Returning home was becoming more of an empty ritual for Xu Minghao.
Ever since Lu Jiaxin brought up divorce, she had moved out completely. Not a gradual retreat, not a tentative separation. She had left as though she had already finished grieving. Her clothes were gone. Her toiletries no longer lined the bathroom shelf. Even the faint traces of her perfume, once lingering in the corners of the room, had vanished.
It was as if she had never lived there at all.
Xu Minghao stood in the quiet living room longer than necessary, keys still in his hand, listening to the hum of an apartment that no longer responded to him. The space felt larger now. Colder. Too orderly in a way that made him uneasy.
He had expected arguments.
Tears.
Negotiations.
Ultimatums.
Not this.
Not silence so complete it felt deliberate.
