Ten Rules to Bind Her Heart - Chapter 63
Night lay heavy over the base. Thunder muttered beyond the windows. In Pakong, the rain always came without warning.
Inside the medical building, at the end of the third-floor corridor, was a private laboratory.
Apart from Shen Yu’s own forbidden zone, it was one of only two places in the entire base that were absolutely off-limits.
Cold white surgical lights illuminated every inch of the stainless-steel worktops as brightly as day. The laboratory reeked of formaldehyde and unidentified chemical reagents.
Anya Sharma wore a thickened silver-gray hazmat suit and protective goggles, the layers making her figure look somewhat bulky.
She was bent over a microscope in utter concentration, studying the specimen on its slide.
It was a mutated black fly recovered from a heap of bodies at the border. Larger than an ordinary fly, it had mouthparts of an eerie blue-violet hue.
“Tch. Residue from a neurotoxin variant.”
She murmured in English, but the specialized micro-forceps in her hand remained steady as stone, precisely separating a strand of tissue finer than a human hair.
As Mr. Sharma’s most cherished daughter and the holder of two doctorates from the British Royal College of Medicine, she ought to have been enjoying flowers and applause at one of London’s finest private hospitals—or back in South Asia, helping manage her family’s vast enterprises.
Instead, she was a born eccentric.
She cared nothing for jewels or couture. What fascinated her were dissections, toxicology, and the little creatures that mutated under extreme conditions.
To her, Black Wolf Base was paradise.
Only here could she dissect bodies torn apart by bullets to her heart’s content, study the jungle’s deadliest poisons, and—quite legitimately—avoid the marriage her family had arranged for her.
Fortunately, she had a brother perfectly capable of shouldering the sacred family duty of producing heirs and carrying on the bloodline.
Because men truly could not get her “hard.”
There had been no knock at the door.
Yet a tall, slender shadow possessed of overwhelming menace fell silently across the reinforced blast-resistant glass.
Anya’s hand remained steady. Even after sensing the gaze at her back, her fingers did not tremble in the slightest.
She sealed the specimen inside a liquid-nitrogen cryovial, wrote a complex string of codes on the tube with a marker, then tossed the used forceps precisely into the high-temperature ultraviolet sterilizer beside her.
Only after completing every step did she stretch her stiff back, sending a faint series of cracks through her joints.
She turned.
The dark figure still stood motionless before the observation window, like a silent statue carved from the darkness. His mere presence seemed to lower the pressure in the room.
Anya removed her goggles and flashed an OK sign through the window to show that she had seen him.
Then she exhaled unhurriedly, unzipped the heavy hazmat suit, and removed her mask, revealing a striking mixed-race face that combined deep South Asian contours with cool English pallor.
She casually tidied her slightly disheveled short hair and pressed the electronic release for the door.
Hiss.
The pressure valve disengaged, and the heavy glass doors slid apart.
“Well, look who it is.”
Anya emerged from the laboratory with her arms folded, her gaze teasing as it traveled over the man entering the room.
Shen Yu was dressed casually tonight, but the aura around him remained just as cold.
“As I recall, the great and mighty Black Wolf has voluntarily graced this place with his presence only a handful of times.”
Anya glanced at the minimalist clock on the wall. Its hands pointed to eleven thirty.
“So? What brings you to this corpse-reeking place so late at night?”
She arched a brow.
“That frightened little rabbit of yours isn’t hiding here this time.”
Shen Yu ignored the taunt.
He walked straight through the laboratory’s outer room and pushed open the door to Anya’s private office next door.
“Tea.”
One word. Curt and cold.
Anya shrugged and followed him inside.
Unlike the sterile severity of the laboratory outside, the lounge had been furnished with considerable taste. A heavy Persian carpet covered the floor. It held a full suite of rosewood furniture, abstract oils hung from the walls, and an antique display shelf in the corner held a collection of exquisite tea ware.
This was her sanctuary from blood and violence.
Without waiting for an invitation, Shen Yu made himself at home on the sofa. His legs stretched out casually, one arm resting diagonally along the armrest as he leaned back. The posture appeared indolent yet radiated control, as though this were not Anya’s territory at all, but his own Black Wolf hall.
Anya sat opposite him and expertly boiled the water, warmed the cups, and pried tea from the cake.
Scalding water rushed into the little purple-clay teapot, releasing a cloud of white steam.
The mellow fragrance unique to aged pu’er soon filled the quiet room.
“The finest ancient-tree tea from Kunlu Mountain this season.”
Anya slid a cup of amber tea toward Shen Yu with elegant fingers.
“I brewed the same tea for your little rabbit when she cried here last time. Some people can’t take the way the bitterness gives way to sweetness, but she seemed to enjoy it.”
At the mention of Xia Zhiyao, Shen Yu’s fingers paused around his cup.
Only for an instant—so briefly that it was almost impossible to notice.
He raised the cup, blew aside the floating foam, and took a sip. The scalding tea slid down his throat and tempered a little of the hostility within him.
Anya lifted her own cup and went on at an easy pace.
“I think she’s remarkably perceptive. Timid, yes, but her instincts are sound. She can tell who treats her well and who means her harm. That already puts her ahead of most people.”
Shen Yu did not respond.
He set down his cup. Its base met the rosewood table with a soft click.
Then he came directly to the point.
“The collection belonging to your father’s friend leaves next Wednesday as scheduled.”
His voice had resumed its habitual chill.
“I’ll have Jackal escort the convoy personally. They’ll take the western route and avoid Khun Sa’s eyes.”
At the turn to business, the teasing left Anya’s face.
She was an excellent doctor, but she was also a capable heir.
“The western route?”
Anya frowned. “You’re going through Death Valley? Things haven’t been peaceful there lately. I heard several roving factions have been active in the area, and isn’t that also where… that madman Du Tuo’s people operate?”
“Its instability is precisely what makes it safer.”
Shen Yu took out his cigar case, selected one, and rolled it between his fingers.
“The more dangerous a place, the fewer eyes watch it. Du Tuo has his attention fixed on my main route, hoping to tear off a piece of me. I have no intention of indulging him.”
He lifted his eyes and pinned Anya with that fathomless gaze.
“What did Mr. Sharma decide about the thing I want?”
Anya stilled.
She put down her cup and leaned slightly forward, her eyes sharpening.
“You mean… the development rights to that industrial zone at 21°N?”
Shen Yu neither confirmed nor denied it. He merely clipped the head of his cigar and lit it at an unhurried pace.
Blue flame danced over the deep planes of his face.
“I truly am curious.”
Anya studied him, trying to read something from that eternally glacial face.
“That land may belong to the Sharma family, but it’s worthless. There’s nothing there now except weeds and abandoned factories.”
“What could you possibly want with the development rights?”
“What exactly are you planning?”
