Chapter 9 — CEO Phong, Stop Chasing Her—She Already Has a Marriage Certificate

Phong Chính Nguyên returned to Hanoi after ten days of work, carrying a suitcase full of successfully signed contract documents and a tanned Bảo Nhiên, excitedly talking about his days in Singapore. He entered the house with a rare sense of relief - the cooperation deal with a large retail chain was completed as planned, an important milestone in Phong Thịnh Group's market expansion strategy.

But as soon as he entered the living room, he realized there was something different in the family atmosphere. Nhã Kỳ welcomed him with a smile, still thoughtfully cleaning up her suitcase, still preparing dinner on time as always, but there was some invisible distance in her eyes that Chính Nguyên, even though he was not a person sensitive to emotions, also vaguely recognized.

"Are you tired?" He asked, when the two sat at the dinner table, Bảo Nhiên was sent to bed early because of the time zone difference.

"No, I'm fine," Nhã Kỳ replied, picking food into his bowl as usual, but the movements were more mechanical than usual, lacking the natural kindness he was used to.

Chính Nguyên looked at his wife for a moment, trying to analyze the situation the way he usually does with work problems — find the cause, assess the severity, and come up with an appropriate solution. But human emotions, especially the emotions of the woman who had lived next to him for seven years, were not easily processed according to linear logic like financial reports.

He thought about the possibility that she was angry because he didn't take her on his business trip, or maybe she was tired from having to take care of the family alone during the ten days he was away. This was just a small tantrum, he told himself, something that, according to his experience of seven years of living together, would usually subside on its own after a few days if he didn't do anything to make the situation worse.

He recalls, during the ten days in Singapore, there were evenings when he texted Uyển Thi longer than the time he spent calling to check on his wife at home - not because he intentionally compared, but because Uyển Thi's stories, her confessions about loneliness, about the sad memories she still carried, always made him feel like he needed to respond, needed to be by her side, as a belated way to make up for his deceased best friend. He never saw it as an injustice to Nhã Kỳ, because in his mind, those two relationships existed in two completely separate categories.

"This trip was very successful." He changed the subject, his voice a bit more excited than usual. "The partner there was very satisfied with the terms of cooperation. Bảo Nhiên was also good and was praised by everyone throughout the trip."

"Is that so, that's good," Nhã Kỳ replied, her voice still gentle but no longer curious or excited to hear more details like before when he talked about work.

He looked at the empty chair where Bảo Nhiên usually sat, suddenly remembering the moment his daughter pounced on Uyển Thi at the birthday party, naturally calling her "mom". He did not intervene, did not change the way his child addressed him, because in his mind, it was just an innocent, childish way of calling him, without any serious meaning. He never thought that if someone stood from afar and witnessed that scene, they would interpret it in a completely different way — a much more heartbreaking way than he imagined.

Chính Nguyên also did not know that, during the past ten working days, he had taken Bảo Nhiên to meet Uyển Thi three times outside of the official birthday party - once for a weekend lunch, once for a walk in the park, once to watch cartoons together when he was busy with an unexpected meeting and asked Uyển Thi to help babysit for a few hours. To him, these were just convenient arrangements in a working situation away from home, nothing worth reporting back to his wife in detail. But it was that series of repeated "conveniences" that silently built a close relationship between Bảo Nhiên and Uyển Thi whose consequences he completely did not foresee.

Dinner passed in more silence than usual. Chính Nguyên, after finishing eating, returned to his private office to finish processing a few backlog emails, without thinking any more about his wife's strangeness. To him, this is just one of countless small collisions in married life, not worth spending too much time analyzing when there are so many other important tasks waiting.

In the following days, Chính Nguyên still maintained a busy work schedule as usual, occasionally texting to check on Diệp Uyển Thi - the person he still considered a part of the spiritual responsibility he set for himself after the death of Đàm Nhật Trường, his best friend in life. He didn't think there was anything he needed to hide from his wife about those messages, because in his mind, the relationship with Uyển Thi was completely within the category of moral responsibility to his deceased friend, without any other emotional nuances.

But he didn't realize that "no need to hide" stemmed from a more fundamental shortcoming: he never really valued sharing fully with his wife about the relationships and psychological burdens he was carrying. Seven years of living together, Chính Nguyên has become accustomed to handling all his problems in silence, seeing it as a way to protect his wife and children from unnecessary burdens, without realizing that silence is gradually pushing his wife away from his inner world.

One evening, while Chính Nguyên was sitting in his office, his personal assistant Đặng Việt Anh knocked on the door, carrying a set of financial reports that needed his approval. While reviewing the expenses, Việt Anh cleared his throat slightly, seemingly hesitant.

"Sir, there is a regular monthly transfer under 'personal support' that I find a bit unusual in size compared to similar amounts in the past. I just want to confirm with you before putting it in the official report." Chính Nguyên glanced at the number, frowned for a moment but then nodded. "It's okay, it's my support for an old acquaintance who is in trouble. Just leave it as it is."

"Yes, boss," Việt Anh replied, but still glanced at the number again before closing the file. He has worked as Chính Nguyên's personal assistant for nearly five years, long enough to realize that his boss is extremely careful with every dollar spent by the group, but has an unusual leniency with this particular item. Việt Anh is not someone who likes to meddle in the private affairs of his superiors, but his professional intuition tells him that this is a detail worth silently paying attention to, in case it is needed later.

Việt Anh nodded and did not ask further, but in his heart he could not help but wonder about the scale of that "personal support" - a number large enough to maintain a comfortable life for one person, lasting continuously for many months, a detail that, if paid close attention, was not at all compatible with a normal acquaintance relationship as his boss's brief explanation.

Chính Nguyên, after Việt Anh left, sat quietly for a moment in front of the computer screen, thinking about Uyển Thi, the difficult situation she was going through after her father passed away, and even the years she had to struggle alone in a foreign land after a family incident. He felt that supporting her financially was the obvious thing to do, a way for him to partly atone for the mistake he always believed was his own in Nhật Trường's death.

Without him realizing it, that same sinful belief - the belief that had been rooted in him for nearly a decade - was gradually becoming a loophole for someone else to sneak in, exploit, and turn it into a tool to serve plans far beyond the category of "supporting an old friend in trouble" that he still reassured himself about.

That night, before going to bed, Chính Nguyên stood on the balcony of his office, looking down at the dark garden below, where the white rose bushes his mother planted were swaying gently in the night breeze. He thought about Nhã Kỳ, about the vague change in her attitude that he still couldn't clearly explain. He told himself, maybe in just a few more days, everything would return to normal, like all the other small collisions during the seven years of marriage that the two of them had overcome together without having to talk too much.

Little did he know that this time, things would not simply pass by on their own like the previous times. The woman who had been patiently waiting for him to change for the past seven years had begun a completely different journey, a journey that he, with all his business acumen, still had no idea was taking place silently right under his own roof.