The Heir’s Awakening System

The Matriarch

The candlestick phone's receiver felt like ice in Elena's hand, and the voice on the other end was dry as old paper, speaking Mandarin with an accent that belonged to another century.

"Is my granddaughter safe?" The words hung in the smoke-filled basement, and Li Mei's knees buckled, her hand catching the wall's edge to keep from falling.

"Mother," Li Mei whispered, and the name came out like a confession she'd been holding for sixty years.

Marcus moved to catch her, but she waved him off, her spine straightening with a will that had survived decades of torture and ice. Emma shifted Claire to her other hip, the baby's eyes tracking the phone as if she could see the voice's source through the plastic and copper.

Eleanor was the first to speak, her voice sharp as shattered glass. "You're dead. You died in 1970. I saw the death certificate. Lung cancer."

The voice on the phone laughed, a sound like wind through dead leaves. "Death certificates are easy to forge when you work for the men