Chapter 84: Past Events 5

“I won’t agree to the divorce. You’ll never escape me in this lifetime!”

During the negotiations, the moment Bai You raised her demands with Zhou Zhifan, he pinned her against the wall in the next instant, his hand clamping around her throat.

Bai You gripped his wrists with both hands, trying to make him let go, but his strength was overwhelming. She struggled in vain.

Fortunately, his thunderous roar alerted the people outside. They rushed in and restrained Zhou Zhifan, finally breaking things up.

Even after they pinned him to the floor, though, he showed no sign of calming down. His eyes bulged as if they might pop right out of his skull.

“Don’t you get any wishful ideas, Bai You. You can forget it!”

Harsh words poured from his mouth one after another. Bai You braced one hand on the table and touched her injured neck with the other, steadying her breathing. Her eyes burned with unyielding determination as she let out a soft scoff. “Forget it, you say?”

“We’ll see about that.”

…

In those days, all of Huanzhou seemed on the verge of splitting apart at the seams. Everyone knew the upper echelons were locked in a bitter fight over the division of assets.

Bai You threw herself into every possible tactic against Zhou Zhifan, fighting to go through legal channels. But just two days after that explosive confrontation, he was kneeling at her doorstep once more.

He knelt before her, apologizing profusely and clutching at her clothes.

“I’m sorry, Youyou. I shouldn’t have lost my temper like that. I shouldn’t have laid a hand on you.”

“I’m begging you—don’t leave me. Please, just don’t leave me. I swear I’ll never wrong you again. I swear it, okay?”

It was the same old apology ploy as always.

Even the words sounded eerily familiar.

“Have you ever thought about how every time we fight, every time you hurt me or screw up, you come crawling back promising it’ll never happen again? But then you always do it anyway.”

“If words mean nothing, then what’s the point?”

Zhou Zhifan shouted, “This time it’s real! I’ve really changed!”

Bai You remembered what Bai Jin had told her. So this time, she refused to forgive him. “I don’t want to forgive you anymore.”

“Maybe you think I’m too soft, that no matter what you do, I’ll always let it slide. Maybe that’s why you keep indulging yourself, lashing out and then begging for forgiveness afterward. We got to this point partly because of me.”

“But from now on, I won’t care if you touch those things or not. You don’t deserve to be Jinjin’s father anymore.”

“It’s all over.” Bai You’s voice was calm and even. “Zhou Zhifan, let’s get divorced.”

“Why are you doing this to me?”

Zhou Zhifan stared at her in disbelief, his eyes widening.

“Why are you doing this to me!”

He surged to his feet in a sudden fury, grabbing her wrist and dragging her into the room. He confiscated every device she had that could connect her to the outside world and locked the door behind her from the outside.

Bai You’s face paled in panic. “Zhou Zhifan, what are you doing?!”

“You’ll never divorce me in this lifetime…” His hands shook as he fastened the lock. “Never.”

“Have you lost your mind? Let me out!”

“I’ll let you out when you stop talking about divorce. Until then, you’re not leaving my side.”

No matter how hard Bai You pounded on the door, Zhou Zhifan made no further sound.

His obsession was terrifying.

Only now did Bai You truly see him for what he was.

—

When Bai You went completely incommunicado for an entire day, Qin Dian knew something was wrong. She rushed to Sumen to confront Zhou Zhifan, but he played dumb and claimed he had no idea where she was.

Qin Dian had run out of patience. She seized him by the collar and threatened him word by word. “Zhou Zhifan.”

Seeing that she’d already guessed the truth, Zhou Zhifan flashed a smile. “Bai You can only be mine.”

Qin Dian’s voice was low and trembling. “She’s not an object. She doesn’t belong to anyone.”

“Then she won’t belong to you either.” Zhou Zhifan’s face twisted with sudden hatred.

“A married woman pining after someone else’s wife—what a disgrace! It makes me sick just thinking about it!”

The office windows were tightly shut, and his words seemed to echo through the empty room several times over. They pierced her heart like needles, the sharp pain forcing her to grit her teeth.

Qin Dian clenched her fists, forcing herself to stay calm.

“Let her go. Whatever you want, I’ll give it to you.”

“Heh.” Zhou Zhifan sneered. “I only want her.”

Their eyes locked, sparks of hostility flying between them.

The standoff dragged on until finally, Qin Dian’s eyes reddened with rage. She shoved him away and stormed out.

—

Right on the heels of that, Huanzhou came under a barrage of attacks.

Reporting to the police got her nowhere, so Qin Dian fought fire with fire, dipping into shady forces she’d always avoided.

Thugs stormed Huanzhou’s offices, causing chaos. Qining unilaterally terminated partnerships and applied crushing pressure.

Qin Dian used every tool from both sides of the law to force Zhou Zhifan to surrender.

The large-scale retaliation inevitably harmed innocents. Several small companies went under in the turmoil.

In just those few days, Jinning and Sumen were swept up in a storm of violence.

Her ruthless methods sparked rumors about Qin Dian, but she didn’t care. All she wanted was to make Zhou Zhifan release Bai You.

What Qin Dian hadn’t anticipated was that her pressure would drive him over the edge.

By the time she finally tracked down Bai You’s location that night, Zhou Zhifan had already whisked her away into the darkness.

Police cars pursued them, sirens wailing through the night. Zhou Zhifan floored the accelerator. Bai You sat in the passenger seat, her hands bound behind her back, her face ghostly pale from days without food.

In the end, she managed to wriggle free of her restraints and tried to stop him. But he fought back fiercely, and the car slammed into a tree by the roadside. Tragedy struck.

After a wave of numbing pain that left her senseless, Zhou Zhifan opened his eyes to find Bai You lying in a pool of blood, barely clinging to life.

“Don’t die on me. I promise I’ll give all the assets to our daughter. I promise I’ll divorce you. You can’t die…”

“Promise me.” Bai You’s bloodied lips parted slightly.

Zhou Zhifan leaned in close to hear her. Whatever her final request was, he hurriedly agreed. “Okay, okay. I promise. I promise.”

Bai You stared at him vacantly. “You’d better keep your word.”

“Or I’ll haunt you as a ghost.”

…

Bai You was rushed to the hospital, but her body was beyond saving.

In the ICU, as the countdown to her life ticked away, she clung to her last breath and asked to see Qin Dian.

Qin Dian arrived at her bedside, her face streaked with tears. Time itself seemed to freeze. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears.

“You have to get better. You have to watch your child grow up, see what she becomes…” By the end, Qin Dian’s voice was trembling too hard to make out.

Bai You knew her fate by now. She spoke softly. “Xiao Dian, I have one last thing to ask of you.”

“Anything.” Qin Dian’s hands shook as she leaned in close to listen.

“Please find a way to take care of Jinjin from now on. Don’t let her stay with Zhou Zhifan. That’s my one and only request.”

“I promise.”

“Jinjin’s a lonely child. I hope everything goes the way she wants from here on out.”

“It’s all my fault…” A tear slid from the corner of Bai You’s eye. “I brought her into this world, but I never gave her any warmth.”

“If she wants to do something, just let her.”

“And after this… don’t let yourself stay trapped in the past anymore. Let it all go. I don’t want you suffering alone.”

“Okay… okay…” Qin Dian was sobbing uncontrollably.

“Xiao Dian, one more thing—” Bai You tried to lift her hand to touch Qin Dian.

Her pale lips moved. Through tear-filled eyes, with a smile, she uttered those words again after nine long years:

“I love you.”

The last time she’d said it, they had both been young and full of fire.

Nine years later, everything had changed.

With those three words, before her hand could reach Qin Dian’s face, it fell limply. Life had ended.

She closed her eyes forever—those eyes that had always shone with gentle light, no matter what.

That night, Bai You took her final breath.

That same night, Qin Dian lost her love forever.

Afterward, Qin Dian had the badly injured Zhou Zhifan taken away.

In the pouring rain, everything blurred together.

Deep in a secluded forest with no cameras or witnesses, the scent of damp earth mingled with the metallic tang of rain.

A group of black-clad bodyguards stood behind Qin Dian, holding umbrellas to shield her from the downpour. Their faces were impassive as they watched the thugs beat the man on the ground.

After several rounds of punches and kicks, Zhou Zhifan lay sprawled in the mud and blood, twitching like a corpse, his chest heaving.

At that moment, Qin Dian stepped forward and planted her foot on his throat.

Her hands in her pockets, she looked down at him like a wolf thirsting for blood in the night.

“I’m sending you to the underworld to atone to her.”

“Heh, fine. I don’t want to live anyway.” Zhou Zhifan bared his bloodstained teeth in a grin. “But Qin Dian—you’re the real one who killed Bai You!”

Qin Dian’s pupils contracted sharply.

Rain mingled with the blood on his face, making him look hideous and wretched. “This is all because of you. You caused everything.”

“Do you know why I turned out like this? It’s all your fault! You meddled in my marriage. I was her husband, but you always had to one-up me. Bai You always took your side. Why?”

“What right do you have to buy her those things? What right do you have to make decisions for her and step all over me? Have you ever thought about what that makes you?”

“You know it too, don’t you? Back in college, Bai You rushed into a relationship with me because of you. If not for you, she never would’ve been with me, never would’ve gone through all this!”

“If not for you, Bai You would never have died!”

“You’re the real culprit!”

“You must be heartbroken, huh? You loved her so damn much, didn’t you? Too bad—this lifetime, she was my woman! In life, my legal wife. In death, my widow!”

“And you? You meant nothing to her!”

“You’re the one who got her killed… hahaha! Can’t stand hearing the truth, can you? But that’s reality!”

“……You.” Qin Dian crouched down, her hand viciously clamping around his neck. With just a little more force, she could strangle him to death right then and there.

Zhou Zhifan only seemed to grow more excited. “Come on, then—kill me! It’d be for the best if you did. That way, I won’t have to fulfill my promise to Bai You!”

At the mere thought of Bai You, Qin Dian found she could no longer act so recklessly.

Thunder boomed right beside their ears, a flash of lightning streaking across the entire sky.

Qin Dian’s eyes burned bloodshot as she pulled her hand away.

Not long afterward, Zhou Zhifan was killed in a car crash on the spot.

What appeared to be a mere accident was something anyone in their circle could easily guess the culprit behind.

Only Qin Dian hated that person with a bone-deep loathing.

In the aftermath of the storm, both the scene and the people were left in utter disarray—pitiful and wretched.

Once Zhou Zhifan’s identity had vanished completely, Qin Dian arranged for Lu Ming’s sister, Lu Lin, to adopt Bai Jin. Then she brought Bai Jin home to live with her.

“Your mommy has gone to a very faraway place.”

Outside the hotel, as Qin Dian prepared to help Bai Jin into the car, she crouched down and said those words to her.

“Aunt Qin, you don’t need to lie to me. I already know,” Bai Jin replied. “Mom has passed away. She’s gone.”

“I’ll never get to see her again.”

Hearing those words and seeing the look on her face, Qin Dian froze for a moment. This eight-year-old girl before her was far more mature than her appearance suggested.

“But Mom didn’t really leave,” Bai Jin went on. “Mom said she’d always be with me.”

Mom was still alive in her heart, forever.

She didn’t cry. She didn’t make a fuss. She simply accepted the truth.

Qin Dian’s nose stung and tears welled up in her eyes. She pulled the girl into her arms, her voice hoarse as she murmured, “Good girl. From now on, you’ll stay with Aunt Qin. I won’t let you suffer any longer.”

Bai Jin asked, “Am I going to have a new home now?”

“Yes. Jinjin will have a new home—and a big sister, too.”

Is that so?…

Bai Jin lowered her eyes.

The sister who’d been playing with her these past couple of days?

Once she joined that family…

Would that sister still like her?