《Hidden Blade》

Chapter 13: The New Normal

The old estate on Jalan TK 3/14 had begun to settle into a rhythm it had not known in decades. It was no longer a house of shadows and heavy, locked secrets; it was breathing again. The air inside, once stagnant with the scent of incense and old grievances, now carried the fragrance of toasted bread, ginger tea, and the raw, earthy scent of the garden in bloom.

Than had enrolled in a language intensive near the estate. He was a boy possessed by a quiet, fierce determination, intent on mastering Malay and English before the next university intake. Every morning, the pre-dawn silence was broken by the low murmur of his voice in the kitchen, practicing vocabulary lists while the kettle whistled. He had burned the eggs twice in the first week—a small, domestic failure that would have earned him a lecture in the orphanage, but here, it only earned him a shrug and a "try again" from Su Nian. By the second week, he was sliding a plate of nasi lemak across the table, the coconut rice fragrant and the sambal exactly the right shade of deep crimson.

"It is not as good as the hawker centre," Than said, his expression typically stoic, though his eyes lingered on her face for a reaction. "But it is edible."

Su Nian took a bite, the spice hitting the back of her throat with a familiar, comforting heat. "It’s good, Than."

"You are lying to make the child feel better," he noted, though he pulled out a chair to sit.

"I don't lie about food. It's the one thing in this world that shouldn't be faked." She took another bite, meeting his gaze. "It’s good. Really. You have the hands for it."

They ate in silence, a comfortable, shared stillness that had replaced the jagged, awkward tension of their first meeting. It wasn't the silence of strangers who had nothing to say, but the silence of two people who had spent nineteen years living in a void and were now carefully, piece by piece, filling it with the presence of one another.

Lin Wei visited almost every afternoon, acting as a human whirlwind that prevented the house from becoming too solemn. She had appointed herself Than’s unofficial cultural attache, which mostly involved forcing him to watch vintage Malaysian horror movies with the volume turned up too high.

"Why does the ghost always wear a white dress?" Than asked one evening, his brow furrowed in genuine confusion as a pontianak shrieked on the screen. "Do Malaysian ghosts not have access to a wardrobe? It seems impractical for a forest."

"Because white is iconic, Than! You don't mess with the classics," Lin Wei replied, shoving a handful of popcorn into her mouth. "It's about the aesthetic of terror."

"This country is very strange," Than muttered, though he didn't look away from the screen.

Su Nian watched them from the kitchen doorway, a cup of tea warm between her palms. The house, which had once felt like a museum of her father’s loss, was now filled with the messy, beautiful noise of life. It wasn't the future she had envisioned during those cold years in the attic, but as she watched her brother laugh for the first time at one of Lin Wei’s ridiculous jokes, she realized it was the only future that mattered.

Su Shujun came by on the third Sunday of each month, a bridge between the family they had been and the one they were becoming. He always arrived with a small offering—seasonal fruit, a book of poetry for Than, or a newspaper clipping about the Su Group’s latest ESG initiatives. They never discussed the trial. The name 'Su Feining' was a ghost they had collectively exorcised. The appeals had been denied, the sentences finalized. The woman who had ruled them with a silken cord would spend the rest of her natural life in a cell, surrounded only by the silence she had once enforced on others.

"Some doors," Su Shujun said one afternoon, sitting on the front steps as the afternoon sun dipped below the garden wall, "are better left bolted from the outside. I won't be visiting her, Nian. I think my quota for forgiveness was used up years ago."

Su Nian looked out at the garden. The roses were in full, defiant bloom—white, pink, and a pale, buttery yellow. The weeds that had once choked the beds were gone, replaced by fresh mulch and neat stone borders.

"Did you do all this?" she asked, gesturing to the vibrant flower beds.

Su Shujun shook his head, a small, knowing smile touching his lips. "Lu Tingshen. He comes by almost every day when you're at the bar or at the office. He doesn't say a word to anyone. He just pulls on a pair of work gloves, weeds the beds, waters the roots, and vanishes before you get home."

Su Nian stared at the deep crimson petals of a hybrid tea rose. A surge of warmth, followed by a sharp, sweet ache, bloomed in her chest. She thought of him—the man who controlled half the city’s digital infrastructure—kneeling in the dirt under the tropical sun, tending to her father’s legacy in secret. He hadn't asked for gratitude. He hadn't used it as leverage.

"How long?" she whispered.

"Months," Shujun replied, brushing off his trousers as he stood up. "Since before the final board meeting. Some men use words to build a house, Nian. He uses his hands. He does both, but I think he prefers the part where you don't hear him coming."

After Shujun left, Su Nian sat on the steps for a long time. She pulled out her phone, her fingers hovering over the screen before typing a short message to Lu Tingshen.

You've been gardening in my yard. Since when were you a landscaper?

The reply came in less than ten seconds. Since I realized your father had better taste in roses than you do in keeping your garden tidy.

Su Shujun told me. He talks too much.

He’s a lawyer. It’s a professional hazard. Don't fire him yet.

You could have told me yourself, Lu Tingshen.

Where's the mystery in that? Besides, the roses don't ask questions. They just grow.

She smiled at the screen, the reflection of the sunset catching in her eyes. Somewhere in a glass office across the city, she knew he was looking at his own phone, that dangerous, lazy spark in his eyes softening just for her. They didn't need to say more. The roses were proof enough.

Later that evening, the front gate clicked shut. Su Nian looked up from the porch to see Lu Tingshen walking up the driveway. He looked uncharacteristically disheveled—his sleeves rolled up, a smudge of dark soil on his forearm, and a small garden trowel tucked into his back pocket.

"The soil in the east corner is too dry," he said, bypassing a greeting as he sat beside her. "You need to increase the irrigation or the yellow ones won't survive the week."

"Then water them tomorrow," she said, her voice soft.

He set the trowel down on the stone step, his hand lingering near hers. "I will."

"Than asked me today if you were my boyfriend again," Su Nian said, looking at the dirt under his fingernails—the dirt of her home.

Lu Tingshen raised an eyebrow. "And? Did you give him the 'Partner' speech again?"

"No," she said, turning her hand over so her palm met his. "I told him you were the man who made the roses bloom again. He seemed to think that was a better answer."

Lu Tingshen’s grip tightened on her hand, steady and sure. "He’s a smart kid. We should keep him."

They sat in the quiet of the growing night, two hunters who had finally found a place to rest. But as the moon rose over the Petronas Towers, a small, white envelope caught Su Nian’s eye. It had been slid under the front gate, unnoticed until now.

She stood up, her instincts—the ones honed in the dark of the 'Zero' days—instantly on alert. She picked it up. There was no stamp, no return address. Just her name written in a precise, elegant hand that made the hair on her arms stand up.

Inside was a single polaroid photo. It was a picture of the boarding school in Chiang Mai, taken from a distance. And on the back, a single sentence in Burmese:

The debt of the Su family is not settled until the golden bird returns to the cage.

Su Nian’s breath hitched. She looked at Lu Tingshen, the warmth of the moment evaporating into a cold, familiar dread.

"What is it?" he asked, standing up, his eyes instantly sharpening into the 'L' she knew.

"Liu Zhengxiong," she whispered, handing him the photo. "The hunt isn't over. He’s looking for Than."

Lu Tingshen looked at the photo, his jaw set in a line of hard, unforgiving granite. "Then we stop being the hunted," he said, his voice dropping to that dangerous, low frequency. "Tomorrow, we stop gardening, Su Nian. Tomorrow, we go to war."

The old house stood silent, its roses shivering in a sudden, cold breeze. The peace had been beautiful, but for the Su family, the peace was always just the eye of the storm.