The isolation unit's door hissed open with a sound like a dying breath. It was the first time the seal had been broken in seventy-two hours, but the air that rushed in felt heavier than the recycled oxygen Meilin had been breathing.
Shanshan stood in the doorway. She was still in her C-Tier tracksuit, but she had managed to wash the stage makeup from her face. She looked raw—vulnerable in a way that made Meilin's chest ache with a physical, stabbing heat.
"They gave me ten minutes," Shanshan said, her voice echoing in the small, polycarbonate box. She stepped inside, the space immediately becoming too small, too intimate. "Meilin... I saw Lu Yan leaving the wing. He was smiling. What did he do?"
Meilin didn't stand up. She stayed on the narrow bench, her hands tucked into the folds of her navy gown so Shanshan wouldn't see them shaking. She looked at the blank wall, refusing to meet the younger girl's eyes.
"He didn't do anything, Shanshan," Meilin said, her voice a flat, rehearsed monotone. "He was simply delivering a report I requested."
Shanshan frowned, taking another step forward. The scent of the C-Tier—stale bread and industrial soap—clashed with Meilin's fading perfume. "A report? About what? You've been in here for three days. You should be asking about the rehearsals, or the board..."
"I was asking about your mother," Meilin interrupted.
The name hung in the air like a guillotine blade. Shanshan froze, her breath hitching. "My mother? Is she... is she okay? Did something happen to the facility?"
Meilin finally looked up. She forced her eyes to be cold, to be the "Ice Queen" she had promised she would never be again. She looked at Shanshan with a calculated, surgical cruelty.
"The facility is fine," Meilin said. "But the Li Conglomerate's discretionary fund is not a charity, Shanshan. I reviewed the ledger last night. Your performance at the Requiem—that 'stylistic flourish'—cost the family three major sponsors. It was a net loss."
Shanshan's face went white. She reached out, grasping the edge of the bolted desk to steady herself. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying I recommended a 'cost-benefit' adjustment," Meilin lied, the words tasting like ash in her mouth. "The medical payments for Mrs. Lin were deemed an 'unjustifiable overhead' given your current disciplinary status. I signed the order to terminate the private wing subsidy this morning."
The silence that followed was absolute. Shanshan's hand dropped from the desk. She looked at Meilin as if she were seeing a monster for the first time—a monster wearing the face of the woman who had held her during her fever.
"You... you signed it?" Shanshan whispered. "The woman I took a fall for? The woman I tried to save on that stage?"
"I didn't ask you to save me," Meilin snapped, her voice rising in a desperate attempt to drown out the sound of her own heart breaking. "I asked you to be an asset. You became a liability. In my world, liabilities are liquidated. It's business, 402. Don't make it personal."
Shanshan took a step back, her eyes brimming with a sudden, violent grief. She didn't cry. The pain was too deep for tears; it was a structural collapse.
"You're right," Shanshan said, her voice hollow and terrifyingly calm. "I made a mistake. I thought there was a person behind that mask. But there's just more ice. My mother is dying because I thought you were human."
Shanshan turned and walked out of the cell. She didn't look back. She didn't see Meilin collapse against the wall the moment the door hissed shut. She didn't see Meilin bury her face in her hands, her body racking with silent, violent sobs that the microphones would record as "respiratory distress."
Meilin stayed on the floor of the box, the "Personal Asset" contract she had signed with Lu Yan weighing on her like a tombstone. She had saved the mother's life, but she had murdered the only part of Shanshan that loved her.