇
Midnight.
Xiao Yuan glanced at the pocket watch in his hand.
The hands had landed at 12:01.
He slipped the watch back into his inner pocket and raised his hand to push open the door leading to Guichen Studio.
White light gathered behind him, while the warmth of Guichen Studio surged toward him from all directions.
The second floor was dark.
Su Muchen had already gone to bed.
Someone sat behind the counter, the light from a tablet illuminating his face. The cool-toned glow reflected off his lenses, concealing his eyes.
He didn’t look up when he heard the back-room door open.
Only when Xiao Yuan walked to the counter and placed a wooden box on the tabletop did his gaze finally move away from the tablet.
“This is the current situation in Linbei City, along with the supply list for the next shipment,” Xiao Yuan said, pushing the wooden box an inch toward the center of the counter.
Xiao glanced at it.
His gaze fell on the side of the wooden box, where a letter rested.
The envelope was off-white, with a tiny dark-red wax seal pressed over the flap.
It was for him.
Lately, his correspondence with Xia Lanshi had settled into a regular rhythm.
There were no probing questions or cautious tests, and they never discussed the plan for this operation.
Only ordinary greetings, remarks about the changing seasons, and curiosity about the differences between their two worlds.
A distance that could never be measured separated them, yet within the folds of their letters, they had found a small opening through which they could draw closer.
Xiao Yuan’s gaze also fell on the letter.
Then he looked up at Xiao.
Xiao sensed his gaze and tilted his head slightly, his tone relaxed.
“Is there something Your Highness wants to ask?”
Xiao Yuan was silent for a while, as though considering how to begin.
His hand rested against the edge of the wooden box.
Only after a moment did he say, “You… seem to get along rather well with Huaiyu?”
Xiao seemed to have known he would ask.
He merely said lightly, “The Chief Secretary is learned and knowledgeable. Corresponding with him has certainly taught me quite a few things.”
Xiao Yuan wasn’t convinced by that answer.
He knew Xiao was deliberately avoiding the main point, but he didn’t expose him immediately.
“You’ve kept all the letters Huaiyu sent you?”
“Of course.”
Xiao Yuan’s gaze lingered on Xiao’s face.
“You seem to treasure them.”
Xiao lowered his head and looked at the letter. His eyes were hidden behind his lenses and long lashes.
“…Some things last longer than a person’s lifetime.”
Xiao Yuan didn’t respond.
The weight of those words slowly sank into an abyss with no visible bottom.
They were far too heavy to sound like something a man in his twenties would say.
“You should know about Huaiyu’s health.”
There were two meanings hidden within that sentence.
Concern, and a probe.
Xiao understood both, yet still replied calmly.
“The Chief Secretary’s health does require more attention. Doctor Su has already prepared a regimen for him. If Your Highness has concerns, perhaps you could ask Doctor Su for a copy.”
Xiao Yuan looked at him.
Xiao met his gaze without retreating.
“Your Highness should understand. He isn’t someone who needs another person to decide whom he should associate with.”
There was the faintest hint of provocation deep in his gaze.
Guichen Studio fell silent for a moment.
Xiao Yuan remembered that he himself had once given a similar answer.
Xiao hadn’t wanted Su Muchen to get too close to him.
At the time, he had told Xiao—
Su Muchen had the right to choose.
Now those very words had been returned to him, intact.
He wasn’t angry.
He sat down in the chair behind the counter.
“Your temperament really does suit Huaiyu.”
Whether that was praise or sarcasm was impossible to tell.
Xiao didn’t respond.
Xiao Yuan had no intention of continuing to pursue a question that wasn’t going to receive an answer.
But whenever Xia Lanshi was mentioned, Xiao’s tone always softened slightly, as though he didn’t dare casually touch something fragile.
“I’ll keep an eye on Huaiyu.”
“Then I’ll trouble Your Highness.”
“What about Sheng Chengxiu?”
Xiao’s fingers tapped rhythmically against the tablet. The screen displayed a defense map that had been revised again and again.
“He has learned to wait this time. He’s still observing. But…”
It would be soon.
Both sides were watching and waiting.
The preparations were already nearing completion.
Now they were simply waiting for a signal.
A trigger.
And the timing of that trigger was in his hands.
“What will you do if this fails?”
Xiao’s fingers stopped at the edge of the tablet.
It was as though he were taking the question from the realm of “hypothesis” and sorting it into the “options” he was accustomed to dealing with.
He didn’t look at Xiao Yuan.
“Then the next person will take over.”
“And if the next person fails too?”
“Then the person after them.”
“Until it succeeds?”
Xiao finally raised his eyes.
The gaze behind his lenses was no different from usual, but Xiao Yuan noticed the darkness at the bottom of his eyes.
“Until… there is no one left.”
Xiao Yuan looked at him.
There had been no “I” anywhere in that conversation.
That person had already disappeared from his own answer.
He had completely left himself out of it.
Xiao Yuan asked again, “If Muan found out about your plan—”
“He won’t.”
“I’m saying ‘if.'”
Xiao was silent for a moment.
Then he said, “Then it means I’ve failed.”
If he failed, the plan would be exposed.
If the plan was exposed, everything would collapse.
In that man’s way of thinking, there was no option for “he’ll be angry” or “he’ll be hurt.”
There was only “failure” or “success.”
That wasn’t an answer a person would give.
It was a mission.
Behind those lenses, his eyes showed almost no emotional fluctuation.
They were very still, like a stagnant pool that could not produce even the slightest ripple.
Xiao Yuan had seen eyes like those before.
That person had been himself.
“—You’re very much like the person I used to be.”
Those words made Xiao’s fingers pause slightly.
Xiao Yuan didn’t look at him. He simply continued.
“As though you believe that as long as you die, everyone else will be safe.”
He remembered his own past.
He remembered once believing that if he died, everyone else might have an easier life.
“Unfortunately, that was never the case.”
From the moment he had first seen Xiao, he had seen his own reflection in him.
That layer of a smile, those words, all lacking much emotional fluctuation.
Like a disguise.
There had never been much emotion in those eyes.
Like the eyes of the dead.
As though time and certain things had worn away all his emotions.
Now he was merely pretending to be human.
The only time Xiao’s emotions could still be seen most clearly was whenever something involved Xia Lanshi.
“You just want it to end.”
The words landed inside Guichen Studio, stirring a faint ripple.
Then the ripple quickly disappeared.
A smile curved at the corner of Xiao’s lips, false as an illusion.
“Your Highness is overthinking it. Rather than worrying about me, you should worry about the people of the Northern Border.”
“I naturally care about the Northern Border. But that doesn’t stop me from caring about Su Muchen and you. You matter very much to Muan, and to Huaiyu as well.”
The moment those two names were mentioned, the smile disappeared from Xiao’s face.
He seemed unsure how to respond.
Finally, he slowly sighed, as though conceding.
“Your Highness,” he said, “have you ever thought about it? What if a person has already lived long enough? Long enough to have made every mistake they could make. Long enough to have saved everyone they could save. Long enough to have lost everyone they could lose.”
He paused before continuing.
“…And yet, they’re still alive.”
Xiao’s gaze rested on the letter on the table.
A flicker of light passed through his eyes.
But very quickly, it dimmed again.
“That isn’t wanting to end things. I’m just tired.”
Guichen Studio fell silent for a while.
A heavy, exhausted atmosphere settled over the room, pressing down until it was difficult to breathe.
Xiao Yuan suddenly spoke, his tone as calm as though he were asking about something completely unimportant.
“How old are you this year?”
Xiao paused slightly.
Then he smiled, the smile careless and unconcerned.
“…I forgot.”
He paused again, as though silently counting the years all over again.
Then he added, “Twenty-six, I think.”
As though he were casually giving a number.
Xiao Yuan said nothing more.
He had already confirmed the answer he wanted.
◆◇◆◇◆
Xia Lanshi sat beside the writing desk by the window in the eastern courtyard, the lamp still burning.
When Xiao Yuan returned, he had just finished brewing a pot of tea, as though he had calculated the timing precisely—neither too early nor too late.
When Xiao Yuan pushed open the door, a trace of coolness from the Northern Border night still clung to his shoulders.
After entering, he stood beside the brazier for a moment, allowing the warmth to dissolve the chill before finally sitting down beside the desk.
Xia Lanshi pushed the tea toward him.
“Did Your Highness learn anything tonight?”
Xiao Yuan took the tea but didn’t drink.
He lowered his eyes to the faint ring of steam rising from the rim.
“I spoke with him.”
Xia Lanshi didn’t press him.
He simply waited quietly.
“Sometimes, his words feel very far away.”
Xia Lanshi raised his eyes slightly.
“Far away?”
“Like someone who has already walked a very long road, describing a starting point they can barely remember anymore.”
Xiao Yuan spoke without embellishment, simply recounting what he had observed.
“I asked him what he would do if he failed. He said the next person would take over. If they failed, then the next one. Until there was no one left.”
Xia Lanshi’s fingers stopped against the rim of his cup.
“…There was no him in that answer.”
Xiao Yuan glanced at him and continued.
“I asked about the letter. He said—some things last longer than a person’s lifetime.”
Xia Lanshi didn’t comment on that sentence.
Instead, he asked, “What else?”
Xiao Yuan thought for a moment.
“I asked him how old he was this year. He said, ‘I forgot.’ Then he answered, ‘Twenty-six.’ His tone wasn’t certain, and he didn’t seem to care much.”
Xia Lanshi thought carefully.
An ordinary person wouldn’t forget their own age.
Unless age was no longer important to them, or had no meaning.
Or perhaps… they simply couldn’t remember it clearly.
“He said some other things as well.”
Xiao Yuan repeated Xiao’s words.
“He said that a person can live long enough to have made every mistake they could make, saved everyone they could save, and lost everyone they could lose. Yet they’re still alive.”
He paused before slowly continuing, his voice carrying a trace of gravity.
“He said that wasn’t wanting to end things. He was simply tired.”
When Xia Lanshi heard those words, it felt as though fine needles had lightly pierced his heart, leaving a dense, lingering ache.
Even hearing them secondhand made him wonder—
What could someone have experienced?
How much suffering would a person have to endure before they could say something like that?
He quickly composed himself.
Sitting beneath the lamplight, he allowed each word to pass through his consciousness, reconsidering its shape and weight.
Only after a while did he speak.
His voice was as rational as ever.
“This doesn’t sound like something someone in their twenties would say.”
Xiao Yuan nodded.
He felt the same.
He thought of the words engraved on Xia Lanshi’s pocket watch:
“Live. That’s enough.”
As though someone had weathered countless hardships, no longer resisting, with only resignation remaining.
Xia Lanshi’s gaze fell upon the thin layer of moonlight on the window paper as he pieced together the fragments of the past in his mind.
He tried to assemble them into a complete truth.
By now, that truth had already taken shape in his mind.
It was absurd, yet it could explain so many things.
“He didn’t include himself in the answer. He said he was merely tired, not that he wanted to die. And he forgot his own age.”
Xia Lanshi analyzed the result of this probing.
“—A person’s age doesn’t necessarily equal the amount of time they’ve truly lived.”
Xiao Yuan looked at him, considering the meaning behind those words.
“Your Highness. Perhaps he really has lived for a very long time.”
“You mean he’s not an ordinary person?”
“He certainly isn’t,” Xia Lanshi said. “I’m only thinking that perhaps what lies behind his words isn’t a secret, but an ‘experience.'”
The lamp in the eastern courtyard continued to burn, while the night outside grew deeper.
Xia Lanshi lowered his eyes to the teacup in his hands, his fingertips lightly tracing its rim.
He remembered the things Xiao had written in his letters.
Calm things.
Unhurried things.
Reflections on life.
Like someone who had already seen countless landscapes, slowly telling him what those landscapes had looked like.
He had once thought that was simply Xiao’s personality.
Now he was beginning to wonder whether it was also the mark left behind by experience.
He didn’t tell Xiao Yuan these thoughts.
He had no evidence, and he felt the matter could not yet be determined.
But if everything really was as he had deduced…
Then that door was far too heavy.
He gathered his thoughts and temporarily set his emotions aside.
“I suspect the Gatekeeper’s duties are far more than simply guarding the door or maintaining the balance between the two worlds. With Young Master Xiao’s abilities, those tasks should be effortless.”
Xiao Yuan pondered for a moment before saying,
“He has cut off every possible retreat this time. It’s no different from burning the boats behind him. It’s too dangerous.”
Xia Lanshi already knew the overall plan from Xiao Yuan.
But Xiao had not revealed the crucial final stage.
He had only brushed it aside with one sentence:
“Resolve it using the Gatekeeper’s method.”
“He hasn’t left himself a way out. If he succeeds, perhaps the problem can be temporarily resolved. But if he fails…”
His fingertips lightly rested against the white jade safety buckle, his tone solemn.
“He may have to pay an enormous price.”
Whether it was Sheng Chengxiu or Xiao—
Both sides had revealed all their cards.
Beyond victory or defeat, there was no retreat.
This was no longer a matter of probing and exchanging moves.
—This was a life-or-death deadlock.
After those words, neither of them spoke again.
They both had their own concerns about this operation.
But there was little they could do to interfere in the other world.
Xia Lanshi simply came to understand something.
If his guess was correct—
Then what Xiao truly wanted to hide had never been his identity.
It was…
the “past” that he could never allow anyone else to experience again.
If you send the next section, I’ll continue with the same names, terminology, and tone.