Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Their marriage hadn’t started falling apart with that single sentence, “Let’s get a divorce.”

The crack that truly split them open had appeared three years ago.

That year, she was seven months pregnant. She had even chosen a name for her unborn daughter: Niaoniao.

Yuan Shiyu had said that the name Niaoniao felt light-like the wind, like the clouds, and like the way she looked when she smiled.

But Niaoniao never made it into the world safely.

That night, Song Wantang suddenly began to bleed at home. The pain was so intense she could barely stand. She called Yuan Shiyu twenty-seven times in a row, but no one answered. Finally, the person who picked up was Zhou Lan, Yuan Shiyu’s mother.

On the phone, Zhou Lan said, “Shiyu is performing a key municipal surgery. The patient is someone of high status, and he can’t leave the operating table halfway through. You’re an adult; can’t you just call an ambulance yourself?”

Song Wantang was sent into the delivery room alone, signed the papers alone, and waited alone as the fetal heartbeat slowly vanished from the monitor.

The baby couldn’t be saved.

Yuan Shiyu didn’t arrive at the hospital until the early hours of the next morning. When he rushed into the ward, his eyes were bloodshot, and his white coat was still stained with blood he hadn’t had time to change out of.

He tried to touch her, but she pulled her hand away.

“You went to save someone else,” she said.

Yuan Shiyu’s lips moved as if he wanted to explain something, but in the end, he said nothing.

Since then, many things had changed.

Song Wantang would still leave dinner out for him on time, iron his shirts until they were crisp, and send him a message saying “Stay safe on the way home” when she was busy at the shop until midnight. But she never brought up the child again, never asked if he was tired when he came home late from overtime, and never curled into his arms during sleepless nights like she used to.

They were like two people guarding the same empty house, neither willing to be the first to look down at the pain buried beneath the floorboards.

And Zhou Lan’s attitude toward her had shifted from polite detachment to blatant disdain.

“You couldn’t keep your child, and you can’t keep a man’s heart.”

A month ago, Zhou Lan had tossed a stack of photos in front of her, her tone as casual as if she were discussing the weather.

“Shiyu isn’t that young boy who used to revolve around you anymore. A man in his position needs a woman who can help him, not a wife who does nothing but cry in her bridal shop.”

In the photos, Yuan Shiyu and Gu Yanxi were walking side-by-side out of the Maternal and Child Health Hospital. The child in Gu Yanxi’s arms was asleep, their head resting on Yuan Shiyu’s shoulder.

Song Wantang had stared at those photos, staying awake the entire night.

The very next day, Yuan Shiyu asked for a divorce.

It was as if someone had written the script in advance, pushing her through the scenes one by one.