After bidding farewell to the youth, Lin Yue carried two cups of freshly brewed coffee back to the Keris Chamber of Commerce’s magnificent, yet slightly empty, main lobby.
The atmosphere here was a world away from the tension of the meeting room, feeling almost like another lifetime.
At the front desk, Clara was meticulously organizing a stack of documents that seemed like they would never end.
Ruby, on the other hand, rested her chin on one hand while absentmindedly twirling a quill with the other.
Her eyes were glazed over, clearly lost in a daydream.
The sound of Lin Yue’s footsteps brought Ruby back to reality first.
“Ah! It’s… the gentleman who was with Miss Mapell!”
She snapped upright, a bright and curious smile blooming on her face.
Her gaze involuntarily drifted toward the extra cup of coffee in his hand.
Clara also stopped what she was doing and looked up.
She gave a polite nod as a greeting, her calm gaze sweeping over Lin Yue and the coffee.
“Good afternoon.”
Ruby’s eyes lit up as she immediately took the cup he offered, then leaned in to whisper some gossip.
“Is the… other one for Miss Mapell?”
Lin Yue smiled but didn’t answer directly.
Instead, he asked, “I was wondering, if Miss Mapell isn’t in her office or the meeting room, where else does she usually go? I have some business with her.”
“Where she usually goes?”
Ruby bit the rim of her cup and thought for a moment, counting on her fingers.
“The warehouse? The accounting office? No, at this hour… Oh! The rooftop terrace! Miss Mapell occasionally goes there when she’s in a bad mood or needs to think! It has the best view and it’s the quietest spot, though most people aren’t allowed up there.”
She laughed as she glanced at the token in Lin Yue’s hand.
“But for you, of course, it won’t be a problem!”
“The rooftop terrace…” Lin Yue noted the location and nodded.
“How do I get there?”
Clara, who had been silent until now, spoke up.
“Take the main stairs to the fifth floor. There is a private spiral staircase at the east end. The door requires the token to trigger the lock.”
As she spoke, her eyes habitually scanned Lin Yue—a subconscious trait developed from her time as a receptionist.
She noted whether his clothes were appropriate, if there were any identifying marks, and his overall state.
Her gaze lingered for half a second on Lin Yue’s left wrist as he held the coffee.
There was nothing special there, but the way Lin Yue held the cup was unique.
He didn’t cradle the bottom with his palm; instead, he used his index and middle fingers to brace the handle, pinched the top with his thumb, and lightly supported the base with his pinky.
It wasn’t a bizarre posture, but it possessed a contradictory sense of casual stability.
It was an insignificant habit.
Clara lowered her eyes without saying more, silently filing this minor observation into her memory.
As a receptionist, remembering the subtle traits of visitors was sometimes just part of the job.
“Thank you.”
Lin Yue thanked Clara for the detailed directions, unaware of her brief scrutiny.
Holding the two cups of coffee steadily, he nodded to the two women and turned toward the main staircase.
Ruby watched Lin Yue’s back disappear around the corner before leaning into Clara’s ear.
Her voice was low, filled with irrepressible excitement.
“Hey, Clara, did you see that? He personally brewed coffee and is taking it up to Miss Mapell! He even specifically asked for directions… something is definitely going on!”
Clara continued organizing her documents, her expression blank.
She replied flatly, “Read fewer of those boring novels. And you should learn to recognize that hand gesture. Next time, even if he shows up with a different face, as long as that posture remains the same, you’d better be able to identify him.”
Her words sounded like a lecture on Ruby’s lack of professionalism, yet they seemed to carry a deeper meaning.
“Huh? A hand gesture?”
Ruby blinked blankly, having no idea what her colleague was talking about.
Her attention had already drifted elsewhere.
“But speaking of which, he feels a bit different now. It’s like he’s finally figured something out…”
Clara didn’t respond further.
The corner of her mouth twitched almost imperceptibly, a silent acknowledgment.
Perhaps.
But what had truly caught her attention was the depths of those seemingly calm brown eyes.
They appeared to be calculating and weighing options, but there was a faint glimmer of something else hidden within.
He walked to the top floor and used the token to open the heavy door.
‘So, you really are here.’
The top floor of the Keris Chamber of Commerce was a massive, semi-open balcony.
Like the office below, it featured a coffee machine and a bar, appearing as if it had been designed specifically for Mapell’s tastes and needs.
Though luxurious, it was covered in dust; it seemed that no one aside from Lin Yue and Mapell had visited this place in quite some time.
The autumn wind was brisk and a bit chilly, tossing the stray hairs on her forehead.
Mapell’s eyes, beautiful enough to steal one’s soul, were half-lidded.
In this moment, aside from her usual charm, there was an unutterable sense of brokenness about her.
The cup of coffee Lin Yue brought up clearly mitigated that feeling, improving her mood slightly.
Mapell looked down at the bustling streets of the Royal Capital, leaning one hand against the terrace railing as she took the cup.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
As always, their relationship didn’t seem to have changed despite the intensity of the earlier meeting.
“Wait a moment…” Mapell’s gaze fell on his chest, where a dark, dried stain from the spilled wine remained.
Almost instinctively, she pulled a soft silk handkerchief from her bodice, reached out, and gently began to wipe the stain.
“Why didn’t you think to change your clothes after all this time?”
Her movements were careful and her brow was slightly furrowed, as if she were tending to something precious that had been accidentally soiled.
Lin Yue had actually forgotten he had been splashed with wine.
“I didn’t notice…”
Since the stain was already dry, Mapell’s wiping didn’t do much.
However, she persisted stubbornly until the mark became blurred and faint before she pulled the handkerchief back.
She looked up at Lin Yue’s stunned expression and suddenly curled her lips.
That familiar, slightly playful smile returned to her face.
“You certainly know how to enjoy yourself, Master Lin Yue. You just got your token and you already ran to the highest, quietest place in the building. This is a Manager’s privilege, you know?”
She took a sip of the coffee, her tone lightening.
“Does owning a viewing deck in the center of the Royal Capital make the token feel like it was worth the price? It seems you have quite the potential to be a merchant.”
Being able to build a massive penthouse in a city where every inch of land was worth its weight in gold just to drink coffee leisurely was indeed the height of luxury.
Lin Yue shook his head helplessly.
“I just couldn’t find you. Clara and Ruby suggested I check here.”
“Oh? Those two girls…” Mapell smiled and didn’t press further.
She turned back around, leaning against the railing again to look at the city below—a city that was bustling yet felt as distant as if it were behind a pane of glass.
The sharp, calculated edge she had displayed in the meeting room quietly faded in this solitude.
The exhaustion hidden deep in her eyes, wrapped in layers of pressure and a faint, imperceptible tremor of doubt, finally surfaced.
Lin Yue walked to her side and looked out toward the horizon.
After a moment of silence, he asked the question he had been pondering for a long time.
“Your status… it seems it’s not what I thought it was.”
He was curious, and he truly needed to understand what kind of existence she was within the Keris Chamber of Commerce.
Mapell’s hand holding the coffee cup paused for a fraction of a second.
She didn’t look at him, keeping her eyes on the skyline.
Her voice was calm.
“That’s right. Just as Renault said… I am not the child of my father’s legal wife.”
She paused, seemingly searching for the right words, before finally letting out a soft sigh.
“An illegitimate daughter? Perhaps. But more accurately, I suppose… I was just an accident.”
Hearing those words from her felt strangely detached, as if she were describing someone else’s life.
She took another sip of coffee, trying to appear strong, but Lin Yue keenly noticed that her fingertips were trembling slightly.
“An accidental child, who accidentally survived, and now accidentally… does things she already knows are meaningless.”
She looked toward the interior, her gaze falling on the dusty coffee machine and the empty chairs.
“This was my mother’s favorite place. Or so my father told me… I have very few memories of her. Pathetically few. Staying here, fighting desperately to protect this Chamber of Commerce… I suppose I’m just trying to hold on to the last place where traces of her existence remain.”
Mapell’s tone carried a faint sense of resignation, as if she were already prepared for the family’s decline and for everything she cherished to be shattered.
Listening to her, Lin Yue spoke softly.
“Then… did I accidentally intrude upon a place that is very important to you?”
Mapell finally turned around and placed her coffee cup on the dusty table.
She put her hands behind her back, her fingertips lightly tracing a clear line through the dust on the tabletop.
“It doesn’t matter.”
She looked at him, something flickering deep in her eyes.
“You are… special.”
‘Special, am I…?’
While he was lost in thought, Mapell walked back to his side and leaned against the railing with him.
She looked up at the darkening sky, her voice dropping lower.
“The Keris Chamber of Commerce looks glamorous on the outside, but it has long since been hollowed out by rot. All I can do is use every ounce of my strength to hold the remaining pieces together.”
“Publicly, Renault must be the first heir. His stupidity and arrogance are exactly the insurance we need to keep the Prince from dealing us a death blow immediately.”
Her lips curled into a cold sneer.
“No one is in a hurry to dispose of an obvious fool, especially when that fool is helping to slowly weaken the target’s own strength.”
“The Prince knows I’m the one actually running things, but he likely doesn’t know the truth of my bloodline. He is happy to use a nuisance like Renault to boil the frog in lukewarm water until we don’t even have the strength to struggle. Then, he’ll swallow us whole.”
“What if we publicly appointed a competent, legitimate heir?”
She shook her head.
“That would be like riding directly over the Prince’s head. The Imperial Family will not allow the Gambler’s Blood of the Keris family to boil again, even if that bloodline has become thin. They would act immediately to snuff out any chance of a revival.”
“Father claiming I was just an adopted daughter was a desperate move. Those core shareholders… they stay not because they believe in me, but because they are clinging to the final illusion of the Keris name. Or… because my two ‘dear brothers’ are simply too pathetic to look at.”
Her voice was filled with mockery and exhaustion.
“When Father finally can’t hold on anymore, the moment Renault officially becomes the heir…”
She didn’t finish the thought, simply staring blankly at a flock of black birds in the distance.
“The current situation is nothing more than a slow death. All I can do is make the process a bit slower, and then slower still… while waiting for a miracle that likely doesn’t even exist.”
As Lin Yue listened, the final fate of this Chamber of Commerce from the game flashed through his mind.
Under such desperate circumstances, this young girl had actually managed to hold things together alone for several years.
That level of resilience and skill was truly terrifying.
No wonder Mapell had used the phrase “life and death together” to describe the relationship she wanted to build with him.
To dance with her meant facing resistance no different from placing one’s life on a gambling table.
He couldn’t help but think that the characters destined for tragedy in this game were simply too powerless.
Under such immense pressure, Mapell was still able to resist in the original story, only being utterly destroyed much later by the Prince’s violent methods.
She was incredible.
Whether it was her mental fortitude or her capability, she was top-tier.
“I understand the general situation,” Lin Yue said, turning his head to look at her profile as the evening wind blew past.
“But I still have one question. You sought me out alone. Do you truly believe I can change anything? Or is your real goal to have me use the power of the Hawk Family?”
Lin Yue still didn’t quite understand what made him worth her betting everything.
Was it the family influence from the original story, or had she seen something else in him?
Mapell’s eyes didn’t betray much emotion.
She drank her coffee mechanically, like the silence before a storm.
After thinking for a moment, her voice carried a deep sense of helplessness.
“Do you think I really want to pin all my hopes on one person, or even one family?”
“In this entire continent, is there any power willing and able to take over the disaster that is the Keris Chamber of Commerce? Avelina? They can barely protect themselves. Other powers? They are either unqualified, or the price they ask is more than we can pay.”
She shook her head.
“There is no path left. Once the path with Avelina was cut, I was already… out of options.”
“So, choosing me is more of a… last resort?”
Lin Yue tried to understand her logic.
“Finding an assistant to at least share some of the burden?”
“Something like that,” Mapell admitted bluntly, carrying the honesty of someone who had nothing left to lose.
“I didn’t originally plan to tell them you were the Young Master of the Hawk Family.”
“The original plan was to let you blend in slowly, binding you to us through actual ability and shared interests to gain support. Your identity was meant to be the final trump card… unfortunately, Renault ruined everything. Now that the card has been forced out, it has become our greatest source of risk.”
She raised a hand to rub her brow, an unshakeable weariness clinging to her.
Lin Yue’s identity being exposed early had thrown everyone into a panic.
The pause in the meeting allowed her to catch her breath and figure out how to convince those old men, but she was ultimately being roasted over a fire.
The psychological pressure was immense.
“Those old fogies are probably racking their brains right now trying to figure out how to tie me up and deliver me to the Prince to beg for forgiveness. It’s truly… pathetic…”
Seeing her struggling to maintain her composure, Lin Yue suddenly remembered the mysterious purple-robed astrologer from earlier that day.
He blurted out, “Since it’s like this, why not try seeking help from astrology or prophecies? At least you might see a clear direction… with your methods, finding a powerful diviner shouldn’t be hard.”
He thought of the woman in the square.
If they had the power of fortune on their side combined with Mapell’s own abilities, they might be able to turn things around.
“What use would that be?”
Mapell seemed to have been poked in a sore spot.
Her tone suddenly lost control.
“How many times do you think I’ve had my fortune told? How many times do you think I’ve sought prophecies!”
Her breathing became ragged, and a long-suppressed pain and despair surged in her eyes.
“Every time… the result is the same! Shattered, declined, family destroyed! There are no exceptions!”
“I give everything every day, staying up all night calculating, walking on thin ice between different factions…”
“She forced a smile that looked more painful than crying, her voice trembling. “
“In the end, every prophecy tells me that this is just a futile struggle toward a predetermined end! It’s hilarious, isn’t it?”
Her eyes were wide and red-rimmed, yet there were no tears.
It was a parched numbness that couldn’t even produce sorrow.
“Bringing you back… was just a desperate act of grasping at a straw that might not even exist. And also… to give those who are about to give up a beautiful lie to look at.”
She spoke the words dejectedly, as if she had finally shed her last layer of disguise.
Lin Yue said nothing, simply watching her silently, his gaze fixed on her trembling shoulders.
A heavy silence flowed through the wind.
After a long time, Mapell seemed to have used up all her strength.
Her voice was so low it was almost inaudible.
“Do you remember… what I said before?”
She was likely referring to the “community of fate.”
Lin Yue answered softly, “I remember.”
Seeing his straightforward nod, Mapell actually smiled.
It was a tragic smile that was heartbreaking to behold.
“Forget it…”
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