"Sorry, I don't know you." She yanked back her arm and disappeared into the restaurant's blur of white shirts and candlelight, moving with practiced grace—as if nothing had happened.
But Xu Tao remained still.
His fingers drummed once against the table, then stopped. His mouth was drawn tight, eyes locked on the kitchen doors.
She remembered.
She had to.
How could she forget the rooftop lunches? The late-night phone calls whispered under blankets? The time he faked a fever just to walk her home in the rain?
The stolen notebook—dog-eared and worn—still sat in his drawer like some sacred relic.
And now she looked at him like he was nobody.
Unless...
His jaw tensed.
Unless she wanted to forget.
That thought stung worse than he'd expected.
For years, she'd lived in his memory like a myth—untouched, untarnished. The girl who once kissed his scars and told him he could outrun fate. His compass, his hope. The only one who ever saw him before the money, before the mask.
And now?
She didn't ignore him.
She erased him.
But he could still read her.
There was something in her posture. The way her shoulders curled slightly inward. The too-careful smiles. The silence in her eyes.
That wasn't the Yinlin he knew.
Something happened to her.
Maybe she wasn't pretending.
Maybe she truly didn't remember.
Or maybe—someone made her forget.
His eyes darkened.
Either way, he would find out. He hadn't clawed his way back to her—through boardrooms, betrayals, and bloodline politics—just to be a stranger in her eyes.
Not her.
────୨ৎ────
Yinlin's heart thundered as she slipped into the kitchen, the sound of clattering pans and rushed orders swallowing her whole.
But she still heard him.
Wen Yinlin.
We have history.
His voice clung to her like smoke. His certainty had unsettled her more than the words themselves.
But she didn't remember him. Not the name. Not the face. Not even the feeling.
"Yinlin? You okay?"
Jenny Lu's hand touched her shoulder gently. Warm, grounding.
Yinlin blinked. "What?"
Jenny's brows furrowed. "That guy from earlier. Did he try anything?"
"No." Yinlin forced a smile. "Just... tired. Long shift."
"You want me to report him?"
"No." She said it too quickly. "It's nothing."
But it wasn't nothing.
As she wiped down counters and refilled pitchers, her hands moved by habit. Her mind didn't. It was trapped—looping, searching.
Who was he?
She dug for a thread of memory. A classmate. A neighbor. A boy she once passed in a hallway. But her mind gave her nothing. Just fog.
And that scared her more than his eyes did.
Because if he wasn't lying... what else had she forgotten?
She opened her locker quietly. Inside was a photo taped crookedly to the metal. A little girl with uneven braids and a toothy grin.
Mei.
Yinlin exhaled. Steadied herself.
The past was gone. Whatever pieces were missing, whatever shadows he claimed to come from—none of it mattered.
Not when her daughter was the only thing she had left.
────୨ৎ────
Outside, Tao's shoes echoed on wet pavement as he stepped into the night. He didn't speak until the car door shut behind him.
Then:
"Zhengqiang."
The line connected immediately.
"Find everything you can on a woman named Wen Yinlin. We went to school together."
A pause. "Any specific type of info?"
"Her life after high school. Career, relationships. Medical records if you can get them. Everything."
"...Got it."
He ended the call. Stared out the tinted window.
The way she'd looked at him—polite, empty, curious. Like he was a stranger trying to make a scene.
She wasn't lying. He could tell.
Which terrified him more than if she'd slapped him.
The girl who once told him he was her entire future now blinked at him like he was a footnote.
────୨ৎ────
Hours Later
Laughter floated through his penthouse like perfume—sweet, fake, suffocating.
Two women giggled on his bed, tangled in silk sheets and champagne. Tao barely glanced at them. He sat on the edge, towel low on his hips, eyes glued to the tablet in his hands.
The screen blinked with new messages. Then his phone buzzed.
Zhengqiang.
"Talk."
"Boss... you're gonna want to sit for this."
"I'm listening."
"There was a car accident. A few years after college. Head trauma. Retrograde amnesia. Doctors say it's likely permanent."
Tao froze.
"And... she was married. Briefly. She has a daughter. Four years old."
Silence.
Then, in a voice that barely moved air:
"...A daughter?"
"Yes, sir."
Something in Tao snapped.
He grabbed the bottle beside him and hurled it at the wall. Glass exploded. The two women on the bed shrieked and scrambled, gathering clothes without a word.
"Out," he growled.
The suite emptied in seconds.
He stood alone.
Still wet from the shower. Still shaking.
He looked down at the tablet again. Scrolls of information lit up—hospital admissions, blurry ID photos, a scanned marriage certificate.
So it was true. She really didn't remember him.
And yet... she had moved on. Married. Had a child. Built a life.
While he spent years perfecting the empire she once told him to dream for, she had deleted him.
He let the tablet fall onto the bed. Quiet. Deliberate.
Then picked up his phone.
"Zhengqiang."
"Yes, sir?"
"I want to know who the father is. What kind of man he was. What happened to him. Everything."
"Understood."
"And start surveillance. Discreet. I want her schedule. Her contacts. What time she puts her daughter to bed."
A pause. Then Tao's voice dropped to a near-whisper.
"She may have forgotten me... but I haven't forgotten her. Not even close."
He walked to the window, bare-chested, towel still clinging to his hips. The city lights blinked like a thousand witnesses below.
If he had to tear apart the past to make her remember him...
He would.