Chapter 8 — No Dowry, No You

By the time the gathering drew to a close, the night had deepened significantly. Along the boulevards, the streetlamps cast elongated, flickering shadows that stretched across the asphalt like ink spilled upon a canvas. Zhang Mian took the wheel to drive me home. A faint, lingering scent of agarwood permeated the interior of the car, an olfactory lullaby that eased the tension from my weary muscles and lulled the mind into a state of profound tranquility. As we came to a halt at a red light, he turned his head, his gaze lingering on me with quiet attentiveness.

Are you tired?

He reached out, his warm palm enveloping mine, his fingers kneading the skin with a gentle, rhythmic pressure that seemed to draw the exhaustion right out of my marrow. I shook my head, leaning my temple against the cool leather of the headrest. Outside the glass, the cityscape drifted by in a blur of motion. Neon lights traced brilliant, incandescent streaks across the windowpane, refracting into fractured prisms of color. My thoughts drifted backward to that fateful morning—the image of the rusted iron railings standing sentinel before the Civil Affairs Bureau, the calculating mask of Gao Fan’s face as he spoke his final, cold words.

Back then, the weight of it had felt apocalyptic, as if the three years of devotion I had poured into that union were being swept away into an abyss, rendered utterly meaningless. Yet, as I weighed those memories against the silence of the present, the bitterness had transformed. I realized now that it had been the most merciful jest fate could have ever bestowed upon me. The traffic light flickered and shifted from crimson to a beckoning green. The car surged forward, gliding fluidly into the velvet depths of the night. I closed my eyes, the world softening into a blur of shadows and light, and whispered a quiet conviction to my own heart: everything that had transpired was, in the end, the most exquisite arrangement possible.