Unrequited Love

I have died seven times.

Every single time, I died on the day my husband asked for a divorce.

He doesn’t love me. Seven years of marriage proved to be fragile and worthless the moment his White Moonlight returned to the country.

The System told me that if I wanted to live, I had to defeat the White Moonlight.

Miscarriages, acting as a body double, framing her… my methods became increasingly ruthless.

However, just as I finally approached the finish line-when my Marriage Reconciliation Success Rate reached 99.99%-

I was the one who handed over the Divorce Agreement.

My five-year unrequited love has come to an end.

It ended because Shen Chen’s “white moonlight,” Su Yue, has returned.

Half a month ago, on the first day of autumn, I made some stewed pear soup to bring to Shen Chen.

Shen Chen smokes constantly and never listens when I tell him to stop, so I’ve made it a habit to prepare stewed pears with fritillary bulbs for him whenever the seasons change.

When I arrived, Shen Chen opened the door shirtless.

As the door swung wide, the air in the room smelled thick and suggestive. The scent of body wash clinging to him was the very one we had bought together.

I looked down and immediately spotted a pair of round-toed, mid-heel shoes. They were cute, yet they felt like an eyesore.

“Who is it?” a sweet, cloying female voice called out from the bedroom.

Shen Chen took the pear soup from my hands. His eyes were filled with guilt, but he prioritized his options in an instant.

“It’s just delivery.”

I accompanied His Highness through three thousand miles of exile, yet after he reclaimed his throne, he found me lowly and loathsome.

Later, when the time came to reward merit in the Golden Luan Hall, I asked only one thing of him.

His Highness assumed I would ask for a title or a place by his side.

Instead, I prostrated myself deeply and spoke softly yet firmly: “I ask that Your Highness grant your subject’s daughter a marriage to General Shen.”

His Highness’s eyes nearly split with rage as he finally understood-

Throughout those three thousand miles of exile, from beginning to end, it was never him that I loved.

After my husband cheated on me, I jumped. I threw myself off the twenty-eighth floor.

The wind howled past my ears as I closed my eyes. I had already done the math. Each floor in our complex was three meters high, making the twenty-eighth floor eighty-one meters up. From the moment I leaped until I hit the ground, I would have roughly four seconds.

Minutes earlier, my final conversation with Bai Yan had ended in disaster. I had screamed and ranted hysterically; I had begged and pleaded like a dog wagging its tail for scraps; I had even cursed him with the most vicious words and venomous language in existence. By the final moment, both of us were utterly drained. I sat on the edge of the balcony with my eyes rimmed red and my legs dangling in the air, asking him weakly, “Are you really set on this divorce?”

He looked at me calmly. The first time I had threatened suicide, he had been frantic with panic, but now his face held nothing but exhaustion. He asked me, “Are you quite finished making a scene?”

I said quietly, “If you leave today, I’m jumping.”

He gave me one long, deep look before turning to walk away. The door slammed shut with a deafening bang, and then I heard the sound of him waiting for the elevator.

On the day I was diagnosed with late-stage lung cancer, I lost the cat that Chi Zhou and his ex-girlfriend had raised together.

He said, “Xia Zhi, if you can’t find the cat, then don’t come back either!”

Later, I died out there and never returned to our home again.

When I first started dating Xie Mingchen, he had absolutely nothing to his name.

My friends all told me not to be a fool. They said that with my looks and background, I could find any wealthy man I wanted; there was no need to suffer alongside him.

Now that he’s become the high-flying President Xie, a darling of the venture capital world, those same people say I only won out because I made my move early.

They claim that with his current status, surrounded by women of every shape and beauty, I wouldn’t even stand a chance otherwise.

Even my mother has switched sides. She keeps telling me to lower my guard and learn how to act vulnerable. She warns me not to spend all these years with him only to end up with nothing.

I couldn’t help but snap back, “If he doesn’t bring up marriage, am I supposed to beg him for it?”

“That stubborn streak of yours is going to be your downfall!” My mother sighed, frustrated by my lack of initiative. “What else are you going to do if you don’t play along? Are you really going to let someone else enjoy the shade of the tree you planted yourself?”

I didn’t want to argue; I just felt wronged.

Why was it that in this long-drawn-out relationship, I was the one who did the hoping and the one who felt the disappointment? And now, I was still the one expected to drop hints and nudge him into finally taking action.

I had been with my boyfriend for three years.

During that time, I discovered that his handle on every social media platform was July.

I assumed he simply had a deep-seated love for the romantic month of July, so I never pried into it.

It wasn’t until our wedding day, when his ex-girlfriend sent a gift, that I saw the name signed on the box-

Qi Yue.

In that moment, I finally understood. It wasn’t the month of July he cherished; it was Qi Yue.

My heart sank into an abyss…

In 2004, he used my body to pay off his gambling debts.

I didn’t blame him.

I only remembered that clean-cut nineteen-year-old boy back in 1997, and the purity in his eyes when he handed me a White Rabbit Milk Candy.

Later, he became successful.

He replaced the faded fake around my neck with a heavy gold chain.

He used a three-carat diamond ring to buy my silence regarding the women he kept on the side.

Later, when a business partner groped my thigh, he simply turned his head away to light a cigarette. “It’s not like you’re losing a limb.”

I dragged my suitcase into the rain and never looked back.

After that, I went on blind dates, got married, and spent my days in a cubicle, studying for certifications and working overtime.

He eventually found me, looking like a gambler who had lost everything, his eyes terrifyingly bloodshot. “Since you’re willing to marry just anyone from a blind date… then, why couldn’t that person be me?”

I smiled.

Elder Brother, I never wanted any of those things.

I only wanted that summer in 1997, before that piece of candy had even melted in my palm.

I have become my own shore; no one can push me into the sea ever again.

On the day I confessed to my crush, I suddenly discovered that I was just cannon fodder in a novel.

A sudden System notification informed me that the man standing before me was the Male Lead.

The plot was about to kick off, and the Female Lead would soon be making her grand entrance.

It was destiny; I was fated to be nothing more than a background character.

Suddenly, my rebellious streak flared up.

Before anyone could react, I leaned in and planted a loud kiss right on the Male Lead’s cheek.

Both the System and the Male Lead were frozen in shock.

I chased after He Chenyi for six years, coming whenever he called, leaving whenever he waved me away.

While he was holding another woman and drinking a wedding toast, I was diagnosed with Leukemia at the hospital, with only three months left to live.

Later, he knelt by my hospital bed, crying and begging me to accept a bone marrow transplant.

How ridiculous. I never even wanted to live.