The black car didn't move.
Its engine idled with the patient, predatory stillness of something that had been waiting for a long time. Li Hua's 'Intuition' skill burned like an ember behind her eyes, painting the vehicle in shades of threat.
"Song Meili," Li Hua said again, her voice dropping below the sound of the river. "She's been here longer than we have. She knew our hotel before we arrived."
Ye Feng's jaw tightened. He didn't look at the car. A man of his experience knew that looking was a concession. "The Song Group has ears in every travel bureau in the Capital. Booking a first-class seat to Paris isn't exactly a state secret."
"No," Li Hua agreed. "But buying an atelier on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré is." She looked at him then, her almond eyes catching the amber of the streetlamps. "You moved fast, Ye Feng. Too fast for a casual investment. Someone inside the Ye Group talked."
The silence between them was sharp and clean, like a freshly cut seam.
Ye Feng reached into his coat and pulled out his phone — the heavy, brick-like satellite model that marked him as a man who operated outside the reach of ordinary infrastructure. He made a single call, speaking in a low, clipped Mandarin that told Secretary Wang to seal every internal communication from the past seventy-two hours.
Then he hung up and turned to her fully. "Get inside the hotel. Don't use the main entrance."
"I'm not hiding from a Song," Li Hua said flatly.
"I know." His hand found the small of her back, warm even through the wool of her trench coat. "You're going to walk through the lobby like you own it, because you do. I'm the one who needs to handle this quietly." He leaned in close, his voice dropping to something that belonged only to her. "Paris is yours, Li Hua. I won't let them soil it before you've even begun."
She searched his face — the hard geometry of it, the rare openness in his eyes. In another life, she would have told him to stay. She would have clung to the warmth of him against the cold foreign night.
"Go," she said instead. "Handle your war. I'll handle mine."
Something moved across his expression — not quite pain, not quite pride. He pressed a kiss to her temple, brief and fierce, the kind that made promises without needing words. Then he stepped away, his cashmere coat swallowed by the shadows between the streetlamps.
Li Hua watched him go for exactly three seconds.
Then she turned and walked toward the black car.
The window rolled down fully as she approached. Song Meili was nothing like her brother. Where Young Master Song had been loud and blunt, his sister was architecture — precise, cold, designed to bear weight. She was perhaps thirty, draped in a charcoal Chanel suit that was genuine, and watching Li Hua with the calm evaluation of a woman who had been sent to finish what her brother had started.
"Miss Li." Song Meili's French-accented Mandarin was impeccable. "You look well. The Capital air must agree with you."
"The Paris air is better," Li Hua said. She didn't stop walking. She reached the car door and leaned against it — not an invitation, a claim of territory. "Your brother is in police custody. Your silk stockpile is devaluing by the hour. And yet here you are, outside my hotel, at midnight, in a rented car with diplomatic plates." She tilted her head. "You're either very brave or very desperate."
Song Meili's expression didn't waver. "I'm here to offer you a partnership."
"No, you're not. You're here to assess whether I can be bought or frightened before the Louvre Gala." Li Hua straightened. "The answer to both is no."
"You haven't heard the offer."
"I don't need to." Li Hua's 'Intuition' was painting the space around Song Meili in agitated crimson — rapid heartbeat, micro-tension in the jaw, fingers too still in her lap. She was performing composure, not feeling it. "You've already contacted two of the three major buying houses attending the Gala and told them that 'Li-Steel' has a pending legal dispute over its patent. You're hoping that whisper travels faster than my collection does."
The stillness in Song Meili finally cracked — just a fraction, just enough. Her chin lifted half a degree. "You're well informed."
"I'm better than well informed." Li Hua pulled a card from her coat pocket and set it on the window ledge. It was a cream-colored card bearing only the Phoenix Rising logo and a Paris telephone number. "When you walk into the Louvre Gala in three days, you'll find that every buying house I care about has already signed a letter of intent. You'll find that the legal department of the National Textile Institute has pre-cleared my patents for international licensing. And you'll find that the woman your brother called a country bumpkin is standing at the center of the room, not the edge."
She tapped the card once.
"But here is my offer to you, Song Meili, because I'm feeling generous in a beautiful city. Walk away from whatever your family has planned. Take that card. In six months, when the Song Group is liquidating its silk holdings for pennies, call me. I'm always looking for people who know how to survive a sinking ship."
Song Meili stared at the card for a long moment.
Then, slowly, she picked it up.
She said nothing. The window slid closed. The black car pulled away from the curb, easing into the quiet Parisian street with the controlled retreat of something that was not yet defeated, but knew tonight was not its night.
Li Hua watched the tail lights disappear across the bridge.
[Ding! Threat Neutralized — Song Meili: Status changed from 'Enemy' to 'Uncertain'.]
[Mission Updated: The Louvre Gala. Stakes elevated. Song family has activated secondary contacts in the European market. Prepare accordingly.]
[Reward for confrontation: 'European Market Intelligence' Map Unlocked. +500 Points.]
She exhaled slowly, the cold air sharp in her lungs. Across the Seine, the Eiffel Tower threw its amber light against the low clouds, indifferent and eternal. It had watched a thousand battles play out on these cobblestones. Empresses and exiles. Merchants and monarchs.
Li Hua looked at it the way she looked at every obstacle — not with wonder, but with calculation.
Three days until the Gala.
One atelier to fill.
One collection to build that would make Paris forget every designer who came before her.
She turned and walked into the hotel through the main entrance, her heels steady on the marble, the scent of Imperial Phoenix trailing behind her like a signature.
The concierge looked up and then looked again, the way everyone did now.
She didn't notice. She was already designing in her head — raw edges, deconstructed shoulders, the strength of bamboo-steel bent into something that looked like controlled collapse.
The Deconstructed Phoenix.
It would not be pretty. It would be powerful.
And Paris, Li Hua had decided, was long overdue for something powerful.