chapter 2

chapter 2

My thoughts dissolved into chaos.

Meng Fanyu was not a man who broke his word. He took promises seriously and always followed through. That was why I had been certain our breakup was inevitable.

I had never imagined he would change his mind.

When had it happened? How had I failed to notice?

Panic stirred inside me, because I had never considered continuing a life with Meng Fanyu. To me, parting after graduation was the perfect ending for everyone. His sudden reversal caught me utterly unprepared.

I could only stare at him in disbelief.

My reaction must have been far from what he expected. Rare urgency entered his voice.

“I know what you’re worried about.”

“Chang Jinyue, give me five years.”

“In five years, I promise no one in the Meng family will be able to interfere with my marriage.”

“Then we’ll have another wedding, with our family and friends there to witness it. We’ll have the red marriage certificates stamped by the Civil Affairs Bureau. We will stand before the whole world, rightfully and openly, and declare that we belong only to each other.”

He searched my face. “Chang Jinyue, what do you say?”

Under his eager gaze, I looked away guiltily and forced out a stammering reply. “But wasn’t this what we agreed? We would break up after graduation.”

Meng Fanyu froze. “What?”

At this point, refusing to speak plainly would only cause more misunderstandings.

I drew a deep breath. “I want to break up.”

His gaze snapped to me, so sharp it almost hurt. He rested his arms casually on the table and looked straight into my eyes, but the menace radiating from him was anything but casual.

“Why?”

The question carried a quiet finality. More than an explanation, he seemed to want to hear me pronounce the sentence myself.

I had never felt such pressure from him. Hoping to end things cleanly, I spilled every thought in my heart at once.

“Because we don’t belong in the same world.”

“I have no grand ambitions. I only want enough to eat and a life that feels comfortable.”

“I don’t want people making things difficult for me because our families are unequal.”

“And I don’t want to exhaust myself navigating complicated relationships.”

“If I marry you, all of that will be unavoidable.”

“So the truth is, I never planned to keep walking beside you.”

My voice dwindled toward the end.

Suddenly, I realized how cruel I must have seemed beside him. He had been carefully planning our future, while I had measured every possible gain and loss.

It was as though we stood together on a battlefield. He had resolved to risk his life for me, while I had prepared an escape route long ago.

And I had no intention of turning back.

“I’ve said everything I needed to say.” I rose abruptly, desperate to flee. “I’m leaving. Take care of yourself.”

I turned, but a hand closed around my arm, stubborn and unyielding as an iron vise.

My heart in turmoil, I looked back.

Meng Fanyu remained seated, his face tilted up toward mine. A man so proud looked as though he had been left standing in the rain, cold seeping from every inch of him.

“If you never saw a future with me,” he asked, “why did you give yourself to me?”

My breath caught. I shook off his hand and forced a careless laugh. “I never knew you cared about that. I certainly don’t.”

He flinched as if stung, something shattering in his eyes.

Then his lips twisted into a bitter smile. He released me and rose. His tall figure swallowed me in shadow.

He held himself ramrod straight, unwilling to bend, so he merely lowered his eyes to look down at me.

“Chang Jinyue, you’d better pray we never meet again. Otherwise, I don’t know what I might do.”

I kept my face composed, though my palms were slick with sweat.

For the first time, I regretted ever provoking him.

That day, I fled the restaurant in disarray and escaped back to City C without looking behind me.

From then on, even when I traveled, I deliberately avoided City A. I thought I would never see Meng Fanyu again in this lifetime.

But human plans can never outwit fate.