Adrian Pei was caught having sex in my car.
This time, he didn’t even bother to hide it.
The window slid down, and Adrian leaned out, reaching back to drape a wool blanket over the girl behind him.
“Weren’t you supposed to be at your MBA class today?” he asked casually. “Why’d you suddenly come home?”
Behind him came the rustling sound of clothes being hurriedly pulled on.
He shifted slightly, shielding the girl more tightly, murmuring over his shoulder, “Don’t be scared.”
Then he looked at me.
There was a faint uneasiness in his eyes—probably remembering the scenes I used to make whenever I caught him cheating.
Smashing things. Screaming. Refusing to let it go.
But he didn’t know.
The blood oath I signed seven years ago—
expired today.
Soon enough, he and I would be strangers.
I pulled open the car door.
The backseat was a complete mess. Torn black stockings. A used condom tossed carelessly aside.
A wave of nausea surged up, and I gagged uncontrollably.
“Why did you bring someone into this car?”
Adrian buttoned his shirt slowly, unhurried.
His eyes swept across the car as if it were nothing.
“It was convenient,” he said lightly. “Didn’t think that much about it.”
He smirked.
“Can’t exactly bring someone home, can I, wife?”
The girl scrambled out of the car in panic. She stumbled when she reached me, looking pitiful.
“Mrs. Pei… I’m sorry. I—I just couldn’t control myself…”
I crossed my arms and didn’t move an inch.
“Get lost.”
I didn’t want to raise my hand for him anymore.
But that didn’t mean I’d give a warm smile to the woman who had just slept with my husband.
Even if he wouldn’t be my husband for much longer.
As she ran off, I glanced at her.
Early twenties. A pure-looking college student.
Exactly his type.
Clean background. Innocent life. Top student.
Everything I wasn’t.
What number was she this year?
I had stopped counting.
I dialed the housekeeper.
“Come to the garage,” I said. “Smash the car.”
Old An did it with restraint.
The hammer head was wrapped in suede. Each strike landed with a dull thud, like bones snapping under flesh.
Only after that came the sharp crash of shattering glass.
Adrian stepped out of the car and pulled me into his arms, gently rubbing my head.
Like soothing an angry cat.
I pushed him away and leaned against the wall, lighting a cigarette without taking a drag.
In the flicker of the burning tip, the obsidian-black Bentley that had been my wedding dowry slowly turned into a heap of ruined metal.
He followed me back inside the house.
His large arm circled my waist.
“Scarlett, don’t be mad anymore. I’ll buy you a new car, alright?”
He pinched my cheek with faint delight.
“My wife doesn’t hit people anymore. That’s progress.”
“As long as you behave and live your life properly, no one can threaten your position.”
“Today’s your birthday. You’ve been with me in Jinghai for seven years.”
Like a magician, he produced a gift box.
Inside was a rare Hermès bag.
I wasn’t surprised.
But lying inside the bag was a Python revolver.
Out of instinct, I checked it.
Remove the magazine. Pull the slide. Inspect the chamber.
Empty.
I paused, lifting the gun to my nose.
There was no smell of gun oil—only the sterile scent of factory metal.
A fake.
I tossed it back into the bag, my gaze turning completely cold.
Adrian leaned back on the sofa, hands folded behind his head.
“Just a toy,” he said lightly.
“A souvenir for your past.”
“From now on, behave. No more playing with knives and guns.”
His tone was casual.
The past that had once brought him glory—
dismissed with a few careless words.
Seven years.
My heart had long since turned to ash.
I pulled out the divorce agreement I had prepared.
“Adrian Pei. Sign it.”
“From now on, your road is yours. Mine is mine.”
A flicker of panic crossed his eyes.
It vanished quickly.
He smiled again, relaxed.
“Scarlett Nan, we can’t separate in this lifetime. Did you forget?”
“I shouldn’t have used your car. Don’t say things out of anger.”
He hugged me from behind, his cheek brushing my forehead.
“I prepared a birthday surprise for you. Come out.”
His hand moved toward my abdomen as if to pinch it playfully.
I stepped aside.
He seemed to have forgotten.
Back then, he was just a gambling junket runner.
He wanted to start a business but refused to use my money—so instead, he stole goods from my brother’s sworn enemy.
Frank Chen—the one they called Mad Dog Chen—sent out a message.
Cut off one of his hands, and the debt would be cleared.
Or—
the Nan family signs a life-and-death contract.
My brother refused.
So I bit my finger, pressed my bloody fingerprint onto that contract.
According to the underworld rules—
Adrian and I would be bound together for life.
The contract tied us together, staking the Nan family’s reputation and pride.
But early this morning—
Frank Chen died suddenly in the bed of his fourth mistress.
While changing clothes, I sent a message.
“Brother. Come pick me up from Macau in two days.”
To avoid stirring up unnecessary trouble, my brother and I agreed that everything should appear normal until the day I left.
In the living room, Adrian Pei slipped off the shirt that still carried the scent of another woman.
Across his pale, lean body, a dark scar marked his right shoulder—an old gunshot wound.
It looked like a burn mark in fresh snow, as if a cigarette had been pressed into it.
The first year we came to Jinghai, enemies from Macau tracked me down for revenge.
He had taken that bullet for me.
The man who once risked his life for me—when did he begin to change?
I couldn’t figure it out.
And I didn’t care to anymore.
Silently, I got into his car.
My thoughts drifted back seven years.
Back to the Chen family’s hall.
Mad Dog Chen had tucked the contract away.
“Got guts,” he said, baring his yellow teeth at my brother. “Let’s consider this matter settled.”
Then he sneered.
“Your sister’s stuck with that thieving punk for life.”
“She’s not allowed back in Macau. Not allowed to touch a single cent from your Nan family.
”
“Let everyone in the underworld watch—your only relative, Nan Victor, shackled to a piece of trash.”
That year, the man I loved down to my bones knelt before me, sobbing.
His entire body trembled, yet he clutched my hand tightly.
He swore that I would never regret that decision.
But now…
“Scarlett, we’re here.”
The car stopped in front of Jinghai Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital.
Outside the ward, he leaned close and whispered, “Be generous later.
”
Instinctively, my hand touched my stomach.
In truth, I had already guessed most of it.
But when I saw the woman holding a tiny pink bundle in her arms, my heartbeat still skipped.
Lily Fang.
His special assistant.
His long-term mistress.
“Scarlett… I never wanted another woman to bear my child,” Adrian said quietly.
“You can’t have children. I don’t blame you. But I still need an heir.”
“The child will call you Mom too.
When you’re old, at least someone will take care of you.”
Lily nodded, her face glowing with maternal pride.
“Sister, Adrian has always wanted a child. You should fulfill his wish.”
At that moment, Lily’s mother walked in to check on the ward.
She was a well-known obstetrician.
Holding a little Hermès-blue horse plush toy, she teased the baby in a sugary voice.
Adrian and Lily leaned close together, heads touching as they laughed around their son.
I let out a laugh.
“So people from poor backgrounds really know how to treasure things. The whole family treats gift-with-purchase items like priceless heirlooms.”
Lily noticed the rare leather bag in my hand. Her expression darkened.
But her mother remained calm.
“Miss Nan,” she said coolly, “I know you were some sort of gangster in Macau. But this is Jinghai. Please show some manners.”
I didn’t bother responding.
She mistook my silence for submission.
“Well,” she continued, “it’s understandable. Your parents died early. No one taught you better.”
Parents died early.
Rain-soaked memories.
Adrian deliberately avoided my gaze, playing with his son’s chubby little hand.
I raised my hand and slapped Lily’s mother across the face.
In the middle of her scream, I lifted my left hand, revealing the massive diamond on my ring finger.
“As long as I’m not divorced,” I said calmly, “your daughter is a mistress.”
“And your grandson will always be an illegitimate child.”
“You, the mother of a mistress, have no right to mention my parents.”
Lily burst into tears, clutching her mother.
Adrian made a token effort to pull me toward the door.
Words from six years ago suddenly echoed in my mind.
“Scarlett Nan, you have no parents. You only have me.
”
One year after our marriage, he began cheating.
I was proud by nature. I couldn’t swallow the humiliation.
I screamed, raged, lost my mind.
But I had nowhere else to go.
With that single sentence, he forced me to face reality.
And now—
those same words came out of his “mother-in-law’s” mouth.
Suddenly, a gust of wind rushed up behind me.
Pain exploded across my scalp.
Lily lunged forward, grabbing my hair and yanking it backward with brutal force.
She dragged me toward the table corner and slammed me against it.
Both my hands instinctively shielded my stomach.
My hip smashed into the edge of the table.
Bang!
My insides twisted violently, like someone wringing them with both hands.
Adrian instinctively leaned forward.
He wanted to help me.
But Lily grabbed his arm, holding him tightly in front of her.
“Don’t go!”
Adrian stopped.
He didn’t come any closer.
Good.
I laughed silently in my heart.
He didn’t know I was pregnant.
Better that way.
I woke up the next day around noon.
Adrian Pei was sitting beside the bed, holding my hand. His eyes were red.
“Scarlett… you were pregnant. Why didn’t you tell me? Our baby almost…”
His voice was hoarse, as if he had been crying.
“Wife, let’s stop fighting. Let’s live properly together.”
I pulled my hand away.
“My child almost died at the hands of your mistress,” I said. “And you’re telling me to live properly with you?”
My voice trembled despite myself.
“I’m sorry,” he said, lowering his head. “But Lily gave birth to my first son. I can’t not protect her.”
First son.
The words stabbed straight into my chest.
“Lily’s mother said the baby is only three months old,” he continued. “The pregnancy isn’t stable. There’s a chance of miscarriage.
”
I pushed myself up in bed, nausea rising.
“My child doesn’t need their curses.”
I turned my face away.
“Just like four years ago,” I said quietly, “this child has nothing to do with you.”
He froze.
“Scarlett, don’t say things like that. How could this time possibly—”
He stopped himself and placed a set of sports car keys on the bedside table.
“This is compensation,” he said. “Focus on resting and taking care of the baby.
I’ll try to make sure you don’t run into Lily.”
I closed my eyes.
…
I fell into a dream of endless falling.
I dreamed of when I was nineteen.
I told him how, at fifteen, I had taken a knife for my brother when our enemies came after us. The blade had stabbed through my back.
I lay in the hospital for half a year. When I finally got out, my studies were already ruined, so I dropped out entirely.
His hands trembled as he kissed the long scar on my body, winding like a serpent.
He saved money from his meals and ran through every bookstore in the city to buy textbooks for me.
In the dim yellow light of our rented apartment, he held me in his arms and patiently taught me, word by word, from books I could barely understand anymore.
He told me I belonged to him.
Inside and out.
For a lifetime.
Then I dreamed of when I was twenty-one.
It was his birthday.
I tried to imitate the soup my grandmother used to make back home—fish maw chicken soup—and cooked it for him myself.
The door to his office wasn’t completely closed.
Inside, I heard breathy moans.
I kicked the door open.
Lily Fang stood there completely naked, her long hair swinging.
Adrian was behind her.
The soup spilled over both of them.
Adrian didn’t even look embarrassed. He calmly wiped her clean.
“Work pressure’s been high lately,” he said. “Try to understand.”
I smashed his office into pieces.
He didn’t even blink.
But when I picked up a shard of glass and walked toward Lily—
he stepped in front of her.
“Take it out on me if you want,” he said. “Lily isn’t like those other women.”
Back then, I was young and furious.
I beat Lily so badly she had to be hospitalized.
Her family wanted to sue me. Adrian used every means he had to suppress the matter.
The price was that he didn’t come home for an entire year.
“Scarlett Nan,” he had said coldly.
“You’ve disappointed me too much.”
The signs of his betrayal had always been there.
He said the women outside understood him better than I did.
He stopped teaching me himself and instead arranged connections to enroll me in an MBA program.
I didn’t understand those codes and algorithms, those capital models.
But I had believed something else with my whole heart.
I believed in the weight of two people depending on each other with nothing but their sincerity.
I believed in how to bet on a man before he made his fortune.
My biological father had died at a gambling table.
It turned out—
I was just another gambler with terrible luck.
…
“Miss.”
Old An’s voice pulled me back to reality.
His face was covered with injuries.
He handed me his phone.
[Zijin Technology to be renamed Yibai Technology tomorrow]
[Adrian Pei transfers 10% of company shares to Lily Fang at board meeting]
Back when I trusted him completely, I had only kept eight percent for myself.
Now he had given Lily ten.
Everywhere, she stood above me.
Old An pulled out a crumpled invitation.
Tonight’s banquet.
The official announcement.
I quickly bandaged his wounds.
Some things had to be settled before I left.
“Uncle An,” I said softly, “there’s a saying in the Nan family.”
Old An smiled faintly.
“If a man chooses to eat salted fish today, he must be ready to endure the thirst tomorrow.
”
“Sooner or later, someone will come to settle the score.”
I drove straight to the banquet hall.
No one dared to stop me.
Adrian Pei looked stunned when he saw me.
“Scarlett? Shouldn’t you be in the hospital resting?”
“Adrian Pei,” I said calmly, “you’ve forgotten where you came from. Forgotten who helped you build everything you have.”
Lily Fang slipped her arm through his, glowing with pride.
“Adrian is thinking about our child. What’s wrong with that?”
Her gaze slid over me, vulgar and mocking.
“My mom said your uterine lining is thin,” she sneered. “How many abortions have you had?”
Adrian frowned.
“That’s enough!”
But Lily had already hit the nerve he hated most. She only grew more excited.
“Scarlett, everyone says you’re the pearl raised by the underworld in Macau.”
“There’s no deal you can’t close, no man you can’t conquer.
”
“So why cling to Adrian like this?”
“Cling to him?” I looked straight at her. “When he relied on me to start his business, what does that make him? And what does that make you—sleeping with him while he had a wife?”
She froze for a moment, then quickly waved to the media nearby.
“Film her! Look how pathetic she looks. Does she deserve to stand beside Adrian?”
One reporter hesitated.
“She’s the only relative of Mr.
Nan from Macau.”
Lily scoffed and waved dismissively.
“The Nan family? Just a bunch of nobodies who got crushed by the Chen family.”
The reporter gave me a slight bow and quietly left.
But the rest of them didn’t dare offend the soon-to-be Mrs. Pei.
Cameras and microphones all turned toward me.
I looked calmly at Adrian.
“I’m selling my eight percent of the shares.”
His expression changed immediately.
“Do you even know how much Yibai Technology is worth now?”
“1.5 billion,” I replied. “Series B funding closed last week.”
They exchanged surprised looks.
Lily raised her hand at once.
“I’ll buy them all,” she said brightly. “Miss Nan will have nothing to rely on in the future. Don’t regret it.”
The nanny brought their baby over.
The little hand waved clumsily at the cameras.
That was when I saw it—
around the baby’s neck hung a string of agarwood beads.
My mother’s keepsake.
The one I lost when I fled Macau at fifteen.
After my brother rose to power, he turned the entire island upside down searching for it.
He never found it.
“I saw it at a private auction last month,” Adrian said casually. “Lily liked it. Let her play with it.”
Play with it.
The only thing my mother left me—
reduced to a toy in their mouths.
“Give it back,” I said slowly, each word forced through my teeth. “You will pay for this.
”
Lily laughed.
She unclasped the beads and dangled them in front of me like teasing a dog.
“Something worn by a prostitute,” she said sweetly. “My child doesn’t deserve to wear it.”
Then she let go.
Clack.
The beads hit the floor and scattered everywhere.
My mind went blank.
Before I even realized it, my hand had reached into my bag.
I pulled out the revolver and pressed it against her forehead.
The cold metal touched her skin.
She froze.
Then her face twisted. Tears and mucus ran down together.
“You’re crazy!” Adrian rushed over. “That gun is fake!”
Fake.
But Lily’s legs were trembling.
A yellowish liquid slowly spread beneath her dress, pooling on the floor.
The sharp smell reached my nose.
I couldn’t help it.
I threw up all over her.
She screamed.
Adrian pressed a remote.
The lights in the entire hall went out.
Sudden darkness swallowed everything.
My body began to shake.
I was afraid of the dark.
He knew that.
When I was little, my mother used to lock me in a wardrobe while she entertained men.
Curled up inside, I could hear the laughter outside.
The moans.
I cried and screamed.
No one came.
On our wedding night, I told him about it.
He held me and said:
“As long as I’m here, you’ll never be alone in the dark again.”
But now—
he was the one who turned off the lights.
Someone grabbed my shoulder.
Slap.
My right cheek burned.
Slap.
Another blow on the left.
Lily Fang.
I couldn’t see her, but I could feel the rush of air from her swinging hand.
I could smell the mix of perfume and urine.
I swallowed the blood in my mouth.
“Get out,” I said.
Lily laughed coldly.
“Weren’t you acting tough just now?”
Adrian wiped the sweat from my forehead.
He leaned close to my ear and whispered softly.
“What happened back then… I used to tell myself you did it for me.”
“But whenever I think about it now, it disgusts me.”
He paused.
“Let’s disgust each other for the rest of our lives.”
My body shook harder and harder.
Not from fear.
From cold.
A cold seeping out from the marrow of my bones.
I wanted to scream.
Wanted to fill the entire hall with my voice.
But no sound came out.
I felt myself falling—
back into that wardrobe.
The laughter.
The moans.
They flooded in from every direction.
I covered my ears, but the sounds still forced their way inside.
The person I thought would save me—
had turned off the lights himself.
The past I trusted him with—
became the knife he stabbed into me.
In the darkness, I knelt down and picked up the scattered beads one by one.
I don’t know how long passed.
Then a beam of light tore through the darkness.
“Scarlett.”
My brother’s voice.
He stood against the light.
Behind him was the warm, damp wind of the sea.
The smell of Macau.
A scent mixed with desire and sin.
All those years I tried to escape it.
But at that moment—
I only wanted to run into that wind.
Victor Nan took off his coat and wrapped it around me.
Then he bent down and lifted me into his arms.
Just like when I was little.
…
Adrian Pei sat up from the sofa.
3:17 a.m.
He couldn’t sleep.
Lily’s voice drifted out from the bedroom.
“She’s the one who wanted to sell the shares. She’s the one who refused to rest during pregnancy.”
“I transferred the money overnight according to the valuation. We’ve done nothing wrong.”
Once, he had been fascinated by her gentleness and intelligence.
Now it only sounded irritating.
Morning arrived.
He needed to see Scarlett Nan.
Because deep down—
he knew he was guilty.
Hadn’t he once loved Scarlett Nan with all his heart?
So when did he begin to feel she wasn’t worthy of him anymore?
The daughter of a nightclub dancer. Didn’t even finish middle school. All she knew was fighting and violence.
Besides—
she couldn’t leave him.
Back then, she was the one who pressed her fingerprint on that contract. Her brother had practically sold her to him.
She had nowhere else to go.
But she left.
He searched every hospital.
He searched their home.
Not even a single strand of her hair remained.
In the entire city of Jinghai, she had vanished without a trace.
Until one day, Lily’s mother came to visit her grandson.
While scrolling through short videos, she suddenly exclaimed,
“Lily! Is this some gangster drama they’re filming?”
Adrian glanced over.
Then froze.
In the video, a black Maybach with license plates from three different regions stopped outside a luxury hotel.
Victor Nan carried a woman in his arms.
Her head hung low. Long black hair spilled down, revealing half of her pale, thin face.
But Adrian recognized her instantly.
Scarlett Nan.
As Victor placed her into the car, her arm dangled weakly, gauze wrapped around the back of her hand.
Then the convoy began moving.
Six cars in total.
All-black vehicles.
Men in black suits guarding them.
The scale looked like they were escorting some incredibly important figure.
Yet when she left him—
she didn’t even take a change of clothes.
Adrian dropped everything and rushed to Macau.
Only after arriving did he realize something.
Victor Nan had long since turned his fortunes around.
He was even more powerful than before.
That contract with the bloody fingerprint—
Scarlett no longer acknowledged it.
And no one dared force her to.
But then why hadn’t she left earlier?
Was it to protect the Nan family’s reputation in the underworld?
Was it about honor?
Or…
had she truly loved him that much?
Macau was small.
But with the Nan family’s current power, if Scarlett didn’t want to see him—
he wouldn’t even be able to touch a single strand of her hair.
So Adrian began investigating the past.
Four years ago, in order to help him secure a critical resource—
Scarlett deliberately approached his business rival, Ethan Zhou.
During that time—
she became pregnant.
Through connections, Adrian eventually located Ethan.
His business had collapsed.
He was hiding in a small Southeast Asian city, living like a ghost.
Adrian flew there to see him.
When Ethan saw him, he smiled lazily.
“Mr. Pei. What wind blew you all the way here?”
Adrian got straight to the point.
“Four years ago. Those three months you spent with my wife.”
“What really happened?”
Ethan raised an eyebrow.
He lit a cigarette and slowly exhaled.
“You want the truth?”
“Say it.”
“She acted with me for three months. Just to make me drop my guard.”
He narrowed his eyes, a strange smile tugging at his lips.
“But I did sleep with her.”
“More than once.”
Adrian’s fists clenched.
“But do you know the funniest part?” Ethan continued.
He flicked ash from his cigarette, his gaze filled with a strange sort of pity.
“When she got pregnant, I thought the baby was mine.”
“I was over the moon.”
He laughed.
The sound echoed around the shabby room.
“I went to find her. I said, ‘Have the baby. I’ll raise it.’”
“Guess what she told me?”
Adrian stared at him with bloodshot eyes.
“She said the child wasn’t mine.
”
“She said it was yours.”
“I came to you because of him,” Ethan quoted. “From beginning to end… there was only Adrian Pei.”
Ethan stood and walked toward the window, his back turned.
“I checked afterward. The day she had the abortion, I sat outside the hospital all afternoon.”
“I couldn’t figure it out.”
“What did you have that I didn’t?”
He turned around again.
The smile on his face looked like a blade.
“So when you came asking me later…”
“I didn’t tell you.”
“I let you guess.”
“Let you torture yourself wondering whose child it was.”
Adrian lunged forward and grabbed Ethan by the collar.
Ethan didn’t struggle.
He only laughed.
“Go ahead. Hit me.”
“Even if you beat me to death…”
“She still won’t come back.”
The day Adrian Pei returned from Southeast Asia, a heavy rain was falling.
He knelt outside Victor Nan’s house for an entire night.
The next morning, when Victor came out, he saw Adrian still kneeling there.
Soaked through from head to toe.
His eyes were so red they looked as if they might bleed.
“Victor…” he spoke, his voice hoarse.
“That child… was mine, wasn’t it?”
Victor looked at him without a trace of sympathy.
Only coldness.
“So now you know?”
Adrian’s lips trembled.
“Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
“Tell you what?”
Victor stepped closer, looking down at him.
“Tell you that she slept with another man for three months because of you?”
“Tell you she got pregnant with your child, and because she didn’t want you to misunderstand, she went and aborted it alone?”
“Or tell you the doctor said she might never be able to have children again?”
Adrian’s lips moved, but no words came out.
“When she pressed her fingerprint onto that contract,” Victor continued quietly, “I told her she would regret it.”
“She said, ‘Brother, I trust him.’”
Victor crouched down so they were face to face.
“You made her regret it for seven years.”
He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and threw it onto the ground in front of Adrian.
It was a hospital record from years ago.
Scarlett Nan’s abortion consent form.
The signature in the patient column—
was her own handwriting.
Pregnancy: six weeks.
Counting back six weeks—
it was exactly the time she had been with him.
Not Ethan Zhou.
Never Ethan Zhou.
He had believed she had been with another man.
So he convinced himself he had every right to be cruel.
He thought she could never leave.
So he did whatever he pleased.
She slept with another man for him.
And then—
for him—
she killed their own child with her own hands.
And he—
thought she was dirty.
He knelt in the rain, remembering the last look she gave him.
There had been no hatred in her eyes.
Just emptiness.
He thought he had controlled her for life.
In the end—
he was the one who pushed her away.
And when she left—
she couldn’t even be bothered to hate him.
…
In the blink of an eye, summer arrived.
Bauhinia flowers burst into bloom across Macau.
Every street, every corner of the city was filled with dense clusters of purple blossoms.
The flower shared my name.
Yet it grew in such a wild, flamboyant way.
Thick petals.
A fragile stem connecting them to the branch, thin enough to snap.
The long stamens stretched outward.
A beauty that looked heavily painted—
yet ready to fall and die at any moment.
I gently touched my stomach.
Seven months now.
Round and firm beneath my palm.
The doctor said my uterine lining was naturally thin.
I should remain in bed and rest.
I refused.
Every day I held my waist and walked one slow circle through the garden.
The ground beneath the bauhinia trees was covered with fallen petals.
Soft beneath my feet.
Adrian Pei and I were finished.
But I still wanted to be a mother.
Four years ago, I had personally chosen to end that child’s life.
When the doctor said I might never conceive again, I simply nodded.
Later, when I found out I was pregnant again—
I sat alone all night staring at the pregnancy test.
I never told him.
This child—
was my last chance.
The day Victor brought me back to Macau, he held me the entire ride without saying a word.
Only after we arrived home did he finally speak.
“Scarlett,” he said quietly.
“From now on, your brother will take care of you.”
He withdrew his investment from Adrian’s company.
Three hundred million vanished overnight.
The investors sensed trouble and scattered.
Yibai Technology’s valuation was cut in half.
Victor sent out a message across the business world.
Anyone who invested in Adrian Pei again—
would become an enemy of the Nan family.
Business was war.
Adrian played with capital.
Victor played with lives.
As for Lily Fang—
Adrian gave her a large sum of money and told her to deal with things herself.
He didn’t acknowledge the child.
She cried, made scenes, came looking for him.
He had her stopped at the door.
He never even met her.
Later I heard—
he had stayed in Macau.
Adrian Pei rented a small apartment.
It was only two streets away from my brother’s house.
Every morning he went to a tea café to drink porridge.
At noon he sat by the harbor.
In the evening he stood outside my brother’s gate for a while.
When night fell, he left.
He didn’t kneel.
He didn’t beg.
He didn’t cause trouble.
My brother’s men kept watch on him. He knew it.
Yet day after day, rain or shine, he came anyway.
In Macau, we have a saying.
When the bauhinia flowers bloom, they will eventually fall.
When people arrive, they will eventually leave.
What is meant to come will come.
What is meant to go will go.
Everything follows its season.
His regret came too late.
My decision to leave had already been made.
The season had passed.
Every evening, Victor Nan came to walk with me.
He walked ahead, kicking the thick fallen petals aside to clear a path.
“Brother,” I said with a laugh, “it’s not like I can’t walk.”
He didn’t turn around.
“Your belly’s huge.
What if you fall?”
I touched my stomach and smiled faintly.
For the first time in years, my heart felt steady.
I saw the news about Victor withdrawing his investment.
Yibai Technology’s stock had fallen sixty percent.
When Adrian Pei appeared in an interview, the dark circles under his eyes were deep, his beard unshaven.
A reporter asked what his next move would be.
He answered simply:
“I’m waiting for someone.
”
I knew who he was waiting for.
But I couldn’t wait for him anymore.
Another rainy day came.
Adrian stood outside the gate, not even carrying an umbrella.
His clothes were soaked through.
In his hand was a folder of documents.
“Scarlett,” he called through the iron gate.
“I want to talk about the company.”
I didn’t go out.
The next day he came again.
This time he carried baby supplies.
Tiny clothes. Tiny shoes. A can of imported milk powder.
“They’re for the baby,” he said.
“I’m the father.”
I still didn’t go out.
On the third day, I stood by the window and saw Victor talking to him at the gate.
Adrian kept his head lowered.
He nodded once, then turned and walked away.
When Victor came back inside, his expression was dark.
“What did he say?” I asked.
“Nothing important.
” He poured me a bowl of soup. “Drink.”
I took a sip, then looked up at him.
“Brother… do you have something you want to say?”
He paused for a moment.
Then he smiled.
“Scarlett,” he said softly, sitting down across from me.
“Since the day our parents died—when you were seven—I’ve spent my whole life thinking about how to protect you.”
He stopped for a moment.
“But I never imagined that one day you would belong to someone else.
”
I froze.
“I know you still have feelings for him.”
“Take your time and think about it.”
He stood up.
“Either way, the child in your belly—I’ll raise them like my own.”
Then he left the room.
I sat alone at the table.
The soup had grown cold, but I didn’t drink it.
That night—
Victor sat beneath the bauhinia tree in the yard, staring at the fallen petals covering the ground.
I wrapped a coat around my shoulders and went outside, sitting beside him.
He stared at the tree for a long time before speaking.
“Do you know why I hate him?”
“Not because of that contract. Not because he made you suffer for seven years.”
He turned his head to look at me.
“It’s because he doesn’t deserve you.”
“And yet you loved him anyway.”
His eyes were red.
“Scarlett… when I was sixteen, my father married your mother.”
He had never spoken about that past before.
I was seven at the time.
My mother brought me with her when she married Victor’s father.
Two broken families tried to build a new one together.
They went to Shanghai.
They said there were better opportunities there.
They promised that once they earned money, they would come back and take us with them.
And they did earn money.
Three months later, they sent two thousand yuan home.
Back then, two thousand yuan could feed a family for an entire year.
Victor and I held that remittance slip all night, too excited to sleep.
He told me,
“Scarlett, Mom and Dad are coming home. We’ll finally have a family.”
But they never came back.
To save money, they didn’t take a plane.
They boarded a night ferry.
That ship met with an accident at sea.
And just like that—
we lost our parents.
Victor used that two thousand yuan to start a stall in an underground market.
He sold clothes one piece at a time.
He raised me.
Fed me.
Clothed me.
Protected me from every hardship.
The night wind blew through the yard.
Bauhinia petals fell softly from the branches, landing on his shoulders, in my lap.
I looked at the man who had protected me for twenty years.
And suddenly—
I didn’t know what to say.
“Scarlett,” Victor said quietly, “from the moment you called me ‘Brother’ for the first time when you were seven… you were all I had.
”
“But in this lifetime, I can only ever be your brother.”
I sat beneath the bauhinia tree for a long time after he left.
The baby inside my belly kicked once.
I lowered my head, looking at the round curve of my stomach, and suddenly thought of my mother.
She too had once carried hope, dreaming of a new beginning.
But her ship sank into the sea.
Would mine ever reach the shore?
Noise suddenly rose from outside the gate.
I looked up.
Someone stood beyond the iron bars.
Lily Fang.
She had grown thinner.
Her eyes shone with a terrifying brightness—the kind only people with nowhere left to go possessed.
A short distance behind her stood Adrian Pei.
Like a nail driven into the ground.
Unmoving.
Uncle An entered the room quietly.
“Miss,” he said in a low voice. “They’re here. Should we let them in?”
I stood up slowly.
“Has the dock been cleared?”
“It has.”
“Good,” I said. “Let’s go.”
Some debts—
had to be settled on Macau’s ground.
The sea wind rushed in, carrying the salty smell of rusted metal.
“Scarlett Nan.” Lily stood three meters away from me. “You were hard to find.”
I leaned against a cargo container, unmoving.
“What do you want from me?”
“What do I want?” she laughed harshly, the sound echoing across the empty dock.
“Adrian won’t go back to Jinghai.
He doesn’t want the child. The money’s all gone.”
“What do you think I’m here for?”
She pulled something out of her bag.
A revolver.
Uncle An stepped forward instinctively.
I raised my hand.
He stopped.
Lily lifted the gun and pressed it against her own temple.
“Scarlett Nan, you win,” she said, her voice shaking.
“His body, his heart, his life—they all belong to you.”
“But I gave him his first child!”
“What do you have that I don’t?”
Adrian stepped forward.
“Lily. Put the gun down.”
She turned to look at him.
Tears covered her face.
“You care about me now?”
“You’ve been kneeling in Macau for half a year. Have you ever looked at me once?”
At that moment, Victor Nan stepped out of the shadows.
He didn’t look at Lily.
He didn’t look at Adrian.
He walked straight to my side.
Adrian’s expression changed.
He understood that stance.
In Macau, when the head of a family stood beside a woman like that—
it meant only one thing.
She was under his protection.
Lily noticed it too.
For a second she froze.
Then she burst out laughing.
“Victor Nan?” she sneered. “What, you like her too?”
She stepped forward, the gun wavering between Adrian and me.
“One of you kneels waiting for her to turn back.”
“The other stands here protecting her.”
“What makes Scarlett Nan so special?”
I looked at her calmly.
“You think risking your life will scare me?”
I reached out and took something from Uncle An.
Cold metal.
Heavy in my hand.
Another revolver.
I raised it and pointed it straight at her.
“Come on,” I said quietly. “Let’s do it together.”
Her pupils shrank instantly.
“You… you’re insane!”
I stepped closer.
“This is Macau,” I said softly. “There are plenty of crazy people here.”
“One more won’t matter.”
She stepped backward.
Her heel caught on the rail track behind her.
Her body tipped back.
Adrian rushed forward and caught her.
He pulled her behind him, shielding her.
“Scarlett,” he said hoarsely. “She’s lost her mind. Don’t lower yourself to her level.”
Before I could speak—
Victor walked forward.
“You’re protecting her?” he asked coldly.
Adrian’s lips moved.
Victor punched him straight in the face.
Adrian fell to the ground, blood spilling from the corner of his mouth.
Lily screamed and threw herself over him.
Victor looked down at them.
“Adrian Pei,” he said calmly.
“Remember this.”
“The child in her belly will take the Nan surname.”
“That child has nothing to do with you.”
Adrian froze.
He looked up at me.
My hand instinctively touched my stomach.
Eight months now.
Shock flashed across his face.
Then confusion.
Then regret.
And finally—
despair.
“Scarlett…”
I turned away.
“Uncle An,” I said calmly.
“Send them off the island.”
Uncle An grabbed Lily effortlessly.
She had gone limp, like a puddle of mud, still mumbling under her breath.
Adrian struggled to his feet, stumbling forward as if to chase me.
Victor stepped in front of him.
“Take one more step,” he said quietly, “and I’ll make sure you never leave Macau alive.”
I walked into the night.
Behind me, the sea wind roared through the cargo containers, making them groan like beasts.
Faintly, I heard Adrian’s voice.
“Let me see her…”
“Just once.”
Then came the dull sound of fists striking flesh.
I didn’t turn back.
The day my daughter was born, the first autumn rain fell over Macau.
The bauhinia flowers were knocked from the trees, scattering across the ground outside the hospital window in soft shades of pink and purple.
Six pounds, eight ounces.
When the nurse placed her in my arms, her eyes were closed, her tiny fists clenched, like a wrinkled little kitten.
I looked at her for a long time.
“Her name is Nora Nan.”
Victor Nan stood beside the bed, startled for a moment.
“Nora,” he repeated softly. “What are you hoping for?”
I looked down at my daughter.
“Hope that I finally let go.”
“Hope that I begin again.”
“Hope that everything from these past years… finally comes to an end.”
Victor didn’t say anything.
He simply took the baby carefully into his arms.
His posture was clumsy, almost awkward.
But there was a light on his face I had never seen before.
Outside the window, the rain stopped.
The day I was discharged from the hospital, Uncle An came to pick me up.
As the car passed the harbor, I saw Adrian Pei.
He stood by the shore.
Thin as a bamboo pole.
Unshaven, his shirt wrinkled and hanging loosely from his frame.
Through the car window, he looked toward us.
He knew I was inside.
But he didn’t dare step forward.
I heard that Lily Fang had lost her mind.
She had been sent back to her hometown.
Every day she hugged a pillow and called it “my son.”
Adrian’s company had long since collapsed.
Investments withdrawn. Supply chains cut. Partners fleeing.
Yibai Technology had become a joke in the business world of Jinghai.
I knew all of it.
But as I watched him standing there, I felt no hatred.
No satisfaction.
Only a faint emptiness.
Nora stirred in my arms, letting out a small whimper.
I withdrew my gaze.
“Let’s go.”
Back home, Victor took the baby from me and clumsily patted her back.
I leaned against the sofa and watched him.
“Brother,” I said with a faint smile, “you might be better at raising a child than I am.”
He didn’t look up.
“You’re better suited to lead this family.”
I froze for a moment.
I thought he was referring to my relationship with Adrian.
Seven years of love.
I had the strength to walk away cleanly.
“That’s not what I meant,” he said.
Then he looked up at me.
“Mad Dog Chen.”
I paused.
“He didn’t die suddenly,” Victor said quietly, placing the baby gently into her cradle.
“He was killed by the son his original wife abandoned.”
“You know that better than I do.”
I met his gaze.
He knew everything.
“The day you discovered Adrian cheating,” he continued, “you started planning, didn’t you?”
“You wanted to leave, but you didn’t want the Nan family to get dragged into it.”
“So you found Mad Dog Chen’s abandoned son. You secretly supported him.”
“And let him take revenge.”
I said nothing.
“The day Chen died in his fourth mistress’s bed… I already knew,” Victor said softly.
He looked out the window.
“You’re more ruthless than I am.”
“And steadier.”
“You deserve to lead this family.”
Outside, bauhinia flowers covered the ground.
I lowered my head and looked at my empty hands.
“Brother… back then I only wanted to leave myself a way out.”
“I know.”
He reached out and gently patted my head.
Just like when we were children.
“Scarlett,” he said quietly.
“You were never alone.”
In the cradle, Nora suddenly began to cry.
I stood up and picked her up.
Her tiny hand wrapped tightly around my finger.
Outside the window, the setting sun painted the bauhinia flowers gold and red.
Victor stood behind me.
Neither of us spoke.
Some things—
didn’t need to be said.
END
