The abandoned daughter of the Lu family turns around and marries a celibate tycoon.

The girl was wearing a white sweater and a dark gray long skirt, with a thick architectural atlas spread open on her lap. Her head was slightly lowered, and a few stray hairs escaped from her loosely tied bun, swaying gently as she turned the pages.

The sunlight fell perfectly on her profile, highlighting her long eyelashes and the tip of her upturned nose, making even the tiny, breath-like undulations of her face clearly visible.

She watched intently.

— He would occasionally jot something down in the corner of the picture book, write a few words, then stop, furrow his brows, and after a moment his expression would relax, and the pen would continue to move.

Gu Yanshen felt his heart skip a beat at that moment.

It was as if he had seen her before.

He had seen her writings—one hundred and thirty-seven emails over three years.

She was right in front of him, alive and breathing. Sunlight cast a faint halo around her hair. She reached out to press down the pages of the book that had been turned up by the wind; her wrists were slender and white, and her fingers were long and delicate.

In that instant, Gu Yanshen suddenly understood what it meant to feel apprehensive about returning home.

A breeze swept across the lake, lifting a corner of the page of the book on her lap. She looked up and gazed in his direction.

Gu Yanshen almost instinctively took half a step back.

They hid behind a tree.

He didn't know why he was hiding.

His heart pounded in his chest, each beat heavier than the last, making his fingertips numb. He leaned against the rough tree trunk, hearing the wind, birdsong, the laughter of students in the distance, and his own disordered, almost incoherent breathing.

He should leave.

But he didn't.

He stood behind the tree, a few steps away, through the afternoon light and shadow, through emails that hadn't been replied to in three years, watching her lower her head and continue flipping through the picture book.

She gently bit her lip.

The movement was so subtle that if he hadn't happened to be looking at her, if he hadn't happened to be paying attention to her—he wouldn't have noticed at all. But he saw it. And once he saw it, he couldn't look away.

He just kept looking at her like that.

—Watching her finish writing her notes, close the book, and tuck the pen into the inner pages of the picture album.

—Watch her stand up and brush a fallen leaf off her skirt.

—Watch her walk away along the lakeside promenade, carrying her books.

The figure in the white sweater gradually disappeared into the end of the tree-lined path, like a drop of water falling into a lake, leaving no trace.

Gu Yanshen stood there for a long time.

Long enough for the sunlight to turn from gold to orange-red, long enough for the shadows of birds returning to their nests to skim across the lake.

That night, Gu Yanshen used a relationship he never wanted to use.

Three hours later, a thin file was placed on his desk.

—The name field reads three characters: Lu Xiran.

In the photo, she smiles somewhat reservedly at the camera, but her eyes are bright and sparkling.

Gu Yanshen stared at that photo for a long time.

Then he closed the file and put it in the deepest part of the drawer.

—The Gu family is facing its most critical moment in internal strife. Those people won't let anyone he cares about go unpunished.

He cannot go to her.

He never expected to run into her at the airport.

When she said she was "Chen Yue", he hastily confiscated her identification documents.

—Wait for her to come to him.

When she proposed a "contract marriage,"

He knew perfectly well that he shouldn't.

He knew perfectly well that the Gu family was a den of cannibals, and he knew perfectly well that keeping her by his side was like handing a knife to the enemy.

But he repeatedly used the excuse that she also needed him to keep her by his side.

She was his addiction.

He enjoyed it immensely.

At this moment, Gu Yanshen stared at the emails on the computer screen, his fingertips gently stroking the touchpad.

Gu Yanshen closed his email and opened another encrypted folder on his computer. Inside were the hand-drawn sketches he had painstakingly created in his study every night after she fell asleep over the past two months—the sketches of their future home.

Every drawing was meticulous to the point of obsession.

She casually mentioned liking floor-to-ceiling windows, and he drew up seven different lighting plans.

She mentioned the starry sky ceiling, and he studied three different materials and processes.

He repeatedly adjusted the orientation of the nursery so that it could receive the warmest sunlight even in winter.

He had listed over a dozen flowers in his memo about what to plant in the yard, and finally circled her favorite hydrangea and the blue plumbago that she said was "beautiful".

On the last page was a line of small handwriting he had penned:

"A home for Ranran."

He even had his confession in mind: "Ranran, you've been writing emails to me for three years. Now, I want to spend my whole life replying to you."

What a great plan.

—Now, it's all just a pipe dream.

My phone vibrated at just the right moment. It was her again: "Are you asleep?"

Gu Yanshen closed his eyes.

He could picture her right now—curled up in her hospital bed, her fingers gripping her phone tightly, her eyes glued to the screen, waiting for a reply that would never come.

She must have waited a long time.

Waiting from morning till night, from anticipation to anxiety, from "he might just be busy" to "does he not want me anymore?"

Gu Yanshen picked up his phone, his fingertips hovering above the screen.

He wanted to reply "no".

I wanted to ask her, "Does it hurt?", I wanted to tell her, "I'm coming right away," I wanted to rush into that ward and pull her into my arms tightly, I wanted to kiss her forehead, her eyes, her fingers—I wanted to kneel by her bedside and say, "I'm sorry, I didn't protect you well."

In the end, he simply turned off the screen and placed the phone face down on the table.

His face was reflected in the windowpane.

Pale, tired, with eyes so red they looked like they'd been sanded.

But he ultimately didn't let that tear fall.

When Lin Chen pushed the door open and came in, Gu Yanshen was standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling window with his back to the door.

His face was reflected in the glass; his features were cold and unreadable.

"The preliminary investigation results are in." Lin Chen's voice sounded particularly deep in the empty office.

Gu Yanshen did not turn around.

"Are they those pieces of jewelry?"

"Yes." Lin Chen gritted his teeth. "The velvet lining of the jewelry box is dyed with saffron."

Gu Yanshen's back stiffened for a moment.

Saffron.

It promotes blood circulation and removes blood stasis, which is a major taboo for pregnant women.

"...But is that enough to cause a miscarriage?" Gu Yanshen's voice was very low, as if he were asking Lin Chen, but even more so as if he were asking himself.

"The investigation is still ongoing. We'll have to wait for the toxicology report."

Lin Chen paused, looking at the back of the figure that still hadn't turned around: "But—"

"explain."

"Aunt Yun's son," Lin Chen said softly, "owes ten million in gambling debts. This money..." He paused, "was given to him by Su Lanzhi."

The office was eerily quiet.

Gu Yanshen didn't move. The face reflected in the windowpane also remained still, like a frozen sculpture.

Only the fingertips of his hand, hanging at his side, trembled very slightly.

Su Lanzhi.

"She's really tired of living."

The tone was very soft, as if saying that the weather was nice today.

Lin Chen, however, could hear the barely suppressed, almost uncontrollable, violent rage beneath the calm surface, a rage that seemed ready to tear someone apart.

Gu Yanshen finally made a move.

He turned around, his leather shoes pounding on the marble floor, each step feeling heavy as if he were crushing something. He walked to the safe, squatted down, and turned the combination lock.

Click.