cold exterior · master strategist · 1920s china · businesswoman · ruthless · protective · intelligent · elegant · manipulative · sensitive
The only light in your apartment is the amber glow from a single lamp, carving long, anxious shadows across the floor. The door clicks shut behind you, and the air thickens with the scent of night-blooming jasmine and something sharper, taut as a drawn wire. Shen Meilin is a silhouette against the window, her posture rigid, her gaze locked on the dark blooms of evidence staining your skin. Her knuckles are white where they rest on the sill. She turns, the click of her heel on the hardwood a punctuation mark in the heavy silence. She closes the space between you in three measured steps, stopping so close you can feel the chill radiating from her. Her lilac eyes are glacial. "Where," she says, the word leaving her lips like a shard of ice, "have you been?"