Chapter 467: Chapter 467; Lin Shuyin
And in her hand—
A knife.
By the time anyone understood—
It was already inside him.
Driven from behind.
Deep.
Precise.
Merciless.
The blade entered under the shoulder line and plunged through into the chest.
Lu Zeyan froze.
Completely froze.
His mouth parted.
But no words came.
Only a shocked, wet sound—barely formed.
His eyes dropped.
Saw blood blooming dark across the fabric.
Then lifted.
To Shuyin.
As if trying to understand.
As if asking her what had happened.
His body gave one hard, involuntary jerk.
Then collapsed.
Straight down.
The sound of him hitting the polished hospital floor cracked through the corridor like a gunshot.
Mrs. Lu screamed.
Not shouted.
Screamed.
Lu Cheng lunged forward.
Doctors came running.
Security shouted.
Someone grabbed Lin Yueling.
But she was laughing.
Actually laughing.
"If I can’t have him no one will!"
Her voice tore through the chaos, raw and unhinged.
Blood spread fast beneath Lu Zeyan.
Too fast.
Too much.
A doctor dropped to his knees, pressing the wound.
Called for trauma response.
Another checked for pulse.
Then looked up.
And in that one look—
Everyone knew.
It was over.
Instantly.
The knife had found the heart.
There would be no arrest.
No trial.
No prison.
No public disgrace.
No carefully designed justice Shuyin had in mind.
Lu Zeyan had died before punishment reached him.
Shuyin stood motionless.
Not because she did not feel.
But because the sheer violence of fate had exceeded calculation.
She had come to drag a man into accountability.
And instead—
Death had intervened.
Lin Yueling struggled as security pinned her arms.
Her hair wild.
Her face streaked with tears and something darker.
"He chose her!" she screamed. "He always chose her!"
"I lost my baby and no one cares! No one cares at all!"
Police were called.
Within minutes they arrived.
Metal cuffs closed around her wrists.
She was dragged down the corridor still screaming Shuyin’s name.
Still cursing.
Still unraveling.
Mrs. Lu collapsed beside her son’s body, sobs wracking her frame.
Lu Cheng stood stunned, blood on his hands from trying to stop a wound already beyond saving.
Lu Ting looked physically ill.
And Shuyin—
Shuyin only looked at the dead man on the floor.
Her former fiancé.
The man she had intended to ruin.
Now beyond ruin.
Beyond law.
Beyond revenge.
A nurse touched her arm gently. "Ma’am, please step back."
Only then did she move.
One step.
Then another.
Her face unreadable.
But inside—
Something had shifted.
Because sometimes vengeance is stolen.
Not by mercy.
By chaos.
And that was almost harder to accept.
Shuyin did not stay to watch the body taken away.
There was nothing left for her in that corridor.
No words she wished to offer.
No grief she intended to perform.
No comfort she owed anyone.
She walked out of City Hospital in complete silence.
The morning sun outside felt almost offensive in its brightness.
As though the world had not just tilted on its axis.
Ah Ling saw her expression the moment she emerged and opened the car door without a question.
Only when the door shut behind her did he ask quietly, "Home?"
Shuyin looked ahead, eyes distant.
"Black Water Ridge."
Ah Ling glanced once in the mirror.
But said nothing.
The car turned.
And drove toward the penitentiary.
She had lost one reckoning to blood.
She would not lose another.
When she arrived at Black Water Ridge, the warden himself came out to receive her, bowing slightly in deference. He had been informed she was coming. Everything was prepared.
Including something no prisoner in that place ever expected.
Release papers.
Temporary bail.
When Lin Feng was dragged into the administrative room—still bruised, still limping—and saw the documents on the desk, he thought at first he was hallucinating again.
His swollen face lifted slowly.
His cracked lips trembled.
"What... is this?"
The warden looked at him flatly. "You’ve been granted release pending external review. Sign."
Lin Feng stared.
Then at Shuyin.
Then back at the papers.
Hope hit him so hard it was almost violent.
His hands shook as he signed.
When Madam Chen was brought in and saw the same papers, she began crying before she even reached the chair.
Actual sobbing.
Her splinted hands shook so badly a guard had to help position the pen.
"We’re leaving?" she whispered to Lin Feng, voice cracking.
For the first time since prison had swallowed them, they looked at each other not as enemies in shared punishment—
But as people seeing rescue.
They were processed out.
Property returned.
Prison clothing exchanged for the clothes they had arrived in.
Escorted beyond the internal gates.
And when the final steel barrier opened—
They stepped outside.
Free air hit their faces like a slap.
Lin Feng nearly collapsed from the force of emotion.
Madam Chen was openly weeping, clutching her splints to her chest.
The sky itself looked unreal—vast, indifferent, impossibly blue.
For several seconds, neither understood how to hold hope.
Then Lin Feng turned to Shuyin.
His voice broke completely.
"You... you’re letting us go?"
Lin Feng stood just beyond the prison gates, the open sky above him almost blinding. His hands trembled—not from pain, but from something far more fragile.
Hope.
Beside him, Madam Chen clutched at her clothes, her breathing uneven, her eyes wide with disbelief.
Shuyin stood a few steps away.
Still.
Composed.
The morning light caught the jade at her throat, casting a faint green glow across her skin.
"I wanted you to experience hope first."
The words didn’t settle.
Not yet.
Then—
engines.
Low.
Controlled.
Black vehicles rolled in.
Doors opened.
Uniformed officers stepped out.
And just like that—
hope fractured.
"You wretched girl—!"
Madam Chen’s voice tore through the air, raw with fury and panic.
"How dare you do this to me?!"
Lin Feng staggered back, his gaze snapping between the officers and Shuyin.
"No... no, this isn’t—this isn’t what you said..."
His voice cracked as realization clawed its way in.
"You set this up..."
Shuyin didn’t deny it.
Didn’t soften it.
Her gaze rested on him like judgment already passed.
"Father," she said quietly.
The word carried no warmth.
No belonging.
"You are a criminal."
He froze.
Something in her tone—
final.
Unfamiliar.
"I found the children," she continued, her voice steady. "Locked away like they were nothing."
A pause.
"I found my mother."
Another.
"I found Secretary Qiao."
Each word stripped something from him.
"You should be thinking about how many years you will be spending in there."
Silence followed.
Then—
she stepped closer.
Not emotional.
Not angry.
Just... certain.
"The daughter you remember," she said softly, "died in that prison."
Lin Feng’s pupils shrank.
"What... are you saying..."
Shuyin’s expression did not change.
"I am not the girl you sent there."
A faint pause.
"I walked out of that place as someone else in her body."
Her eyes held his.
Cold.
Unrecognizable.
"A ghost."
The word landed quietly.
"But a ghost that came back for justice and exert revenge for the departed soul."
Madam Chen shook her head violently.
"No—no, stop talking like that—"
"And your real daughter?" Shuyin continued, her voice cutting cleanly through the panic.
"She just killed Lu Zeyan."
The air went still.
"She’ll be joining you in there soon. Your family will be complete in there."
Lin Feng’s face was drained of color.
Completely.
"You destroyed your own family," Shuyin said, her tone unchanged. "Not me."
Then—
she straightened slightly.
As if closing something.
"I am married."
The statement was simple.
But it hit harder than anything else.
"To Lu Yuze."
Madam Chen’s head snapped up.
"What—?!"
"I was never his nanny, I’m his lawfully wedded wife."
Her gaze swept over them both.
"You have no place in my life."
Lin Feng’s lips trembled.
"Our company... our home—"
"Gone," she said.
Flat.
Absolute.
"The company has already been broken down and integrated."
Nothing left.
"No recovery."
She tilted her head slightly.
"And the mansion?"
A faint pause.
"It was never yours."
Her eyes sharpened just slightly.
"It belonged to my mother."
That truth landed like a final blow.
"You have nothing to go back to."
No family.
No power.
No name.
Nothing.
Madam Chen screamed again, struggling against the officers.
"You think you’ve won?! You think this ends here?!"
But her voice was already losing strength.
Because somewhere deep down—
she understood.
Lin Feng didn’t struggle.
Didn’t shout.
He just stood there.
