Chapter 876

The Zhan Residence. Terrell had fallen asleep, but Danna remained wide awake, sitting alone in the courtyard. Her thoughts kept drifting to Qin Ze. Today, Callen had met with Old Master Qin—that snake must have filled the old man's ears with nonsense. She bit her lip, worrying whether the Qin family patriarch would take offense. After hesitating for what felt like an eternity, she finally pulled out her phone and typed a tentative message to Qin Ze: *"What are you up to?"* The screen stayed dark. No reply came—not for minutes, not for hours. That night, sleep eluded her. Qin Ze *never* left her messages unanswered. Something was wrong. Her throat tightened as she buried her face into the pillow, stifling the urge to sob. She didn’t even feel entitled to cry openly. Memories flooded in during those endless hours—especially the early ones. Before her teens, she’d lived with Clinton and Ruby in a cramped tenement, the kind where peeling wallpaper and the stench of mildew clung to every br