Chapter 10 — I Won't Wait for You to Return

Tranh Tranh, once this promotional cycle concludes, I will ask the company for an extended leave. We shall fly to Paris to pick out your wedding dress. Isn’t that high-end boutique the one you have always adored?

Yet, the very next day, he stood before an audience of tens of millions, gazing into the eyes of Lam Vi with nauseating affection as he declared, This is the girl I intend to protect for the rest of my life.

I held nothing back, uploading every single one of those incriminating screenshots. If the first wave of evidence merely proved that we had once shared a life, then this second wave served to tear away their hypocritical masks entirely. The most agonizing wounds are never caused by a simple change of heart; rather, it is the cruelty of caressing an old flame with one hand while preparing to flaunt a new one with the other. Public opinion erupted into a frenzy.

This is no longer just a case of a cheating scoundrel; this is a masterclass in time management combined with cold-blooded fraud!

He was painting dreams of wedding dresses one day and publicly professing his love for another the very next. Co Trach Vu’s composure is so terrifying he is wasting his talents not acting in espionage thrillers.

And that Chu Dien is even more repulsive, making the girlfriend he dated for eight years go buy a gift for his new lover. That is nothing short of psychological warfare!

The comments section under our posts was no longer filled with vitriol, but with an overwhelming wave of empathy and righteous fury from netizens. We did not engage in petty bickering with the other women; we simply presented a clear, undeniable timeline of events. It was that very restraint that allowed everyone to see the true faces of those two men. The chain reaction followed faster than we could have imagined. Lam Vi purged her social media of every post related to Co Trach Vu and updated her profile with a short, cold message: Engagement called off. I chose the wrong person; cutting my losses now before it is too late.

The junior student also deleted her post about finally being officially recognized, and she issued a public apology to Ha Nhan on the university forum, confirming that she had broken up with Chu Dien. Stripped of the validation they sought from their new partners, the carefully curated personas of these two men began to crumble entirely. Co Trach Vu had been scheduled to be announced as the ambassador for a luxury brand the following week, but the brand pulled his promotional posters overnight. A blockbuster film project he was attached to also abruptly canceled his promotional tour.

Chu Dien’s situation was even more dire. The chemistry department forum at the University of Economics was swarmed by curious onlookers and angry critics. To quell the public outcry, his thesis advisor temporarily suspended his project defense. For a doctoral candidate desperate to secure a spot in a key research program, this was equivalent to strangling his academic career. At last, they were beginning to taste the sting of real loss.

That evening, Ha Nhan and I sat out on the patio, listening to the wind rustling through the leaves. Our phones were strangely silent—no more threats, no more pressure. The owner of the house brought out two bowls of freshly cooked mushroom soup and looked at us, remarking, With all the chaos going on online, the two of you remain remarkably calm.

I took a sip of the hot soup, the rich, sweet broth making me narrow my eyes in contentment. All our cards are on the table now; the ones who should be panicking are them.

The words had barely left my lips when a delivery driver called out from the gate, Tran Tranh, you have an express package from within the city.

I stood up to sign for it. Inside was a handwritten letter, the penmanship hauntingly familiar. It was from Co Trach Vu. Beneath it, at the bottom of the box, lay a plain silver ring. It was the same style he had pointed at in a store window back when he was nothing more than a background extra, whispering to me, Once I earn enough money, I promise I will buy you the biggest one of all.

Now, he had finally bought it. Almost at that exact moment, Ha Nhan’s phone began to ring. It was an unfamiliar landline number. The moment she answered, the voice of Chu Dien’s mother came through, heavy with a mixture of awkwardness and sycophantic desperation.