Her breath caught in her throat. "So I didn't... I didn't trick fate?"
Han Chen's head moved slowly from side to side. "No." His voice was quiet, certain. "You earned my attention."
The silence stretched between them—not uncomfortable, but loaded with possibility. Then Hye Won's lips curved into that familiar smirk, her head tilting just so. "Hm... so why'd you call Xue Qing a bitch?"
Han Chen blinked, completely caught off-guard, then let out this quiet chuckle that surprised even him.
"I guess your mind's not all apathetic anymore, huh?" she continued, eyes dancing with mischief.
She leaned forward, curiosity radiating from her. "So... are you planning to mess with her? Because your previous, um, more 'stoic self' told me she didn't really wrong you in this life. Neither did Zhao Lin. Maybe being with him was just—you know—her way of showing off. Like, 'Look at me, I'm wanted.' Though... she did dump him later."
Han Chen picked up his phone, fingers moving across the screen while he spoke. "Well, a few years back I might have..." He exhaled through his nose. "Now? Not so interested. It seems almost... petty. Besides, she seemed different last time I saw her."
He paused, considering. "Let her figure things out on her own. If memory serves, she went through at least five divorces before I died—always chasing the 'right' guy. Maybe my rejection earlier in this life shifted her standards a little." A ghost of amusement touched his lips. "Funny thing though—I heard a rumor she's engaged to some high-profile director now. There's supposedly even a concert planned in our city later this year."
Han Chen leaned back, that slight amusement still tugging at his mouth as he stared at the quiet phone screen. He'd dug up her old message—Xue Qing's—from nearly a year ago. Something vague and polite that he'd never bothered to answer.
The door opened, and Yue Lan stepped in. She paused, taking in the scene, then let out this quiet sigh as she settled beside him.
"Well," she said softly, "you've become a walking natural disaster, haven't you?" Her eyes searched his face. "You never used to lose control like this... so why now?"
Something stirred in him at seeing her again—deep, possessive, urgent. The longing from his past life surged to the surface like a tide he couldn't hold back. His hand moved instinctively, reaching for her, wanting to pull her close—
But Yue Lan's palm came up between them, a gentle but firm stop sign. Her cheeks flushed pink, betraying emotions she wasn't ready to voice.
"Wait..." Her breath caught slightly. "Don't treat me like you treat Hye Won. Even if I... even if I like you too, I can't just skip to that level of closeness. I need time to get used to this... connection." She took a shaky breath. "Let's just—go on a date first. Something normal."
Han Chen's hand fell back to his side, disappointment flickering across his features. "You're right," he said, and there was genuine apology in his voice. "Let's take it slow."
He ran a hand through his hair. "My soul went through something like a system upgrade—think of it as rebooting a phone. I lost control for a moment. Sorry for that." He straightened, shifting back to business. "Anyway... what's the military's response to our last communication?"
Yue Lan nodded, her expression growing serious, professional.
"As expected, they've taken a strong interest. We've been granted priority experimentation licenses for higher-grade variants. If your projections hold..." She paused, tapping her tablet. "They'll likely push for exclusive licensing soon—and restrict any foreign distribution. I'm counting on you to take a firm stance when that happens."
Her fingers moved across the screen, scrolling through data. "As for our currently approved products—they're already hitting the market. The basic enhancer, our safest formulation, is being distributed to hospitals, eldercare facilities, elite athletic programs, luxury wellness clinics. High-margin, tightly restricted batch sales, positioned like rare pharmaceuticals."
She looked up. "Recently, CEOs of two Shanghai tech giants and the son of a party leader requested doses for their relatives. The media's picking it up too. Public adoption is accelerating faster than we projected."
Han Chen leaned back, watching sunlight scatter patterns across the glass wall. "Heh, with the current regime in place, it's hard for capitalistic monopolies to really take hold. Not that I care much for hoarding wealth anyway—no interest in building some legacy fortune."
He was quiet for a moment, then continued. "There's already a path to power in this world—martial training. We haven't broken the balance yet. If we had, every nation on Earth would've slapped a national-threat label on us by now."
The Ripple Effect
Han Chen decided to take a walk, see how the public was responding. The ladies returned to their usual routines, but outside... well, the authorities were baffled and the public was in various states of panic over the growing number of unexplainable events.
This latest incident was by far the largest—hundreds of people had experienced sudden breathlessness across the city. Cultivation authorities were quick to confirm it was similar to the aura pressure of grandmasters, but... bigger. Much bigger.
Some people swallowed the official explanation. Others went straight to social media with theories about reality glitches and dimensional tears.
Time passed. Slowly.
Then came a call...
Yue Lan had been summoned to the Yue Group—their major heir was in critical condition, and after showing no signs of waking up, desperate doctors had recommended her biotech solution as a last attempt.
Han Chen hadn't expected this twist.
Going through his records, he could see the truth that no medical scanner could detect—there were no internal injuries because Han Chen had only damaged the man's soul. The body was fine, but the spirit... that was corroding under curse.
No one could explain why he remained in a coma when there was no brain death, no physical trauma. The request for enhancement treatment was denied—the patient couldn't consent, and no scientific process could explain his condition. Risking a genetic enhancement made no sense.
The family was furious but powerless. They could only wait.
Dangerous Games
On the business side, things were heating up. State security departments started offering "partnerships"—the kind you couldn't refuse. Military health divisions requested "preemptive acquisitions." Health regulators demanded invasive audits just two years after establishment.
Two government officers arrived weeks later, unannounced at the clinic. Yue Lan wasn't there. Han Chen was.
They demanded to know why a foreign-licensed entity held domestic intellectual property.
Staff handed them papers—a fake foreign holding group, legally notarized, "reacquiring" temporary rights for a humanitarian pilot program. When one of them hinted at bringing Yue Lan in for questioning, mentioning possible violations of national sovereignty and security threats...
Han Chen smiled.
The fluorescent lights dimmed. The room's temperature dropped noticeably.
The younger officer coughed blood into his sleeve.
"You've come to ask," Han Chen whispered, his voice carrying an edge that made their bones ache. "Not to threaten."
They left within five minutes, suddenly remembering they had urgent business elsewhere.
Building an Empire
Within months, Yue Lan had diversified their offerings into a tiered system:
Tier I: Base enhancers—sold to their country, the EU, Korea, and the UAE at luxury clinic rates. The government maintained export controls.
Tier II: Civilian neuro packages—cleared for citizens only, with strict health prerequisites.
Tier III: Military variants with classified grades—available through restricted state partnerships, with Han retaining core licensing offshore.
Tier IV: The Cultivation Assist Program—a covert formulation for high-tier martial artists. Not available to the public, it provided one-time physical augmentation to help break through bottlenecks.
Tier II became the choice for wealthy citizens, but predictably, concerns arose. Critics warned of a growing divide—not just in wealth, but in literal cognitive and physical capacity between rich and poor.
Those fears were quietly dismissed. After all, the world already tolerated similar inequalities through martial cultivation, where lineage and access had always determined advancement. No one protested when aristocratic sects passed secret manuals to their descendants. Why start now?
Tier IV came with a catch—single-use only, applicable only below Master level, and it locked users out of all future genetic enhancements permanently. This limitation prevented a rush of applicants. Only those truly desperate for advancement took the risk.
The Quiet War
In the six months that followed, everything changed. The initial successes dissolved skepticism and conspiracy theories around the products. Ironically, foreign nations reacted most aggressively—launching disinformation campaigns while covertly racing to reverse-engineer the technology.
Others pressured NovaGen's shell companies to revise licensing rights, even as they authorized cyberattacks against servers and leadership. It became a quiet war of patents, propaganda, and proxy states.
Back home, Yue Lan and Hye Won expanded operations with calculated precision, building a scalable empire with airtight compliance. Despite their newfound freedom, remnants of nationalism and respect for authority still lingered in the girls' minds—unlike Han Chen, who had long severed those ties.
With no desire for status or excessive wealth, he saw little point in clashing with governments after some consideration. Being low-profile was the goal.
Quietly, he dismantled his web of grey-area income and untraceable funds, dissolving most shadow capital except for a handful of offshore shell companies maintained for structural cover. These entities operated under smart contracts designed to self-allocate based on market triggers, with no visible human owner.
The laundered assets were rerouted into legitimate ventures—part invested in his parents' businesses, part discreetly funneled into Yue Lan's company. On paper, he was just a passive investor. To the world, he was invisible.
Private Paradise
But behind the corporate chessboard, their personal relationships deepened. Han Chen pulled every trick in his celestial playbook to ensure their dates were unforgettable but discreet—private access to hidden corners of world-famous cities, exclusive restaurants untouched by ordinary souls.
A moonlit dinner atop a forgotten Kyoto tea house. A private gondola through Venice's hidden canals at dawn. A secluded hot spring in Iceland, unexplored regions they could fly to at will. But he left no names, no headlines, no witnesses, no trace. Just the three of them, learning each other in peace.
Every weekend became a breath of freedom the girls eagerly awaited—an escape into a life so unrestrained and vivid that time felt truly their own. The routines of corporate life during the week began to feel suffocating by comparison.
At first, the barriers were firm—especially for Yue Lan, who had learned early to wear armor beneath her grace. A hug was an event. The first came unexpectedly in Seoul after a concert, when she'd collapsed laughing into his arms over some inside joke only they understood. She tensed at first, then... didn't pull away.
It was the start of true intimacy. Brushes of lips and lingering touches came next, evolving into quiet rituals—offering comfort, warmth, and whispered good nights after long office days.
Hye Won was different—fire to Yue Lan's ice, unapologetic in her need for touch, claiming space in his bed and life. Yet even she faltered when Yue Lan's presence began threading into their intimacy. Unspoken jealousy flared at seeing her boyfriend kiss her best friend with such passion.
Though she'd accepted their unusual bond, it still struck at something deep—something shaped by culture and upbringing far from the world Han Chen had once known.
It didn't last.
Han Chen saw the flicker in her eyes, the hesitation. When they were alone again, he silenced every doubt with a kind of intensity that left no space for uncertainty. His touch commanded, his kiss overwhelmed, and his stamina... well, it was inhuman.
It left her trembling, reshaping resistance into something darker, sweeter.
"You need this, don't you?" he murmured against her throat. "Not until... unless I allow it."
And she—gasping, clawing at the sheets—understood. It wasn't surrender he demanded. It was something deeper. Willing submission. The kind that wasn't taken, but drawn out from within, shaped into something fierce and intoxicating.
As a golden core realm cultivator with a refined physique, Han Chen revealed just how much he'd been holding back, leaving her jaw agape. It wasn't a declaration—it was a test of boundaries.
Gradually, the lines blurred among the trio, their dynamics shifting like music finding new harmonies.