"Julian Vance, you're dreaming—!!"

Melody screamed and lunged at him, gripping his collar tightly, her eyes swirling with madness:

"Don't forget how many interests are tied between us! The joint projects of our families, the cross-shareholding, those shady deals that can't see the light of day..."

"I know every dirty thing you've ever done! You'll never get rid of me in this lifetime!"

A twisted smile rose in her bloodshot eyes, feeling like a bucket of ice water poured over his head.

Julian froze in place, a bone-chilling cold creeping up from the soles of his feet.

Over the years, it wasn't that he hadn't thought about divorce, but this marriage was no longer under his control.

Interests, leverage, wounds that they tore into each other—these things had long ago turned them into two dead insects on a spiderweb. Neither could hope to survive alone.

"Julian..." Melody’s voice suddenly softened, her cold hand stroking his cheek. "Clara is a cripple now. What is left of her for you to miss?"

"You said... the person you love most is me."

Her fingertips were like a viper’s tongue—slimy and cold.

Julian suddenly snapped awake, shoved her away, and stumbled out of the room!

It wasn't until the night wind rushed into his lungs that the suffocating feeling of nausea slightly receded.

He leaned against a stone pillar on the porch, gasping for air like a drowning man who had just reached the shore.

"Sir, are you alright?" The butler chased after him, looking worried.

With a pale face, Julian waved him off. "...Leave me in peace."

After the butler retreated, Julian looked back at this brightly lit villa.

The media once hailed it as a "love nest," but now it was a magnificent cage. Every second spent inside felt like suffocation.

On countless late nights, he would always think of Clara—thinking of the man she had loved so deeply, the man who had personally crushed her.

If he had resisted temptation back then, if he hadn't been blinded by the illusion of a "soulmate," if he had chosen her over fame and fortune...

His eyes suddenly burned.

In this moment, he felt a frantic urge to hear her voice. Trembling, he pulled out a spare phone, found the number he had just saved, and dialed.

The first call went unanswered.

The second call was hung up.

The third call gave a "line busy" signal.

The fourth call... "The number you dialed is temporarily unavailable."

Julian stared at the screen for a long time before he suddenly understood.

With trembling fingers, he pressed the call button again. This time, a cold, mechanical female voice answered:

"The number you have dialed is powered off."

She had blocked him.

With bloodshot eyes, Julian’s lips quirked into a bitter smile.

So, this is how it feels to be rejected, ignored, and abandoned.

He had finally tasted it.

Chapter 11

On the other side, after Clara Wynter dragged Julian’s number into her blacklist, she put the morning's events out of her mind.

By the time she returned home, Seraphina was already asleep.

The warm yellow glow of the bedside lamp touched the child’s soft cheeks, looking like a small cluster of moonlight.

She leaned down and gently kissed her daughter’s forehead.

She woke up early the next morning.

The kitchen was laid out with pre-prepared ingredients: glutinous rice flour, rice flour, fine sugar, osmanthus honey, and a small bag of fresh osmanthus flowers she had specifically picked out at the market yesterday.

The old injury in her wrist made her movements somewhat slow, but she worked with great care.

An hour later, a sweet fragrance wafted from the steamer.

The osmanthus cakes were finished—crystal clear and as smooth as jade.

"Mom, you're amazing!"

Seraphina had woken up at some point and was peeking around the kitchen door, her eyes bright.

Clara smiled and rubbed the top of her head. "Go get dressed. We're going to see Daddy today."

Seraphina nodded vigorously and ran back to her room, her steps as light as a bird’s.

At ten in the morning, the mother and daughter arrived at the cemetery in the suburbs.

It was a weekday and there were few people around. It was quiet, save for the rustling of wind through the pines and cypresses.

They stopped before a black marble tombstone. It was simple, engraved only with:

Ethan Jiang

1985–2021

A Gentle Soul

The man in the photograph had a gentle smile and clear eyes, as if he had never been touched by the passing years.

Clara reached out, her fingertips gently stroking the cold surface of the stone.

"Ethan, Seraphina and I have come to see you. We brought osmanthus cakes—your favorite."

Seraphina carefully took the still-warm pastries out of the thermal bag and arranged them neatly before the grave.

"Daddy, Mommy made these fresh this morning! They smell so good."

Then, she began to chatter about recent little things.

A new friend she made, getting a perfect score in her language test, learning how to fold paper cranes...

Clara listened quietly, her gaze softening as her memory was pulled back to that damp night at sea eight years ago.

Back then, she was certain she would die.

The seawater was cold and salty, cutting into her lungs like a knife.

The wounds on her wrists and ankles were soaked in salt water, the pain piercing her to the core.

The cruel laughter of those men still echoed in her ears: "Throw her further out, don't let the body float back up."

She was hurled into the sea like a bag of trash.

As her consciousness began to fade, she suddenly thought of Julian Vance.

She remembered the first time he taught her to play the violin; she remembered him holding her hand tightly by his hospital bed, saying, "Clara, you gave me my life"; she remembered him at the engagement party, holding Melody Sterling, looking at her with eyes as cold as a stranger's...

It was for the best.

In any case, there was no one in this world who wanted her anymore.

Just as she gave up struggling and allowed her body to sink, something suddenly caught on her clothes.

Then, a pair of strong, warm hands pulled her violently from the water.

She choked out several mouthfuls of seawater and opened her eyes with difficulty.

Under the moonlight, she met a strange face.

The man appeared to be about thirty, with handsome and gentle features. He was looking at her anxiously.

"Are you... still alive?"

Clara’s lips parted, but she couldn't make a sound.

She just looked at him, tears mixing with the seawater as they flowed down.

The man let out a soft sigh and picked her up in his arms. "Don't be afraid. I'm taking you home."

That was the first time Clara Vance met Ethan Jiang.

His name sounded like a long wind across the wilderness, but he was as gentle as a spring flower.

They were clearly strangers, yet he offered her unreserved kindness.

In those early days, Clara was still tightly bound by the shadows of her past.

Nightmares every night.

The blood of her father killing her mother, Julian’s cold eyes, the twisted, laughing faces of her attackers...

She felt like a ragdoll that had been torn apart and discarded—dirty and broken.

Although surviving such a hellish slaughter was a miracle, she didn't want this life at all.

She tried slitting her wrists, swallowing pills, and dragging her immobile legs toward the second-floor window.

Every single time, it was Ethan Jiang who pulled her back.

He never got angry or lectured her. He would only pat her back gently as if coaxing a child, telling her about the beauty that still existed in the world, humming quiet folk songs, and speaking sentences touched with philosophy.

"If you feel the past was too dark, think of yourself as a butterfly."

"Struggle hard to break through that cocoon, and you will see the light."

Back then, Clara thought Ethan Jiang must have been someone favored by fate to be able to nurture such soft light in his heart.

Until one day, she finally asked the question she had been holding back for so long:

"Ethan, why... are you willing to help me so unconditionally?"

They were sitting on the balcony watching the stars that night. Ethan was silent for a long time, then smiled softly:

"Actually, the night I met you, I was originally there to jump into the sea."

Clara froze.

"I half-jokingly said to the ocean: 'If I see a mermaid tonight, I'll live a good life from now on.'"

"In the next second, the waves pushed you ashore."

He spoke lightheartedly, but Clara could hear the weight behind his words.

That night, she truly learned that Ethan Jiang’s past was darker than she had ever imagined.

Chapter 12

He had been an orphan since childhood, raised in an orphanage. Because he was too strikingly handsome as a young boy, he was molested by a depraved director for three years. Later, he was adopted by a couple who couldn't conceive, but life wasn't much better—his adoptive parents frequently beat and scolded him, saying he "looked like a girl and brought bad luck."