Li Estate — Conference room
The atmosphere in the conference room tightened as Li Zhonghai opened the agenda folder.
His gaze swept across the table once—unhurried, unreadable—before he spoke.
"You are all wondering why the deadline was moved."
No preamble.
No theatrics.
Every branch straightened by a fraction.
Zhonghai continued:
"This morning, a sealed letter was delivered to Longhai No.1 High School."
No one reacted outwardly, but the silence sharpened.
"It was addressed," he said, each word measured,
"to Li Feng."
A controlled breath passed through the room—too faint to call a stir, but collective enough to change the air.
Zhonghai's tone remained level.
"And the sender... the Wen Research Institute."
Guowei's pen halted mid-tap.
Rui's fingers froze above his tablet.
Guotao's eyes narrowed, the smallest of micro-expressions betraying the calculations exploding behind his calm face.
The Wen Institute was not a rival.
It was a force.
A capital-tier giant whose attention could elevate or destroy lesser entities with equal ease.
"The contents of the letter," Zhonghai said, "remain unknown."
A deliberate note.
He wasn't apologizing.
He wasn't framing it as a limitation.
He was saying: It doesn't matter.
"But the sender alone is sufficient enough."
That sentence lingered like a quiet blade — sharp, clean, unavoidable.
Only then did he lower his gaze to the proposals laid neatly in front of him.
His tone did not change, but every word weighed more.
"One by one, you submitted proposals."
He tapped the first file.
"First Branch — oversight with no leverage."
Guowei's jaw tightened by a millimeter.
Tap.
"Third Branch — regulation without possession."
Guotao's posture didn't waver.
Tap.
"Fourth Branch — narrative without standing."
Rui's smile faded completely.
Zhonghai closed the folder again.
"These are directions," he said, "not solutions."
A pause.
The words hit the table like dropped stone slabs — heavy, unavoidable.
Not a reprimand.
Not an accusation.
But an undeniable truth.
The temperature in the room seemed to shift — colder, more exact.
No one spoke.
No one even blinked too quickly.
Zhonghai leaned back slightly, gaze narrowing by half a degree — the smallest outward sign that he was transitioning from assessment to decision.
"The letter from the capital," he said, "changed the timetable."
He didn't say threatened us or forced our hand.
But everyone in the room heard it between the lines.
"And the letter requires," he continued, "a unified response."
Unified.
Not divided.
Not competitive.
A slow, steady breath passed through the room—anticipation, tension, calculation.
Every branch member in the room knew:
The explanation was over. The verdict was about to begin.
What the patriarch says next would define the family's direction.
---
Li Zhonghai did not raise his voice.
He didn't need to.
When he spoke again, the room locked into a sharper stillness.
"From this moment forward," he said,
"Silent Hands will be secured as a Li Family asset."
Not a suggestion.
Not an invitation for discussion.
A declaration.
He continued with the same calm cadence:
"This is not to be treated as a youth project, a branch initiative, or a personal endeavor of the Second Branch."
His gaze swept across the room—slow, deliberate.
"It is a family interest."
The message landed cleanly:
Silent Hands is no longer something anyone can approach individually.
It belongs to the Li Family.
Zhonghai continued:
"Fourth Branch."
Guifen lifted her eyes immediately. Rui straightened subtly.
"You will control the narrative."
He spoke with corporate precision.
"Silent Hands will be positioned as a Li Group youth R&D prototype."
He continued, tone steady and exact.
"We will not specify its origin. We will not clarify who developed it. We state only that it emerged from our youth innovation pipeline. That is all the public needs to know."
"We will guide all media references. Adjust online chatter. Stabilize the story before external parties create one for us."
Guifen nodded once — already typing subtle instructions to her assistant under the table.
A single nod from Guifen acknowledged the order—already mentally drafting messaging lines.
Zhonghai turned next.
"Third Branch."
Guotao sat straighter.
"You will begin regulatory groundwork."
His tone remained even.
"You will begin preliminary regulatory groundwork. Medical-device pathways. Auxiliary-device classifications. Any route that places Silent Hands under mandatory oversight."
He paused.
"Begin the frameworks tonight. I expect visible progress by morning."
Guotao bowed his head slightly.
"Understood."
The patriarch shifted his gaze again.
"First Branch."
Guowei inhaled quietly, his fingers tightening almost imperceptibly around his pen.
"You will construct the structural shell. A new youth innovation division under Li Group Holdings."
A silence fell that felt heavier than the one before.
"This division will become the legal and financial vessel for Silent Hands."
Meaning:
When Silent Hands is taken, it will drop seamlessly into the container they build.
Zhonghai rested his hand atop the agenda folder again.
"You will coordinate. Not compete."
The line fell with clean authority—ending any possibility of internal maneuvering.
The branches understood immediately:
This was no longer about impressing the Patriarch.
This was no longer about individual merit or branch rivalry.
The Li Family was now activating as one structure.
One machine.
One direction.
Silent Hands was to be claimed and locked down—completely, efficiently, rapidly.
Li Zhonghai's tone did not change, but the air in the room had shifted.
---
The room was silent enough that the faint hum of the overhead lights felt intrusive.
Li Zhonghai closed the agenda folder with a soft thud and rested both hands lightly upon it. His expression remained unreadable — not angry, not impressed — simply cold and absolute.
When he finally spoke, his voice carried the weight of a verdict.
"Begin immediately."
No rise in volume.
No dramatic cadence.
Just the tone of a man who expected obedience as naturally as breath.
"All preliminary structures must be ready by tomorrow evening."
A ripple passed invisibly through the branches — tension tightening, calculations adjusting on the fly. But no one dared move.
"Silent Hands will be absorbed then."
Absorbed.
A word chosen with precision.
Not "claimed."
Not "launched."
Absorbed.
The declaration fell like a blade.
Not a suggestion.
Not a discussion.
A decision.
Zhonghai continued, eyes sweeping across the table.
"At dawn, guards will be dispatched to the Second Branch residence."
Nobody blinked.
"They are not to leave the premises."
The meaning rang clear:
Confinement.
Isolation.
Pressure.
His gaze shifted to Li Guowei.
"Your tech unit will monitor all communications entering or leaving that house."
No request.
No opportunity for hesitation.
"Every channel. Every device. Nothing is allowed to leave the premises unchecked."
Guowei bowed slightly.
"It will be done."
Zhonghai leaned back a fraction — the only movement he'd made in minutes.
"Tomorrow evening, all branches will be present."
His eyes sharpened.
"When the Second Branch is summoned…
they will transfer control of Silent Hands to the Li Family."
Absolute.
Irrevocable.
Final.
No one objected.
No one argued.
No one even shifted in their chairs.
The Li Family's decision had been made.
Silent Hands would not belong to Li Feng and Li Xue.
It would not belong to the second branch.
It would belong to them.
And the meeting ended not with an announcement,
not with a dismissal,
but with the simple, suffocating silence
of a verdict that could not be overturned.
---
Li Family Second Branch Residence — Li Feng's Room
Li Feng sat alone in the glow of his newly upgraded command station.
The ultrawide monitor cast a cold arc of light across his face; the two vertical screens flanked him like silent sentinels. Every device on the desk hummed with low, steady energy — connected, waiting, listening.
On the center display, a waveform pulsed.
Not audio.
Not visual.
A signal.
A private feed.
A quiet backdoor stitched into the Li Estate's internal network long before tonight — invisible, undetected, threaded through corporate maintenance protocols and overlooked nodes.
He had heard everything.
Every proposal.
Every calculation.
Every order.
The decision to isolate the Second Branch.
The plan to monitor their communications.
The summons for tomorrow night.
The attempt to take Silent Hands.
Word for word.
He leaned back slightly, expression unreadable in the half-light as the Patriarch's final command echoed through the feed one last time:
"When the Second Branch is summoned…
they will transfer control of Silent Hands to the Li Family."
The line clicked softly — the meeting ending — and the waveform flattened.
Silence reclaimed the room.
For several seconds, Li Feng didn't move.
Then he slowly closed the feed window, one gloved fingertip tapping the corner of the screen until it faded into black.
No outrage.
No panic.
No fear.
Just quiet acknowledgment.
A low exhale left him — steady, deliberate.
His eyes sharpened, a faint glint of something cold flickering behind them.
"…So," he murmured,
"that's your decision."
A faint breath escaped — almost amused.
Almost pitying.
His gaze lowered to the faint reflection of his own eyes in the ultrawide screen.
"It seems," he murmured, tone soft but edged with steel,
"the Li family has been quite free these days."
No tension.
No hesitation.
He simply reached for the keyboard, fingers gliding into motion with calm precision as windows reopened across the three screens.
Code.
Models.
Maps of networks.
The glow of the workstation deepened, outlining his silhouette like the beginning of a counter-strike.
And Li Feng continued working—
quiet, steady, utterly unshaken.
He would not be sleeping tonight, there'd be enough time for that during the day.
---
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