The rooftop restaurant in Guangjing was the kind of place people whispered about but rarely entered. Reservations required strings to be pulled, names to be dropped, favors to be repaid.
Jiang Yi Rong didn't need any of that.
The hostess bowed the moment she saw her, leading her up to the open-air terrace where lanterns floated in glass spheres and the city glittered far below.
She wore emerald silk that clung to her like water, hair twisted into a crown, lips painted a deep wine-red. At thirty-three, she looked untouchable, as if divorce, scandal, and time had only sharpened her beauty.
Two society wives were already waiting. They rose, air-kisses brushing cheeks, voices syrupy with envy.
"Yi Rong, you always make the rest of us look like children playing dress-up," one cooed.
Yi Rong smiled, practiced and cool. "Clothes only flatter when the woman inside still knows her worth."
The other woman leaned closer. "People still talk about you, you know. That marriage of yours—"
Yi Rong raised a brow. Just enough. The woman faltered, words drying in her throat.
"I hear you've been spending your nights alone," she finished weakly.
Yi Rong's lips curved. "Alone is better than shackled."
A silence followed, uneasy. Then the wives laughed, a little too loud, eager to smooth the air. That was Yi Rong's power—she didn't need to snap. A smile, a pause, a single look could cut deeper than any insult.
Later that evening, when the table emptied and the glasses stilled, Yi Rong lingered by the railing.
The city spread out like a jeweled river. Neon bled into fog, car lights streamed like comets. She sipped her wine and let the memories come.
A younger Gu Ze Yan flashed in her mind.
Not the untouchable tycoon he was now, but a man in his late twenties. Steady, ambitious, sharp-eyed, the kind of man who spoke little but made you feel like he'd already mapped the whole room.
He was different from the others in her circle—men who threw money like confetti, men who crumbled under their fathers' shadows.
Ze Yan carried weight in silence. A rare thing.
She had liked him then. More than liked him.
But when another man promised her faster doors, higher status, and the sheen of old money, she had chosen.
"I thought I was clever," she murmured into her glass. "I thought love could wait."
That marriage had ended in a battlefield. A scandalous divorce, whispers of betrayal, photos leaked to the press. She had walked out richer, yes, but hollowed.
And all the while, Gu Ze Yan's star rose higher and higher.
She could have been there. She could have been the one beside him.
Instead, she had been the fool watching from afar.
Yi Rong's villa was a study in restraint. No gaudy gold, no ostentatious chandeliers—just polished wood, black marble, and the faintest scent of sandalwood.
On her desk lay a neat stack of reports.
Photos of Gu Ze Yan at the gala, hand on Lin Qing Yun's back. Screenshots from Weibo, Cinderella comments climbing into the thousands.
Yi Rong spread them with manicured fingers, eyes narrowing.
"She's pretty," she admitted softly. "Serene, too. The kind of face that makes men imagine peace."
She tilted her head, studying the photo longer.
"But peace can't last. And men like Ze Yan—he doesn't stay soft forever. He needs steel at his side, not silk."
Her lips curved in a smile sharp enough to wound.
"If he leans on her, then I only need to make her crumble."
"Miss Jiang."
Her assistant entered quietly, carrying a sealed folder. "The drafts you requested."
Yi Rong opened it with steady hands. Inside: forged technical data, screenshots, and carefully curated "evidence" that Luminar's Atlas system carried flaws. Flaws that could look real to the untrained eye.
There were also names tied in: mentions of internal mismanagement, of "inexperienced staff being favored," of "sensitive work given to the wrong people."
A neat thread connecting Luminar's brilliance to Gu Ze Yan's supposed distraction.
To her.
Yi Rong flipped through the pages slowly, like an art critic admiring brushstrokes.
"Convincing," she said at last. "Not too loud. Not too obvious. Just enough to plant doubt."
Her assistant nodded. "Shall we circulate through the usual channels?"
"Two ways," Yi Rong instructed. Her voice carried no hesitation, only command. "Quietly send one copy to a rival firm. Another, through the society channels. When it hits online, it will look inevitable."
Her assistant hesitated. "Miss Jiang… if Mr. Gu realizes—"
"He won't. Not at first." Yi Rong's smile was soft, almost tender. "Ze Yan is brilliant. But brilliance has blind spots. His is love."
That weekend, she appeared at a private banquet in a gown the color of midnight, emerald earrings glinting like shards of ice.
The room bent toward her as always. Women leaned in, men glanced too long, conversation flowed around her.
And when the subject turned to Luminar—as it always did—Yi Rong tilted her head, sipping her wine.
"Perfection has cracks," she said lightly. "Sometimes you just need the right light to see them."
The wives murmured. The daughters listened, eyes wide.
By the next morning, the phrase spread like perfume in summer—whispered, repeated, reshaped.
Back at her villa, Yi Rong stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, city lights flickering below like dying stars.
Her phone buzzed. A message from her assistant: "Documents in place. Initial spread tomorrow morning."
She smiled, cold and beautiful, the kind of smile that had once charmed boardrooms and broken marriages.
She raised her glass, wine catching the light.
"Let's see how perfect his little fairytale remains."
The city seemed to bow at her feet.
And somewhere else in that same city, Gu Ze Yan slept soundly, utterly unaware.