Before the Mist Door, Chang Nian kept her eyes fixed on Tong Guan's profile, an indescribable sense of anxiety lingering in her heart.
Outside the enormous Hot Pot Restaurant, over a hundred employees stood ready in formation behind them. Though it was a freezing dawn, the temperature here was far higher than elsewhere.
The silence before great chaos was often more oppressive than at any other time.
Chang Nian had been watching Tong Guan, watching him touch the flowing gas of the Mist Door and plan their strategy for entering Branch No. 2.
Tong Guan carried the secret of his parents in his heart, along with the safety of the sixteen employees he had brought...
But Chang Nian's heart was narrow; it could hold only her husband.
"..."
She could not help letting out a silent sigh. The operation could begin at any moment. Tong Guan's arm had already entered the Mist Door, yet unease continued to coil around her heart.
Her focus should have been on the operation, but she could not stop looking at Tong Guan, as though once he stepped through that door, they would never meet again.
Yet at that moment, Tong Guan, who had kept all his attention on the operation, suddenly turned around without warning just before entering.
Half of Tong Guan's face was shrouded in thick mist, slightly blurred, but his brows curved faintly and the corners of his lips lifted.
Chang Nian's heartbeat skipped. Tong Guan had looked back at her for no apparent reason, an unfamiliar smile on his face.
She saw relief, surprise, even excitement, as if he had recovered something he had lost.
Inside the hotel, Chang Nian was unconsciously drawn in by everything before her, temporarily forgetting that fleeting glance and touching smile.
The oppression and stillness she