Chapter 2

Laura Nie POV

"Mr. Zhuang!"

Cecilia Xiang was carrying a stainless steel insulated thermos. Just as she took two steps down the stairs, her foot mysteriously twisted, and she pitched straight forward.

The car door slipped from Frank's grip.

He lunged forward instantly.

The thermos crashed onto the concrete, creamy mushroom soup spilling into the cracks between the stone steps.

Without even glancing at the puddle, Frank kicked it aside and caught Cecilia securely in his arms.

"Where are you hurt? Does it hurt? Let me see," he asked softly, bending down.

Shrinking into his embrace, the corners of Cecilia's eyes reddened. "I just wanted to bring you some soup, Mr. Zhuang... There are so many people watching. Please let go of me first."

Frank didn't let go at all. Instead, he dropped to one knee and rolled up her pant leg.

He massaged her slightly flushed ankle in circles twice, then pulled off his gloves, pressing his bare palm against the top of her foot to check its warmth.

I held onto the passenger door, standing barely two paces away.

My right wrist throbbed sharply, and the wounds on my knees stretched, oozing fresh blood. It was only by leaning my left arm against the car door that I kept myself from collapsing.

I measured the distance in my mind.

Two paces.

So Frank did know how to love someone. It wasn't that he was incapable.

These gestures came to him so naturally, yet he had never once offered them to me.

Leaning against his shoulder, Cecilia darted a glance toward me and spoke timidly, "Mrs. Zhuang, I really didn't mean to. My foot just slipped."

As if only just remembering someone was still standing by the car, Frank turned his head toward me.

"Laura, you..."

"She sprained her ankle," I said, shutting the car door behind me. "Take her to orthopedics first."

"What about you?"

"I'll wait in line myself."

I didn't enter the hospital lobby.

Holding onto the guardrail of the green belt, I shuffled forward two hundred meters and hailed a taxi at the intersection.

The driver asked where I was going.

"Circle around the front gates of the hospital," I said.

Catching sight of the blood on my pants in the rearview mirror, the driver didn't pry and turned the steering wheel back around.

As the car glided past the entrance of the emergency building, I rolled down the window just a crack.

Across the street, the curtain of a 24-hour convenience store parted, and Frank hurried out.

In his left hand, he held a bottle of warm water with the cap unscrewed; in his right, a pair of freshly bought soft flats. He was running with even more urgency than when he had gotten out of his car earlier.

Cecilia had taken off her shoes and was sitting on the curb.

Frank crouched down, cupping Cecilia's foot to slip it into the flat shoe, then warmed her ankle with both hands.

I watched the scene through the car window.

I leaned back quietly against the seat, almost patiently waiting for that familiar, dull ache to rise in my chest.

In the past, whenever he returned from business dinners with stray foundation smudges on his collar, that dull pain would push all the way up into my throat, suffocating me and keeping me awake all night.

In the past, I would keep vigil over a table of food reheated three times, ironing his white shirt for the next day while inventing a dozen excuses in my head to justify his actions.

I waited through a red light that lasted half a block.

My chest remained entirely still.

As smooth and undisturbed as stagnant water.

I had almost hoped I would feel a pang of sorrow.

Feeling pain meant that I still cared about this person, that this marriage might still have a chance of being saved.

Now that my body didn't even produce a flicker of pain, I saw everything with absolute clarity. If I kept wallowing in this mire, there would be nothing left for me.

I thought back to the day of my miscarriage last year, the day I was wheeled into the operating room.

The fluorescent lights on the ceiling were blinding, retreating row after row overhead.

Clutching the circulating nurse's rubber glove, the last question I asked was how close he was.

When the anesthesia wore off and I woke up, there was only a nurse on duty by the nightstand checking the IV bag label.

From that day on, I completely broke myself of the habit of asking, and all those excuses I had made for him shattered into dust.

I raised my hand to roll up the window, glancing down at my swollen, disfigured wrist.

The hospital gates were left far behind in the car's wake.

I gave the driver the address of another private clinic.

Sitting on a hard bench in the treatment room, the elderly doctor clamped my wrist with splints, wrapping high-elastic compression bandages around it layer by layer.

Pushing up his reading glasses, the doctor said the bone wasn't broken, but the periosteum and soft tissue were severely bruised; it absolutely could not touch water this week.

I gave a faint hum of acknowledgment, took out my phone, and scanned the payment QR code on the wall.

Just as the bandage was secured, the phone in my purse began to buzz.

On the screen was an overseas long-distance number with an undisclosed location.

I switched to my left hand to answer. A middle-aged man's voice came through the receiver: "Is this Ms. Laura Nie?"

"Speaking."

"I am Mr. Lin's private legal counsel. Are you comfortable with French? The cross-matching report for the parentage blood test just arrived, and Mr. Lin has already reviewed it."

I tightened my grip on the phone. "What did he say?"

"Mr. Lin only asked one thing: when will you return to Paris?"

The only sound in the treatment room was the creaking of the ceiling fan overhead.

The nurse secured the end of the bandage with medical tape, the pressure sending a dull ache through the injury.

"Ms. Nie? Are you still there?"

"I'm here," I said, clearing my dry throat. "Please, go on."

"The inheritance documents for the family trust and overseas equity have all been prepared. You only need to set your schedule; the private jet is on standby at the airport at all times."

"

"No need for a private jet."

"Mr. Lin gave strict instructions. Someone must be sent to meet you right at the gate."

I turned my head, staring out at the dreary, gray asphalt. "Wait until I've handled the mess on my hands here. Don't rush me. Once I have the flight details, I'll send them over."

"Understood," the lawyer paused for half a second. "There is one more matter—your legal husband, Mr. Zhuang. Does our legal department need to step in and handle him in advance?"

I chewed over that phrase in my mind.

"No," I said calmly. "When the day comes, I'll sign everything that needs to be signed, and I'll fly over with only my own documents."

Hanging up, I laid the phone face down on my knees.

The vintage wall clock ticked down, second by second.

I would sign whatever needed signing myself, and as for how to resolve this mess, I already had my answer.

After all these years, for the first time, I didn't need to ask for anyone's permission before burning my own bridges.