Rain pattered gently against the apartment windows as Wen Yinlin tucked a sleeping Mei into bed. Her daughter's breath was slow and steady, small hands curled near her face. Yinlin brushed Mei's hair from her forehead, lingering a moment longer than usual. That strange man's face—his eyes—still haunted her.
Down the hallway, she poured herself a cup of lukewarm tea and sat in the quiet kitchen. The apartment was small but neat, filled with secondhand furniture and tiny traces of warmth—a drawing Mei had made on the fridge, a tiny potted plant drooping slightly in the corner. It was all Yinlin could afford. And all she had left.
She rubbed her temples. A headache had been growing since her shift ended. Something about that man—Xu Tao—rattled her. He spoke with the familiarity of someone who had once mattered in her life. But no matter how she tried, she couldn't place him.
*************
Elsewhere…
From the tinted windows of a black car parked across the street, Zhengqiang lowered his camera. He had been observing Yinlin's apartment for over an hour now. Through the lens, she looked nothing like the girl from the old yearbooks.
He tapped a note into his phone.
Subject resides in modest housing. Apartment 4B. Single mother. No signs of partner. No suspicious behavior observed.
His investigation had turned up only fragments so far. A college dropout. Medical records that mentioned severe head trauma. A marriage certificate—but no divorce filing. And now, a death record. He hadn't told Tao yet.
A workplace incident. Her husband died on-site during a night shift at a construction job two years ago. Left behind a widow and a one-year-old child.
Zhengqiang sighed and started the engine. He'd give Tao the update in the morning. No need to trigger another one of his moods tonight.
**************
The sun dipped low behind the city skyline, casting a burnt-orange hue through the tall windows of Xu Tao's penthouse. But inside, there was only the sterile cold of control, of a man who had spent a decade burying the wound she left behind.
Xu Tao leaned back in his leather chair, the tablet still glowing on his desk. His fingers tapped slowly on the glass as he reread the report.
Name: Wen Yinlin.Status: Widowed. One daughter, age four. Husband deceased due to a workplace accident two years prior.
His lips twitched into something between a smirk and a sneer. So fate hadn't been kind to her either.
"She disappeared," he muttered, more to himself than to his assistant Zhengqiang on the line. "Vanished on me without a word. And now this. A waitress. A widow." He let out a soft, humorless chuckle. "Almost poetic."
On the other end, Zhengqiang stayed silent, sensing the volatile blend of satisfaction and suppressed bitterness in his employer's voice.
Tao swiveled in his chair, staring out at the glittering skyline. "All these years, I thought she left me because I wasn't enough. That maybe she outgrew me. Married someone richer, better. But no—she just… lived small. Lived poor. She traded me for that?"
He rose to his feet, his jaw tightening as a memory surged forward—Yinlin smiling at the airport, promising to wait for him while he went abroad. Then: silence.
Nothing. No calls. No letters. No goodbye.
"I suffered," Tao whispered, voice ragged. "I waited like a fool."
His fists clenched at his sides. And yet… part of him felt strangely vindicated. As if her life unraveling was proof he hadn't been the only one punished.
"Zhengqiang," he said suddenly, voice clear again. "Keep following her. Discreetly. I want to know where she lives, who she meets, what time she picks her daughter up. I want full surveillance by the end of the week."
"Understood, sir."
"Oh, and one more thing—" Tao paused, his voice dropping to a whisper, more intimate and venomous than before, "—if you find anything about the dead husband, send it to me. I want to know exactly how he died."
As he hung up, Tao exhaled deeply, as though releasing a decade of rot from his lungs. He wasn't just going to reclaim Yinlin—he was going to make her remember who she abandoned. And this time, she wouldn't walk away without consequences.