Not all grief is loud. Yichen’s grief was sharp and lucid, the kind that slices open quietly over years.
At first, after my death, I told myself I’d stay beside him for a while, then let go. I thought if I watched him throw himself into workninto his new company I could leave content, knowing he’d survive.
But every night I drifted above him, I saw the truth. His insomnia. The pills beside his pillow. His chest clenched with pain as if it would tear itself free.
His life didn’t continue. It rotted. He could bury himself in work, in numbers, in walls of spreadsheetsnbut every night, his pillow told the truth.
The night he nearly took his own life, I revealed myself again. Some bold girl had tried to follow him home. He turned her away coldly.
I stepped from the shadows, pulling a face at him like a mischievous child, hoping to frighten him out of despair.
He only blinked, smiled faintly, and said,
"Long time no see."
No startlement. No horror. Only quiet relief.
Later, I understood: he must have rehearsed it a thousand times. Me standing there. Him imagining exactly what he would say. He had prepared for me as a man prepares for death.
And though he smiled, his pillow betrayed him again, wet with tears before dawn.
Zhao Yichen. My brilliant, hopeless, beautiful crybaby.
"Can you walk away from this alive?" I begged him one night.
He didn’t hesitate. "No."
"Then why," I sobbed, "can’t you just let it go?"
His blazing eyes pinned me. "Because I don’t want to."
I fell silent, broken.
"Su Mei," his voice softened, trembling like a reed in storm. "Do you know when I first fell for you?"
I shook my head.
"The second time we met."
I remembered instantly. The first meeting was lust, blunt and fleeting, in a bar nothing like heaven.
The second meeting: I was undercover, tailing a hotel chain that funneled waste cooking oil into kitchens. They caught me. Goons chased me down an alley.
And Yichen appeared back then, a stranger in an expensive suit, stronger than he looked, pulling me out.
"You’re insane," he had said, "but brave."
Later, he asked me why. Why put myself in danger for such work?
Unlike everyone else, he didn’t dismiss me. He didn’t tell me: "You’re a girl; you don’t belong here." He didn’t push me toward entertainment gossip journalism.
He just asked why.
And I had told him, reckless but true: "Because journalism is the eyes, ears, and voice of the people. If someone must take the risk, then why not me?"
He’d looked at me differently then. With wonder. With respect.
"Su Mei," he said now, words shaking, "I respected you then. I loved you then. And all I wanted was for your death not to be meaningless." His face softened with broken affection. "I wanted you to die with purpose. But more than that, I want you to rest."
Now I knew.
For four years, Yichen had been preparing for this.
He turned his investment genius into weaponry funneling capital into new media, cultivating viral accounts with massive followings, building a platform too strong to be silenced.
On the screen before us, he pressed Enter.
The videos I had filmed with trembling hands, the photos my colleagues and I had shed blood to capture they shot into the sky like sparks, detonating across every feed, every trending topic.
The prerecorded video of Yichen’s voice declared:
"I, Zhao Yichen, report under my real name that Zhuxin Corporation’s private Tongyuan Hospital has been trafficking underaged girls, harvesting eggs, coercing prostitution, exploiting human lives for profit."
Faces. Numbers. Locations. Evidence. My drafts, my words, my headlines. Images of half-naked girls locked in cages, awaiting delivery.
Monstrous. Unspeakable.
All of it, suddenly undeniable.
Within thirty minutes, the accounts Yichen had nurtured sent the revelations to every corner of the net. Top trending, millions of shares. This storm was too vast to bury.
Back then, when I had tried, our editor-in-chief shook his head. "Too dangerous." I uploaded it myself. They intercepted it, traced me, beat me until my skull cracked.
But tonight, no walls held. Tonight, the horror could no longer be muted.
And as it spread, I realized the tide could not be turned back.
The weeks that followed blurred into fire and blood.
Journalists clawed deeper into the story, emboldened by the storm. Police were forced into investigation. Zhuxin scrambled like a beast cornered by its own filth.
And then the threats began.
First whispers.
Then a red envelope filled with rotten meat.
Then one night a severed, bloodied human hand stuffed into his mailbox.
Yichen’s fingers trembled as he opened it. His lips pressed thin, his jaw rigid. He breathed through it once, twice, then shoved it aside.
I hovered, frantic. "Yichen their retaliation won’t stop. It’s going too far."
He didn’t look at me. Only stared into the distance, face crumpling with grief. His tears fell, splashing patterns across the tiles.
"Su Mei," he rasped. "This was your life, wasn’t it? The months we weren’t together you lived every day under this?"
Memories pierced me. Fake pornographic images mailed to the orphanage. Windows shattered at night. Men demanding evidence, dragging me into alleys, fists breaking my ribs until I screamed.
And yet I had refused to yield.
My silence was answer enough.
His own tears spilled brighter than anguish. "Foolish girl," he whispered, "my darling, you were too good for this world."
I wanted to cradle him, to hold him. But between us was only air.
And in that emptiness, both of us broke again.
Chapter 04
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