The first person to sense that something was wrong was not one of the men who had dismissed me.
It was my mother.
She rose early, as she always did. The Lu household ran on precision—meals timed, schedules enforced, deviations noted. Breakfast was served at seven. It had been that way for decades.
When seven o'clock passed and my chair remained empty, she frowned.
"Yanxi stayed up late," she said evenly. "She's resting."
My father glanced at the clock and nodded. "Let her sleep."
At eight-thirty, the calm fractured.
By nine, irritation surfaced.
At ten, my mother sent someone upstairs.
The maid returned alone.
Her face had gone pale.
"Madam," she said quietly, "Miss Yanxi isn't in her room."
Gu Chengyi didn't think of me at all that morning.
He was already at work, reviewing reports, correcting projections, moving efficiently past the noise of the previous night. Engagements were settled. Narratives adjusted. What mattered next was damage control and forward momentum.
Then his phone rang.
"She didn't come home," his mother said without preamble. "Yanxi."
He paused.
"She lives with the Lu family," he replied.
"Yes," Mrs. Gu said slowly. "And she's not there."
A beat.
"She probably stayed with a friend."
"With no message?" His mother's voice sharpened. "Her parents are worried."
Gu Chengyi didn't answer immediately.
For reasons he couldn't explain, an image surfaced uninvited—me standing still in the corridor, listening.
He dismissed it.
"She'll return," he said. "She always does."
After the call ended, he stared at the same page for several minutes.
The figures blurred.
Han Zhe noticed because his phone was silent.
No morning complaint.
No sarcastic remark about the banquet.
No irritated commentary on politics, food, or shoes.
Yanxi always talked to him.
By noon, he was annoyed.
By mid-afternoon, unsettled.
By evening, he was calling her number repeatedly, only to hear the same message again and again.
This number is currently unavailable.
"She's throwing a tantrum," he muttered.
But when night fell—and the screen stayed dark—irritation gave way to something sharper.
Something unfamiliar.
Shen Yu knew the moment he stepped into the Lu residence.
It was too quiet.
The house felt… emptied.
Mrs. Lu sat stiffly on the sofa, teacup untouched.
"She didn't take much," she said. "One suitcase."
Shen Yu's expression tightened almost imperceptibly.
"Her passport?"
"Gone."
"Phone?"
"Turned off."
"Accounts?"
"Only the personal one."
No drama.
No impulsive trail.
This wasn't flight.
It was execution.
By nightfall, denial collapsed.
Lu Yanxi was gone.
Not unreachable.
Not hiding.
Gone.
The four families gathered again—but this time without ceremony. No chandeliers. No smiles. Only tension thick enough to choke on.
"How could this happen?" Mrs. Han demanded. "She's never done this."
"Did something upset her?" Mr. Shen asked carefully.
Silence answered.
Because everyone already knew.
My father broke it.
"She heard something."
The room stilled.
"Heard what?" Mrs. Gu asked.
My mother closed her eyes.
"The conversation," she said quietly. "From last night."
No explanation was needed.
Gu Chengyi's breath slowed.
Han Zhe straightened sharply.
Shen Yu turned away from the window.
"That's impossible," Han Zhe snapped. "We were careful."
My mother looked at him.
Really looked.
"No," she said. "You were careless."
The words landed like a sentence.
Gu Chengyi replayed every line in his mind—every dismissal, every certainty.
If it weren't for my parents—
"She wouldn't leave because of that," he said, forcing logic into his voice. "She understands how these things work."
My father finally met his gaze.
"Do you?"
That night, the cracks spread.
Gu Chengyi ordered flight records traced.
Han Zhe called every shared contact.
Shen Yu did neither.
He sat alone in his car, hands resting on the steering wheel as memory surfaced—unwanted.
Me, standing behind him at sixteen, fixing his tie.
"You'll never find a wife if you keep this up," I'd joked.
"I'm not planning to," he'd replied, distracted.
At the time, it hadn't mattered.
Now, it did.
By morning, certainty arrived.
I had left the country.
No destination disclosed.
No return planned.
"Find her," Mrs. Lu said, composure finally cracking.
Gu Chengyi nodded automatically.
Han Zhe clenched his jaw. "She can't just disappear."
Shen Yu said nothing.
But after the meeting ended, he made a single call.
"Use my private channels," he instructed. "Quietly. I want updates first."
For the first time, the three of them were united by the same thing.
Fear.
Thousands of miles away, I stepped into an apartment that was bare, silent, and unfamiliar.
It wasn't impressive.
It wasn't grand.
But it was mine.
I set my suitcase down and sat on the bed.
No expectations waited outside the door.
No futures negotiated on my behalf.
I turned on my phone just long enough to delete the missed calls—without listening to a single message—then powered it off again.
Whatever chaos I had caused…
It no longer belonged to me.
They had made their choice.
Now, so had I.
And somewhere inside me, a quiet certainty settled:
Let them search.
Let them regret.
Because I was never returning as the girl who left.