The first night back in the Lu residence felt unreal.
The lights were on.
The servants were present.
Everything looked the same.
Yet nothing belonged to me anymore.
My room had been cleaned too thoroughly. The flowers by the window replaced. The air smelled unfamiliar—as if my absence had already been accounted for.
I sat on the edge of the bed, spine straight, hands folded neatly in my lap.
I had not slept.
I had not cried.
I had come back for one reason only.
Answers.
Gu Chengyi agreed to meet me the next afternoon.
Not immediately.
Not privately.
He sent his assistant instead.
President Gu has a prior commitment. He can spare fifteen minutes.
Spare.
I nodded and followed the assistant into a reception room I had never been invited into before.
That alone told me everything.
He arrived exactly on time.
Immaculate. Calm. Untouched by consequence.
Gu Chengyi did not ask how I was.
He did not apologize.
He did not pretend nothing had happened.
"You wanted to talk," he said, taking a seat across from me. His voice was even, businesslike. "Make it brief."
I inhaled slowly.
"What happened last night," I said, "was that your decision?"
He looked at me then—not sharply, not unkindly.
Assessing.
"Yes."
My fingers tightened.
"So the rumors," I continued carefully, "they weren't rumors at all."
"No."
Silence stretched between us.
I realized—too late—that I had come here expecting explanation.
He was offering confirmation.
"I heard what you said," I told him.
His expression did not change.
"In the corridor," I clarified. "Before the announcement."
That earned a pause.
A subtle one.
Then he nodded once. "I assumed you might have."
The calmness of his response hollowed my chest.
"So you knew," I said softly. "And you still went onstage."
"Yes."
My voice trembled despite my effort. "Why?"
He leaned back slightly, fingers interlaced.
"Because nothing I said was untrue."
I felt something inside me tilt.
"All these years," I said, "did I misunderstand everything?"
He considered this.
"No," he replied. "You understood exactly what our parents wanted."
"And what did you want?"
Another pause.
Longer this time.
Then—decisive.
"I want a partner who aligns with my future," he said. "Not one chosen by tradition."
"And I don't?"
He did not answer immediately.
The silence was the answer.
The door opened.
Soft footsteps.
"I'm sorry," a gentle voice said. "I didn't realize—"
The woman from the banquet stood hesitantly near the entrance.
She looked uncertain. Real.
Gu Chengyi stood at once.
"No," he said, his tone shifting instantly. "You're not interrupting."
He moved—not toward me.
Toward her.
Standing just ahead of her, subtly blocking the space between us.
Protecting.
"I told her I would explain," he said calmly. "It's done."
Her gaze flickered toward me, uncomfortable. "Should I… go?"
"No," he replied. "Stay."
Something broke.
Not loudly.
Cleanly.
I rose from my seat.
"So this is it," I said. "You're choosing her."
He met my gaze without flinching.
"Yes."
For the second time.
Out loud.
Final.
"And me?" I asked.
His reply was immediate.
"There was never an us," he said. "Only an assumption you were comfortable carrying."
The words stripped me bare.
Not rejected.
Reframed.
My pain reduced to misunderstanding.
Entitlement.
"You should let this go," he added. "Dragging it out helps no one."
I laughed softly before I could stop myself.
It sounded broken.
I left without another word.
No scene.
No collapse.
Just the quiet understanding that confrontation did not restore dignity.
It exposed how little of it you had left.
That evening, the servants avoided my eyes.
My mother did not ask where I had been.
My father said nothing at dinner.
The decision had already traveled faster than I had.
By nightfall, invitations stopped arriving.
By morning, my access card failed at the east wing.
Small things.
Precise things.
The kind that told you exactly where you stood.
Across the city, Gu Chengyi signed documents approving the reassignment of my residence.
He did not read the name carefully.
He did not need to.
I sat alone in my room and understood the truth at last.
The girl they had grown up with—
the girl everyone assumed would stay—
She no longer belonged anywhere.
Not here.
Not to them.
Not to the future they had designed without asking her consent.
And this time, when I stood up,
I did not go looking for answers.
I began preparing to disappear.