It started when a bloody rain was about to fall.

At the same time, at 7:15 a.m., in the megacity of Beijing, more than 100 kilometers away from Lin Ye's rented apartment, the Ye family's morning meeting was in progress.

The headquarters of the Yip Group, 350 meters above the ground.

The panoramic conference room is like a crystal coffin floating above the clouds, offering a panoramic view of the entire metropolis of Beijing.

The floor-to-ceiling glass curtain walls on all sides extend from the ground to the ceiling, without any frames to obstruct the view, making it feel as if you are in empty space.

Beneath your feet lies a miniature city, above your head an endless sky, and those within it feel as if they are suspended between heaven and earth.

The twelve-meter-long ebony conference table absorbed the last rays of warmth from the morning sun.

The tabletop was made from a single piece of African ebony, its grain resembling solidified black veins that meandered across the polished surface.

Every line of the table reflects the burning sky outside the window. The reflection is darker and deeper than reality, as if the sky of another world is peering into this world through this table.

The morning board meeting is drawing to a close.

In the air, the aroma of Guatemalan Blue Mountain coffee clashed with the smell of freshly printed financial reports, ultimately filtered by the central air conditioning system into a sterile, cool chill.

That's the unique smell of power at its peak, like a mixture of an operating room and a vault.

This scent is not natural, but man-made; it is the transparent essence distilled from countless riches, countless decisions, and countless days and nights.

Outside the curved floor-to-ceiling windows, the entire city appears to be undergoing a grand sacrificial ceremony.

Dawn is no longer light, but a kind of liquid gold with weight and temperature.

It cascades down from the eastern horizon, transforming the dense, fang-like glass forest into a magnificent, slowly flowing ocean of molten gold and amber.

Each skyscraper is edged with gold, and the light at the edges is cut into countless tiny specks that jump, shimmer, and flow on the curtain wall.

The lower-lying clouds were ignited, their edges melting into incandescent white flares.

The flares were so bright that looking directly at them stung the eyes, as if one were staring at the sun itself.

Beneath the clouds, the city's arteries have begun to pulsate—

The traffic flowed like metal platelets, slowly crawling along the overpass; the crowds moved like white blood cells, shuttling and flowing through the streets and alleys.

The deep hum of millions of engines, distilled by the absolute height of 350 meters, becomes the heartbeat deep within the earth—

The sound, though distant, continued to pound against the glass curtain wall of the conference room.

The heartbeat was so steady, so persistent, as if it would continue until the end of time.

Ye Qingrou, as the group's general manager, sat in the third seat to the side of the main seat.

This very location is a silent pronouncement on the trajectory of her twenty-four years of life—

It is neither on the periphery nor at the core; it is both recognized and restricted; it has a voice but no final say.

This was arranged by her father, Ye Zhenglan.

Ye Zhenglan firmly believes that a true successor needs to observe the periphery of power for a long enough time before finally sitting in the center of power.

The Ye Family Medical Empire has a history of 150 years.

Starting from a small pharmacy in the late Qing Dynasty, it has gone through war, revolution, reform and opening up, and eventually grown into a multinational giant spanning four major fields: pharmaceutical research and development, medical devices, biotechnology and health management.

One hundred and fifty years, six generations of accumulation, and countless life-and-death choices have forged this 350-meter-high monument.

And she, Ye Qingrou, is the youngest director of this empire.

A Harvard Medical School PhD—during those two years, she worked an average of sixteen hours a day in the lab, and the quantity and quality of her published papers put many professors to shame.

The highest honor in financial engineering at Stanford University—the quantitative model she designed during her internship on Wall Street that year is still being used by that investment bank for risk control.

He is the sole chief architect of five national-level cutting-edge biotechnology research projects—each project involves billions of yuan in investment and represents a strategic national undertaking.

And she, at the age of just over twenty, is in charge of these behemoths that are capable of changing the landscape of the industry.

Last year, the "Star Swirl" targeted anti-cancer platform, which she led, achieved a revolutionary breakthrough.

It is a precision treatment system based on artificial intelligence and nanotechnology that can identify specific markers of cancer cells and then deliver drugs in a targeted manner, minimizing side effects.

This breakthrough was named one of the top ten scientific advances of the year by the journal Science and was described by the industry as "a sharp and precise aurora cast on the battlefield of humanity against ultimate disease".

At this moment, Ye Qingrou is listening to reports from the heads of various departments.

But any attempt to describe her in words seems crude and ridiculous in the face of the "phenomenon" she presents.

That's not "beauty" in the visual sense—it's an overused and worn-out word.

Rather, it is a kind of "existential perturbation" that is closer to the laws of physics.

When light flows through the space where Ye Qingrou is, it undergoes a perceptible deflection and taming.

The beams of light that had been flowing freely became docile the moment they approached Ye Qingrou, spontaneously gathering into a tranquil cocoon of light that gently enveloped her.

It was as if space itself was humbly adjusting its curvature to accommodate this creation that should not belong to the mortal world.

Ye Qingrou's skin is a whiteness that surpasses all known whiteness.

More radiant than the first snow of the Arctic—the snow of the Arctic has a dazzling reflection in the sunlight; but her skin absorbs, transforms, and gently releases that light, forming a faint halo.

More translucent than millennia-old jade—the beauty of jade is cold, hard, and aloof; while her beauty, though also cold, contains a gentle vitality beneath that coldness.

It's more like giving life the warmth of a frozen moonlight.

The faint, misty blue blood vessels beneath the skin are barely visible, like the mysterious fissures leading to another dimension in the crackle pattern of exquisite Ru porcelain.

The veins seemed to follow some kind of hidden geometry, and with each pulse, they created ripples beneath the translucent skin that were almost imperceptible to the naked eye.

Ye Qingrou's facial features are the ultimate harmony composed of mathematics and theology.

Her eyebrows, like distant mountains veiled in mist, faded into the final, subtle arc of dawn—an arc so precise it seemed measured with the finest calipers, yet so natural it appeared as if it were born that way.

His eyebrows were slightly raised, revealing a hint of cool indifference; the tails of his eyebrows slowly drooped, revealing a hint of gentle tenderness.

The eyes are two still abysses that hold the ancient galaxy yet remain undisturbed—the depth of those eyes evokes the deepest darkness of the universe, yet within that darkness, countless tiny points of light are scattered.

In the blink of an eye, the cold fire of reason and the compassionate light of the soul reached an eternal reconciliation—they were originally opposites, yet they coexisted in her eyes, like day and night briefly shaking hands at dusk.

The bridge of his nose is so straight and prominent, like a boundary drawn by the will of a deity—a boundary so sharp, so undeniable, as if proclaiming:

This side is perfection, that side is perfection, but she is the boundary of perfection itself.

The lip color is dyed by the softest moment of sunlight before dawn—not red, not pink, not any color that can be named.

Rather, it is the faint blush that naturally appears when light meets the skin, existing between existence and non-existence.

As Ye Qingrou tilted her head slightly to listen intently, the trembling of each eyelash seemed to pluck the hidden strings of time.

The tremor was so slight that it was enough to give those who were watching her a dizzying illusion that the flow of time had been altered.

The pearl-white suit skirt is her second skin, the tangible boundary of an invisible halo.

The dress's precise cut accentuated her sharp shoulders, slender waist, and long legs—

It's not about highlighting anything, but about giving that halo a clear boundary so that mortals can understand: Oh, so light also has a shape.

Each South Sea pearl button radiates a restrained glow, perfectly complementing the subtle radiance emanating from Ye Qingrou herself.

Those buttons are not decorations, but a kind of reference point—through them, people can realize that her own light is warmer than pearls, more delicate than silk, and closer to the essence of "light" itself than any man-made product.

At this moment, Fang Yuanshan, the vice president in charge of the Asia-Pacific supply chain, who was sitting on the left side of the conference table, glanced at Ye Qingrou's profile while flipping through the report in his hand, and couldn't help but feel a chill in his heart.

Fang Yuanshan was in his early fifties, with slightly graying temples. His face was square and chiseled, with high brow bones and deep-set eyes that were sharp as an eagle's.

Having worked in the supply chain field for thirty years and considered himself to have seen countless people, he had to admit that the existence of this young woman was itself a redefinition of the word "excellence".

He turned his gaze back to the report in front of him, his fingertips unconsciously tracing the edge of the paper, thinking to himself: if his daughter had half of her talent, he, as her father, would be completely satisfied.

At this moment, Ye Qingrou's sitting posture was like a solitary pine tree calmly stretching on a snow-capped peak, radiating an "existence" power in silence that was enough to make the entire noisy world hold its breath.

That's not oppression, not aggression, but something more fundamental—just as the existence of mountains doesn't require oppressing plains, just as the existence of the ocean doesn't require invading rivers—they simply "exist," and then all things naturally submit.

The physical parameters of this conference room, which brought together business tycoons, were subtly altered because of Ye Qingrou's presence.

The air became dense and crisp—each breath felt like savoring some kind of highly pure substance; the speed of sound seemed to slow down—each syllable took longer to reach the eardrum.

All gazes and thoughts, guided by an invisible law, tilted slightly toward Ye Qingrou's location—not intentionally, but instinctively, like iron filings naturally moving toward a magnetic pole.

Meanwhile, Zhou Heming, a senior director in charge of the group's legal department, who was sitting on the other side of the conference table, picked up his coffee cup during a break in the report, and his gaze inadvertently swept over Ye Qingrou's profile.

Zhou Heming is nearly sixty years old, with a slender build, but his back is as straight as a pine tree.

He had a thin face with slightly high cheekbones. He wore frameless glasses, and his eyes behind the lenses were always half-closed, as if he were looking at something, or as if he didn't care about anything.

This legal luminary, who had seen countless influential figures, was unexpectedly struck by a thought that seemed out of place:

He had been in the business world for forty years and had met countless people, but he had never seen such a young man who possessed both good looks and ability.

He read the article in the journal Science three times, and each time he gained a deeper understanding—Ye Zhenglan's daughter was by no means a mere ornament, but a true sword that could shoulder the future of the empire.

He took a sip of coffee, suppressing his emotions, and remained composed.

Marketing Director Shen Qingyi sat diagonally opposite Zhou Heming, her head down as she annotated a proposal on a tablet with a stylus.

Shen Qingyi is thirty-five years old. She is well-maintained, with a face as delicate as porcelain. Her long chestnut hair is loosely tied back, revealing her slender and fair neck.

She raised her eyes, and her gaze met Ye Qingrou's profile. The stylus in her hand paused slightly.

Shen Qingyi has seen countless beauties—she herself is a recognized "public relations goddess" in the industry—but every time she sees Ye Qingrou's face, it feels like the first time.

What's even more terrifying is that this woman not only has a pretty face, but also a brain. Shen Qingyi sighed inwardly, lowered her head to annotate again, but applied a bit more pressure to her pen than before.

Zhao Heng, the young deputy finance director who had only been in the position for a year and was sitting at the end of the table, did not have such deep cunning.

Zhao Heng was twenty-five years old. He had a handsome and fair face, wore a pair of thin-rimmed silver glasses, and his hair was neatly combed. The buttons on his shirt cuffs were all fastened properly. It was clear at a glance that he was a top student from a prestigious school who followed the rules.

His furtive glances at Ye Qingrou revealed undisguised admiration—both for her face that seemed to belong to no human being, and for her resume that shook the entire industry.

Harvard, Stanford, five national-level projects... the combination of these words in one person is enough to make any peer feel despair.

Zhao Heng lowered his eyes and silently gripped the pen in his hand.

Sitting next to Zhao Heng, Ye Yunshen, the director in charge of clinical operations in Greater China, happened to catch Zhao Heng's little gesture of holding a pen.

Ye Yunshen was in his early forties, with a dark and rough face. His cheekbones and jawline were sharp and rock-like, and his large hands had prominent knuckles with calluses from years of holding hiking sticks.

He worked as a Doctors Without Borders for three years in his youth, where he developed a composure far beyond that of his peers in war-torn regions of Africa.

Ye Yun Shen didn't look at Ye Qing Rou, but stared at the coffee cup in front of him, the black liquid in the cup reflecting the light on the ceiling.

He thought: This woman's "Star Swirl" platform extended the survival of patients with advanced cancer by a full eight months in a clinical trial in Africa last year.

Eight months is a more tangible act of compassion for a patient than any beauty.

He then picked up his coffee and drank it all in one gulp, his Adam's apple bobbing, without saying a word.