Chapter 10 — CEO Phong, Stop Chasing Her—She Already Has a Marriage Certificate

Three weeks after returning from Singapore, Nhã Kỳ chose a weekend evening, when Bảo Nhiên was fast asleep and Mrs. Ngọc Hân went home to visit relatives for a few days, to give Chính Nguyên the completed divorce documents.

That whole day, Nhã Kỳ prepared herself very carefully. She spent the morning taking Bảo Nhiên to the park, playing with her child more than usual, as if wanting to accumulate more warm moments before entering into a conversation that she knew would shake up the entire familiar lifestyle of this small family. In the afternoon, she sat down with lawyer Đặng Việt Anh - Tú Anh's old classmate - on the phone, reviewing each clause in the file one last time, making sure everything was clear and reasonable, leaving no loopholes that could prolong or complicate the divorce process.

At night, after lulling Bảo Nhiên to sleep and checking once again to make sure Mrs. Ngọc Hân was still at home, Nhã Kỳ stood in front of Chính Nguyên's office door for a long time, holding a file in her hand, taking a few deep breaths to calm herself. She had imagined this moment hundreds of times in her head over the past three weeks — sometimes she imagined she would cry, other times she imagined she would angrily blame, but in the end, she decided she needed to go in with absolute calm, because only calm would be strong enough for her husband to understand that this was not a temporary temper tantrum.

He was sitting in his office, reviewing quarterly reports, when she knocked on the door and walked in, placed the brown file on the table in front of him, didn't say a word, just stood there, her hands clasped together, her eyes strangely calm.

"What is this?" Chính Nguyên asked, holding the file in his hand, before opening it.

"Divorce petition," Nhã Kỳ replied, her voice was steady, not trembling at all like she had imagined in her mind all those nights preparing for this moment. "I have filled out all the information, you just need to look it over and sign your part and you're done."

Chính Nguyên opened the file, skimmed through each page, his eyes gradually opened wide, his face - which had always remained absolutely calm in all situations, including the most intense negotiations at the shareholder meeting table - for the first time in seven years, revealed an undisguised shock.

"What are you joking about?" He looked up at her, his voice was still trying to stay calm but there was a slight tremor creeping in. "We're living a normal life, why are you suddenly bringing this up?"

"Normal?" Nhã Kỳ repeated that word, a bitter smile flashed across her lips. "Do you think we have lived normally for the past seven years, Chính Nguyên?"

"We don't have any conflicts. I still fully provide for the family, still respect you, never..." He stopped, suddenly realizing that the arguments he was about to give sounded so empty, so foreign to the concept of a truly happy marriage.

"That's right, I've never been mean to you." Nhã Kỳ nodded, her voice still remaining surprisingly calm. "But you've never really seen me, Chính Nguyên. For seven years, I've tried my best to become the wife you and this whole family want. I've given up my passion, learned to live according to your schedule, and patiently waited for the day you would open your heart. But I realized that maybe the problem isn't that I'm not patient enough; it's that your heart has had a place for someone else for a long time, and you just don't know it."

Chính Nguyên paused, a flash of worry flashed in his eyes. "What are you talking about?"

"I was in Singapore, it was my birthday," Nhã Kỳ said, her voice trembled slightly for the first time, even though she tried to suppress it as much as possible. "I saw it all — Diệp Uyển Thi's birthday party, their dance, and Bảo Nhiên calling her mom."

The room fell into a heavy silence. Chính Nguyên stood motionless, as if someone had just poured a bucket of cold water in the middle of winter. He tried to search his mind, trying to find a reasonable explanation, but all the words seemed to freeze in his throat.

"It's just..." He opened his mouth, but couldn't finish the sentence, because he wasn't sure how to explain a truth that, in retrospect, even he found difficult to justify convincingly.

"You don't need me to explain, Chính Nguyên," Nhã Kỳ interrupted, her voice now regaining stability. "I don't blame you for having feelings for another person, no matter what those feelings are. People cannot force their hearts to love anyone they want. But I cannot continue to live in a marriage where my own daughter, the child I gave birth to and raised with all my heart, calls another woman mother. That is the last line I cannot accept to cross."

"Nhã Kỳ, wait—" Chính Nguyên stood up and walked closer to her, but she took a step back, keeping her distance.

"I've thought very carefully over the past three weeks, it's not a decision made in the heat of the moment," she continued, her voice now carrying a decisiveness that Chính Nguyên had never seen in his patient wife for the past seven years. "I don't ask for any of your family's property. I just hope you agree so I can fully care for and raise Bảo Nhiên, and you can still visit me anytime I need it."

Chính Nguyên stood still, his hand clutching the file tightly, his fingers turning white because the force was too strong. During the past seven years, he had never once imagined this scenario - the scenario of his wife, always patient, always gentle, always standing behind him unconditionally supporting him, and being able to make such a decisive decision, showing no signs of wavering.

"I don't agree," he said, his voice now regaining some of the authority it had of someone used to being in control of every situation. "We'll talk about this later, when we're both calmer."

"You don't need more time to calm down, Chính Nguyên. You've been calm for the past three weeks," Nhã Kỳ replied, her eyes did not waver. "You may need time, I understand that. But my decision will not change, no matter how long it takes you to accept this truth."

Chính Nguyên was silent, his eyes looked at her, seemingly trying to find some sign of hesitation, of being able to change in his wife's eyes, just like the previous times when he made a decision that made her unhappy, she was always the first to give in. But this time, he didn't find that. Nhã Kỳ's eyes only had cold steadfastness, a steadfastness that he had never had the opportunity to witness in his always gentle and patient wife in the past seven years.

"You were very calm, Chính Nguyên," Nhã Kỳ replied, then turned and walked out of the room, leaving him standing there alone in the middle of the familiar office, still holding the divorce file in his hand, his mind completely confused by the biggest shock he had ever experienced during the seven years of seemingly peaceful and stable marriage.

She walked back to the private bedroom she had moved into a few weeks ago with the reason "so he could rest more comfortably after a long business trip", closed the door, leaned her back against the wooden door, and let out a long breath that she didn't realize she had been holding. Her hands were still shaking, but it was not the trembling of weakness, but the trembling of someone who had just gathered all her courage to cross the most important threshold of her life.

In the office, Chính Nguyên sat down in his chair, the file still lying open on the table in front of him. He stared at the blank signature in the section reserved for him, his mind reeling with a series of unanswered questions. Where did you go wrong? Since when did their seemingly stable relationship crumble to the point of irreparability without him even knowing? For the first time in many years, the man, who was always confident in his ability to control every situation, felt completely helpless before a problem that no financial report, no business strategy could help him solve.

He remembered Nhã Kỳ's face just now - no anger, no tears, just a calmness so painful that it made him realize that this was not an outburst of anger, but the result of a long process of deliberation, perhaps taking place silently in her heart for weeks, even years before, without him even knowing. That thought made him feel an unprecedented panic, creeping deep into his chest, where he had always thought that he had built a solid fortress with reason and discipline.

That night, Chính Nguyên sat in his office until late, unable to sleep. Outside the window, Hanoi city was immersed in a quiet night, with only the flickering streetlights shining into the room. He opened his phone, intending to text Uyển Thi as he has been doing every night lately, but then stopped and put the phone on the table. For the first time, a question throbbed in his mind: was what he was doing really simply a responsibility to a deceased friend, or had it accidentally become the cause of pushing his own marriage to the brink of collapse?