Chapter 7 — The Toast That Ended Ten Years of Marriage

As the sound of the paper being crushed filled the air, I felt a strangely profound calm settle over me. Jiang Le Song was right. Gu Yun Ye truly did know everything. Yet, he failed to realize that I was no longer the young girl who needed to rely on anyone’s protection. What he had lost was never merely a wife. He had lost the Lin Zhao Xia who was once ready to brave every thorn and thistle by his side, walking with him from the emptiness of two bare hands to the blinding radiance of the spotlight. I picked up my phone and sent a brief message to my assistant.

Investigate all of Gu Yun Ye’s recent activities. Be as thorough as possible.

There are some people who must walk headfirst into a brick wall before they can distinguish whether what they have lost was a diamond or mere dust. And I, for one, do not mind giving him that final push so he might see the truth with absolute clarity.

The leaves of the sycamore trees outside my window were curling under the crisp, relentless heat of the autumn sun. I had just concluded a cross-continental conference call, and my fingertips still held the residual warmth of my coffee cup when my phone buzzed. It was the building manager, his voice tinged with awkward hesitation.

Director Lin, Mr. Gu is still standing downstairs. His face is flushed, and he seems to be quite ill.

I pulled back a corner of the heavy blackout curtain. The reflection on the glass pane revealed my own expressionless face. The man below was huddled under the sycamore tree. His suit was crumpled, resembling a discarded, mangled piece of parchment. His hair was matted and heavy from the previous night’s rain, with damp strands clinging to his pallid forehead. In his hand, he gripped a brown paper envelope. With every gust of wind, the envelope trembled with a dry, rustling sound, like a dying butterfly. This was the third morning he had stood waiting. Two days prior, a sudden storm had broken. Large, icy raindrops pelted him, yet he did not seek shelter, standing rigid while the water cascaded down his chin. He kept repeating my name over and over.

Zhao Xia, I was wrong…

His voice drifted through the glass, as faint and thin as the buzzing of a mosquito.

I only wanted to help you escape the past… I wanted you to let go of the things that happened all those years ago.

I let out a mocking laugh, my fingertip leaving a blurred smudge on the curtain. Let go? By using the secret distillery recipe of my enemies? By drinking from a cup stained with the blood and tears of my parents? The security guard’s radio crackled with static, through which I could vaguely hear that Gu Yun Ye was burning with a high fever, lost in a delirious haze. My mind flashed back to a snowy night three years ago. Back then, our company account had only a few hundred coins left. He had crouched in our empty office, his eyes bloodshot, telling me the business could no longer hold on. It was I who had gritted my teeth and mortgaged the old home my parents had left behind, raising the funds to save him. At that moment, he had pulled me into an embrace, resting his chin on the top of my head, and promised:

Zhao Xia, once the company thrives, I will make sure you live the most wonderful life imaginable.

I remembered the early days of our startup, huddled in a rented room barely fifteen square meters wide. He had eaten instant noodles for half a year, yet he would always place the only egg from his bowl into mine, saying, You need to keep your strength up.

The light in his eyes then had been so brilliant. So radiant, it seemed capable of dispelling every hardship. During our wedding, when he cast Jiang Le Song out, he had looked at me with that same intensity. Steady as a mountain. But what followed? Later, simply because Jiang Le Song remarked that the moonlight was beautiful, he could completely forget about the concert tickets he had promised me. Jiang Le Song only needed to hold her head and claim a headache, and he would abandon me in the living room to keep watch outside her bedroom for the entire night. That light, which had once been so bright, had been extinguished bit by bit by those small, incremental betrayals. Not even a single spark remained.

Director Lin?

The guard asked again, his voice careful and hesitant.