Chapter 45: This Woman Won’t Open Her Mouth

From the coffee shop to the hotel was a twenty-minute walk on foot, made even longer by the pouring rain. Hailing a cab was impossible; if they absolutely had to, they’d be standing in the downpour waiting at least an hour first.

Xu Yan walked silently beside Chen Yi.

She was still clutching that mangled bouquet of flowers and carrying the gift bag of perfume, now soaked through and sodden. Heels weren’t made for walking, especially not in the rain.

Chen Yi didn’t want to care, but she couldn’t help it.

“Let’s grab a cab,” she said, holding the umbrella.

“Think we can?” Xu Yan frowned slightly. “Don’t worry about me. I can keep walking.”

In that moment, Chen Yi had a sudden urge to give this woman a good smack on the ass. What was she trying to prove at a time like this, playing tough?

Chen Yi laughed in frustration. “Fine.”

“You go ahead.”

A surge of petty revenge burned in her chest, and she quickened her pace. Xu Yan hurried to keep up beside her, the click of her heels against the pavement losing its usual rhythm, turning hurried and erratic.

Even so, Chen Yi never heard Xu Yan say a single “slow down.”

Chen Yi realized now that this woman simply wouldn’t open her mouth.

When she was flirting hard, coming on strong with those straight shots, no holds barred, she couldn’t be stopped. But now? Not a peep. Those pretty lips were sealed shut like they’d been stitched together.

Chen Yi was pissed at her, annoyed with her, but she didn’t have the resolve to just watch Xu Yan stumble along behind her in the rain.

She stopped, handing over the umbrella. She’d planned to tell Xu Yan to hold it while she carried her on her back.

Xu Yan looked puzzled.

Chen Yi said, “Toss that garbage in your hands.”

Xu Yan: “No.”

Chen Yi reached to snatch it away, but Xu Yan dodged.

“If you give it to me, it’s mine,” Xu Yan said. “I decide what to do with my things.”

“Who gave it to you?” Chen Yi couldn’t hold back a laugh at the sheer absurdity. “I threw it out on the roadside.”

“Besides, was it for you in the first place? Xu Yan?”

Xu Yan fell silent.

She understood what Chen Yi meant.

It had been for Fade, not for Xu Yan.

Xu Yan’s fingertips gripped the flower wrapping tightly.

Chen Yi watched her coldly. Afraid she’d get drenched, she quietly shifted the umbrella toward her. But her words remained cutting: “Or are you still putting on an act?”

“Xu Yan, how much of this has been an act from the very start?”

This was the one question Xu Yan would answer. She lowered her eyes and gave a small nod, like a child who’d done something wrong. “Chen Yi, it’s not what you think.”

“Then what is it?”

Xu Yan pressed her lips together. “I…”

“Wait until I’m ready, and I’ll tell you, okay?”

Chen Yi doubted that day would ever come.

“And how can you be so sure that when you’re ready, I’ll still want to know?” Chen Yi’s voice was light, like a breeze that might scatter at any moment. “Xu Yan, not everything is under your control. I’m a person, not a project.”

Xu Yan could be decisive and commanding at work, with total control over every detail. If she said she’d prepare for something before acting, she’d make it happen. She had absolute confidence in that. It was what Chen Yi had learned working with her these past months.

But Chen Yi was a living person.

She got angry, happy, furious, hopeful, disappointed, hurt.

“Do you think just because I like you, I deserve to be kept in the dark? That no matter if you vanish or come back, one word from you and I’ll come running, wide-eyed and eager?”

Chen Yi was surprised by how calm she sounded saying all this.

“People have mouths for a reason: to speak.”

Xu Yan was quiet for a moment, then repeated herself.

“But I’m not ready yet.”

“If you’re not ready, then why come provoke me in the first place?”

Xu Yan had no answer.

Chen Yi was done talking to her. The woman was stubborn as a mule. She shoved the umbrella into Xu Yan’s palm, pulled up the hood of her jacket, stuffed her hands in her pockets, and walked off into the rain.

Xu Yan stood frozen in place.

The umbrella burned in her hand, a painful weight.

She watched Chen Yi walk away, vanishing at the end of the street. Her legs felt like they were filled with lead; she couldn’t move an inch. She opened her mouth but couldn’t even call out Chen Yi’s name.

In that instant, it felt like scenes from her childhood, repeated over and over.

She had never been a wanted child.

After having her older sister, her parents had waited years for a son, only to have another daughter instead. Xu Yan couldn’t remember much of her childhood, but the few memories that stuck were all about being left behind.

Her sister had been much older by then, away at school, nearly a generation ahead. Her parents went out without her, and even when they took her along for outings, they always managed to forget her in the crowd. At first, Xu Yan didn’t understand. Then she overheard her sister arguing with their parents in the bedroom.

That was when she got it.

Oh.

They’d been trying to ditch her on purpose, but she always found her way home somehow.

“Raising one isn’t enough—you want us to raise her too?” her parents had yelled at her sister. “We never should have had her! Just leave her behind!”

“You dare!” Her sister, not even eighteen yet, had flushed red with anger, yelling back at their own parents. “If you leave her, I’ll go straight to the police!”

After that, whenever it happened again, Xu Yan never chased after them. She never dared say, “I’m scared—don’t leave me behind.” Because she’d learned all the answers from her parents: no one loved her, no one wanted her. If she was left standing there, it was her fault, her fate.

So when her parents abandoned her after she came out to them by accident, she accepted it.

When her first love dumped her for not being from a good enough family, she accepted that too.

Now Chen Yi was leaving her behind—

Xu Yan even managed a bitter smile.

She deserved it.

She had things she should say, but the words just wouldn’t come. She didn’t know why. Maybe shame, maybe fear. Either way, she’d screwed it up again.

It was better this way.

She’d always known she wasn’t cut out to be a good partner. In a moment of impulse, she’d tried to drag Chen Yi into her mess. So pathetic, so wretched. Chen Yi escaping? Xu Yan was genuinely happy for her. Someone like Xu Yan wasn’t worth loving anyway.

Xu Yan’s legs gave out, and she sank into a squat.

Maybe it was the rain intensifying, but the blur in her vision grew thicker. When she snapped back to herself, she realized she was crying.

How long had it been since she’d been this pathetic? Xu Yan couldn’t remember. How long since she’d last cried? Not even when her parents died.

At first, she cried quietly, tears streaming unchecked down her face, hidden by the rain.

But slowly, she couldn’t hold it back anymore.

Ding-a-ling—

The bell of a bicycle rang out.

Xu Yan ignored it at first.

It rang again, right beside her on the road.

Puzzled, Xu Yan looked up. Chen Yi had come back, riding a Dott—the shared bikes common on Paris streets, with their fresh green frames and rear seats like little kid perches with a tiny bench.

Chen Yi gripped the handlebars one-handed, one foot on the ground. She stopped at the curb, rubbing her wet hair helplessly and flicking off the water.

Xu Yan didn’t move, her eyes lost and helpless. Chen Yi’s return was completely unexpected. She’d never imagined she’d come back.

“What are you staring at?” Chen Yi said. “Get on.”

It was just a shared bike, but she said it like it was a Rolls-Royce.

Xu Yan stayed crouched on the ground.

“Didn’t you leave?” Her voice was hoarse, laced with a sob she couldn’t suppress.

“Yeah,” Chen Yi said. “I thought about it—thought I’d just leave you here and not look back.”

“Then I figured, hey, Xu Yan, you’re my boss after all. I still want to keep my job. What kind of employee ditches her leader on the roadside?”

Xu Yan watched Chen Yi’s lips moving.

She knew Chen Yi was lying.

What did Chen Yi have to be afraid of? Xu Yan was the boss, but Chen Yi was the heiress to the corporate empire. One word from her, and Xu Yan could be fired. Given how Chen Nanyun doted on Chen Yi, Xu Yan didn’t doubt it for a second.

Chen Yi was lying.

She’d gone soft.

That realization made Xu Yan’s heart twist painfully.

She wanted so badly to just break down sobbing, but she couldn’t. Biting her lip, she stood. She still clutched the so-called garbage Chen Yi had told her to toss. She side-saddled onto the rear seat, not daring to touch Chen Yi’s waist, gripping the gap under the seat instead. Chen Yi didn’t like it and reached back, grabbing her wrist and pulling her arm around her own waist.

Neither said another word as the bike pedaled forward through the rain.

The umbrella lay abandoned in the corner of the street, waiting for its next lucky owner.

When the bicycle pulled up to the hotel entrance, the staff on duty did a double-take, stunned. Spotting Xu Yan, they panicked—this was a VIP guest! They rushed around, finally helping the two drenched women get somewhat cleaned up.

Xu Yan and Chen Yi, draped in towels, stepped into the elevator.

Xu Yan’s suite was on the 18th floor; Chen Yi and Yu You’an’s double room was on the 15th.

As the elevator neared the 15th floor, someone tugged at the hem of Chen Yi’s clothes.

“Does Chief Editor Xu need something?” she asked, knowing full well.

Xu Yan’s fingertips tightened.

“Sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have kept it from you.”

Only after those words left her mouth did Chen Yi realize that what she truly needed wasn’t an apology. Xu Yan’s simple “sorry” didn’t ease the ache in her heart one bit.

She didn’t turn around. Instead, she stood there with her back to Xu Yan and let out a proud hum.

The response left Xu Yan at a loss for words.

She didn’t know what to say. All she could do was call out her beloved’s name. “Chen Yi…”

“Xu Yan, I lied just now,” Chen Yi said, her head bowed low and her voice barely above a whisper. “I didn’t bike over here just because you’re my boss.”

“It’s because I couldn’t bear the thought of you being there all alone. I was worried about you. I ached for you.”

By the time Chen Yi finished speaking, her voice had grown thick with emotion. She lifted a hand and rubbed at her eyes with the back of it. She could no longer tell if the wetness on her face was rainwater or tears.

“Xu Yan, just call it me being presumptuous if you want. I know you might be scared, but Xu Yan, am I not scared too? I’m standing right here, ready to lay my heart open for you, pull it out and show it to you plain as day. If there’s a misunderstanding, if there’s a problem—we can talk about it.”

If baring her vulnerability and sincerity meant surrender, then Chen Yi was ready to surrender.

“What about you?”

“Ding—”

The elevator doors slid open. Fifteenth floor.

Chen Yi turned her head to gaze at Xu Yan. Encouragement, anticipation, and a raw hunger shone in her eyes.

Xu Yan’s red lips parted, but the words she longed to say caught in her throat, refusing to emerge. The story she had to tell was too long, too tangled, too shameful to voice. She wanted to share it, but what came out instead was, “You just got soaked in the rain. Go take a hot shower first.”

Chen Yi smiled.

“Okay,” she said.

She gently pried Xu Yan’s hand from her clothes and stepped out of the elevator. The doors closed with a soft hiss, leaving Xu Yan standing motionless, still as a corpse. She stared down at the floor, watching raindrops fall onto the elevator mat and spread into a dull gray stain.

She had always yearned for Chen Yi’s love.

Yet when it stood on the brink of arrival, she pulled back.

One half of her soul screamed to seize Chen Yi right then, to cling to this love and claw her way out of the mire—or drag them both under. The other half hammered at her relentlessly: Chen Yi doesn’t know how truly wretched you are—don’t you know it yourself? Xu Yan, are you worthy? Do you dare? Could you bear it?

You hesitate to step into that river alone, yet you’d pull Chen Yi down with you?

“Xu Yan, how dare you blame me? You ruined me. I’ve ended up like this because of you.” The words echoed in her mind like a curse. What if one day Chen Yi hurled them back at her…

But would Chen Yi ever do that?

She was Chen Yi, not just anyone.

Xu Yan’s gaze dropped to the wilted bouquet wrapping paper, where Chen Yi had left her doodles: two adorable chibi characters and, in the corner, a single tiny line of writing.

It was from the lyrics of the song she’d sung to Chen Yi before.

Chen Yi had scribbled:

That song was so good. I’ve listened to it over and over these past few days.

“What I have is all luck—what I lose is all my life.”

But after thinking it over, I don’t believe that at all! Maybe what we lose is the real blessing, and what we have is all fate.

The final line—perhaps out of shyness—Chen Yi had written in French.

—So, my dear, please let me become your fate.