The Ferrari FXX-K Evo, a predator in carbon fiber and Rosso Corsa red, looks absurd parked in the wide, manicured driveway of the Han estate. Its raw, track-only aggression clashes with the serene, almost mournful elegance of the sprawling mansion. Lu Manman cuts the engine, the sudden silence inside the cockpit a jarring contrast to the engine’s previous roar. She steps out, the heavy door thudding shut behind her. The air smells of cut grass and something else, something metallic and cold, like money.\n\nThe mansion looms, silent and vast. Too silent. Ten-year-old Han Jun is probably in his room, lost to his drone, but where are the twins? Han Seul, the future artist, and Han Ji-hoon, the future hacker. Seven years old, if the novel's timeline is accurate. They should be making noise, chasing each other through the echoing halls, or at least visible in the sprawling gardens.\n\nLu Manman walks up the grand steps, her heels clicking against the polished marble. The enormous double doors swing inward almost before she touches them, revealing the cavernous foyer. No welcoming housekeeper. No bustling staff. Just the chill, still air and the faint scent of lilies that always seems to cling to the house. It's a scent she’s come to associate with Han Min-seo’s detached elegance, and now, her own inherited apathy.\n\n"Hello?" Lu Manman calls out, her voice swallowed by the high ceilings. "Jun? Seul? Ji-hoon?"\n\nHer words hang in the air, then dissipate. No answer. She checks the expansive living room, its white sofas pristine, the coffee table polished to a mirror sheen. No discarded toys. No half-finished drawings. No tell-tale signs of childish chaos. The kitchen is equally immaculate, the surfaces gleaming, not a crumb out of place. It’s as if children don’t live here at all.\n\nA knot begins to tighten in her stomach. This silence, this immaculate order, feels less like peace and more like absence. The original novel described Han Min-seo as neglectful, but Lu Manman hadn't fully grasped the extent of it until now. The drone for Jun was a physical object, a task completed. But the twins… their trajectories were different, their needs perhaps more immediate, more fragile.\n\nShe walks through the formal dining room, the crystal chandelier sparkling above an empty table. Her reflection flickers in the dark wood, the sharp-boned face of Han Min-seo staring back, overlaid with her own growing alarm. The cold ambition she felt earlier, after buying the Ferrari, now feels like a hollow ache, replaced by a surge of unease. Where are they?\n\nHer steps quicken as she moves deeper into the house, heading towards the family wing. The air cools with each step, the opulence feeling less like comfort and more like a gilded cage. This isn't just a house; it’s a mausoleum, carefully maintained, but devoid of life.\n\nThe system's previous task focused on a luxury item. Now, the children themselves are the luxury, the most precious assets. And two of them are simply missing from this vast, silent expanse. The thought sends a shiver down her spine. The "plot enforcement" consequence of failure suddenly feels terrifyingly real.\n\n---\n\nLu Manman finds Mrs. Chen in the laundry room, methodically folding pristine white towels. The nanny, a woman in her late fifties with neatly pulled-back grey hair, doesn't look up immediately, her movements precise and unhurried. She wears a crisp grey uniform, starched and impeccable, like everything else in this house.\n\n"Mrs. Chen," Lu Manman says, her voice sharper than she intends.\n\nThe nanny startles, her hands fumbling a towel before she recovers. She turns, her expression neutral, almost blank. "Madam? Welcome home." Her eyes, however, hold a fleeting flicker, like a trapped bird.\n\n"Where are the children?" Lu Manman asks, cutting straight to it. No pleasantries. No small talk. The urgency thrums beneath her skin.\n\nMrs. Chen's gaze drops momentarily to the towel in her hands. "Master Jun is in his room, I believe. As usual."\n\n"I mean Seul and Ji-hoon," Lu Manman clarifies, her voice tight. "The twins. I haven't seen them since I arrived. The house is… quiet." She leaves the implication hanging, waiting for Mrs. Chen to fill the uncomfortable silence.\n\nThe nanny smooths the towel again, her fingers tracing the hem. "Ah, the young masters. They are out, Madam."\n\n"Out?" Lu Manman repeats, a prickle of annoyance rising. "Where 'out'? With whom? I wasn't informed of any outings." Her memory of Han Min-seo's past self is vague, but even she would surely be told if her children were leaving the estate. Unless, of course, the original Han Min-seo didn't care enough to be informed. The thought makes Lu Manman’s jaw clench.\n\nMrs. Chen finally looks up, meeting Lu Manman's gaze, but her eyes are guarded. "They went to a friend's house, Madam. For a playdate."\n\n"A playdate," Lu Manman echoes, skepticism clear in her tone. "Whose friend? Which house? What time did they leave? Who took them?" Questions pile up, each one a hammer blow against Mrs. Chen's carefully constructed calm. The nanny is a long-serving fixture in this household, loyal to the point of being complicit, the novel implied. Now, Lu Manman sees it firsthand.\n\nA nervous swallow bobs in Mrs. Chen's throat. She avoids Lu Manman's direct stare, her eyes flitting around the laundry room, settling on a stack of neatly folded linens. The air thickens with unspoken things, with evasions and half-truths. Lu Manman can almost taste the lie on the tip of the nanny's tongue. The twins' safety, their very existence, feels suddenly precarious, hanging by a thread of Mrs. Chen's reluctance.\n\n---\n\n"A playdate with Little Ming," Mrs. Chen says finally, her voice hushed, too quiet for the wide, echoing house. "From their school. His mother, Mrs. Li, invited them."\n\n"Little Ming?" Lu Manman frowns. "I don't recall a Little Ming. And Mrs. Li? I have no contact for a Mrs. Li. Did they just leave with a stranger?" Her voice rises with each question, disbelief battling with a dawning horror. This isn't just neglect; this is gross negligence. This isn't Han Min-seo's apathy; this is active endangerment, either by Mrs. Chen or by the original character's profound disinterest.\n\nMrs. Chen flinches, her hands twisting the corner of a towel. "Oh, Madam. You were… busy. I handled the arrangements. Mrs. Li is a very respectable woman. The children enjoy playing there." She speaks quickly, a little too quickly, her words blurring together. Her eyes dart to the industrial washing machine, then to the closed door, anywhere but Lu Manman’s face. The grey uniform, once a symbol of order, now seems to hang heavy, pulling her down.\n\n"When did they leave?" Lu Manman presses, her voice low and steady now, a deliberate contrast to the nanny's rising panic. She watches Mrs. Chen’s Adam’s apple bob as she swallows. The woman is trying to recall her rehearsed lines, but the pressure is making her falter. The truth is a slippery fish, and Lu Manman intends to land it.\n\n"This morning. After breakfast," Mrs. Chen replies, her voice barely a whisper. "They will be back… later." The vagueness hangs heavy. No specific time. No confirmation of a return. Just a general, unconvincing assurance.\n\n"Later when?" Lu Manman demands. "Is there a specific time they are expected back? Did you confirm with Mrs. Li? Do you have her number?" Each question is a step closer to cornering the woman. Lu Manman’s fear for the children is now a cold, hard rage. The original plot, the system's warnings, Han Min-seo’s past actions – it all coalesces into a terrible picture of passive abandonment, enabled by people like Mrs. Chen.\n\nMrs. Chen shrinks back against the washing machine, her hands now clasped tightly in front of her. "I… I have her number, Madam. Of course." She doesn't offer it. She doesn't even move to retrieve her phone. Her eyes, wide and fearful, betray the lie. Lu Manman knows, with a sickening certainty, that Mrs. Chen is not telling her everything. The twins are not just on a playdate. They are somewhere else, and Mrs. Chen is covering for someone, or something.\n\n---\n\nLu Manman turns from Mrs. Chen, the nanny's evasiveness a heavy weight in the air. She walks purposefully down the long corridor, her destination the children's wing. Mrs. Chen trails behind her, a hesitant, shuffling presence. The silence of the house, which had been merely unsettling before, now feels menacing, a shroud over hidden secrets. The scent of lilies, once elegant, now seems funereal.\n\nFirst, Han Seul’s room. The door stands slightly ajar. Lu Manman pushes it open. The room is large, decorated in soft pastels, with a delicate four-poster bed and a small artist’s easel in the corner. A wooden chest overflowing with art supplies sits beside it, but the brushes are clean, the paints uncapped. No discarded sketches, no smudges of crayon on the pale rug. A thick layer of dust coats the easel, the paints, the unused canvases. A forgotten doll, a porcelain ballerina, sits on a shelf, its eyes wide and unblinking, gathering dust like everything else.\n\nNext, Han Ji-hoon’s room. The door is closed, and Lu Manman opens it to reveal a room that mirrors Seul's in its untouched emptiness. A small desk, clearly intended for coding or gaming, holds a pristine, powerful-looking laptop. Its screen is dark, gathering a faint film of grey. A shelf above the desk holds neatly stacked coding books, their spines uncracked. A model spaceship, intricately detailed, sits on a dresser, its plastic sheen dulled by dust. No action figures on the floor, no tangled wires, no evidence of a child’s enthusiastic engagement. The bed is perfectly made, the duvet uncreased, as if no one has slept there in weeks.\n\nLu Manman runs a finger along the top of the bedside table in Ji-hoon's room, watching the grey film cling to her skin. The cold dread from earlier deepens, solidifying into a profound sense of failure and inherited guilt. This isn't just a playdate that went unannounced; this is a systemic absence, a void where childhood should be. The children's rooms are museums, preserved for an audience that never visits, never truly lives in them.\n\nHer mind reels, piecing together the fragments. Han Min-seo's apathy, Mrs. Chen's nervous lies, the stark evidence of neglect in these beautiful, desolate rooms. The twins' fated ends in the original novel—Seul's public disgrace and suicide, Ji-hoon's neural re-patterning—feel less like distant prophecies and more like inevitable consequences of this chilling neglect. Her chest aches with a sharp, unexpected pain. This is what the System meant by preventing villainy. It wasn't just buying expensive toys; it was about filling these empty spaces, reclaiming these lost children from the clutches of a fate forged by profound indifference.\n\n"Madam, perhaps we should…" Mrs. Chen starts, her voice timid, sensing Lu Manman's shift in demeanor. But Lu Manman cuts her off, a burning resolve hardening her gaze. The Master Card, the unlimited wealth, suddenly feels like a lifeline, a tool to tear down this carefully constructed facade of neglect. She has to find them. Now.\n\n---\n\nLu Manman turns back to Mrs. Chen, her eyes narrowed. The timid nanny flinches under her direct stare. "Mrs. Chen, I need the exact address of this 'Mrs. Li' and her phone number. Now." Her voice is low, steady, but edged with an undeniable command. The cold ambition she felt after the Ferrari purchase returns, but this time it's not detached; it's fiercely protective, burning with a righteous anger.\n\nMrs. Chen’s face pales, her composure finally cracking. "Madam, please, it's… not so simple. The children are perfectly safe. There's no need for you to trouble yourself." She wrings her hands, her gaze flickering around the opulent but empty hallway, as if seeking an escape route or a higher authority to intervene.\n\n"My children are my concern," Lu Manman asserts, taking a step closer. The nanny retreats, bumping into a large, ornate vase that wobbles precariously. "You will give me the information, or you will pack your bags. Is that clear?" The threat is unmistakable, cold and precise. Lu Manman is done with politeness, done with veiled questions. She needs answers, and she needs them immediately.\n\n"Madam, I…" Mrs. Chen stammers, her eyes darting nervously to the side. She opens her mouth to speak again, a desperate plea or a further lie forming on her lips. But before she can utter another word, a sharp, insistent buzz cuts through the tense silence of the hallway.\n\nMrs. Chen fumbles in her apron pocket, pulling out an old-model flip phone. Her eyes, still wide with panic, dart to the screen. Lu Manman’s gaze follows, sharp and unblinking. The name displayed on the caller ID sends a jolt through Lu Manman’s chest, a name ripped straight from the forgotten pages of 'The Tyrant's Cold Revenge': "Madam Song."

Chapter 4: The Missing Twins' Shadow