Chapter 3

Chapter 3

As we spoke, the first snow began to fall.

Before long, the world outside was blanketed in white.

“It’s snowing.”

I stood and walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window. Suddenly, I said softly, “I remember the last time it snowed. You and I were curled up on the sofa under the same blanket, watching The Story of Minglan.”

I had watched Minglan marry Gu Tingye.

A phoenix coronet and wedding robes-not red, but green.

It was a true marriage upward.

Smiling, I had asked Shen Wudu whether marrying him would count as marrying up too.

“Back then, you only smiled. Thinking about it now, were you laughing at me in your heart? Laughing at how delusional I was to think I could marry you? What was I, anyway? Just some minor actress. What right did I have to marry you, the Young Master of the Shen Family?”

As I spoke, tears fell.

I raised a hand to wipe them away, trying to hide every trace of hurt.

It was too pathetic.

I hated seeing myself this pathetic.

But the more I wiped, the more the tears came.

A dense, needling pain spread through my chest.

Shen Wudu spoke, his voice rough and obscure. “I never thought that.”

Maybe.

My lips moved, and I gave a faint, self-mocking smile. “But did you ever think about marrying me?”

Shen Wudu froze.

He opened his mouth, but said nothing.

In that moment, I had my answer.

He hadn’t.

He had never thought of marrying me.

I had prepared myself for it, but when I truly learned the answer, it still hurt.

I blinked and looked at him. When I spoke, my voice was full of bitterness.

“So many people said I argued with you, made a scene with you. They didn’t know why, but you and I both did.

“It was because I wanted to get married, and you didn’t.

“You said you were busy with your career. You said you had to deal with your family first. I understood you, so I forgave you again and again.

“If you had told me from the start that you would never marry me, why would I have gone out of my way to please your parents? Why would I have wasted so many years with you?

“I was such a fool.”

People always said love could cloud a person’s heart and blind their eyes.

I had never believed it before.

Now, I did.

Otherwise, how could I have been foolish enough to be deceived by an excuse riddled with holes for seven whole years?

Foolish enough to spend every day and night by someone’s side and still fail to see what he truly thought.

Foolish enough to be lied to, yet still ache for him.

“Shen Wudu, let’s break up.”

At last, I said those words. Earnestly. Resolutely.

In that moment, it was as if the burden on my heart and body had been lifted.

I felt impossibly light.

But Shen Wudu only looked at me, all tenderness withdrawn, his gaze deep and cold.

He spoke each word clearly, heavily.

He said,

“He Xiaoyao, you’ll regret this.”

I hadn’t understood what those words meant then.

But after that day, my contracts began to be terminated one after another.

My projects, my endorsements-every partner would rather pay massive breach-of-contract penalties than continue working with me.

Then, all of them signed Ming Yan.

In that moment, I understood.

Shen Wudu was making a show of force.

He was using action to tell me,

“See? If you don’t want to be my mistress, plenty of women do.”