The flight to Shanghai was a blur of high-altitude silence and the cold efficiency of the first-class cabin.
Tao's mind remained fixed on a single image: Yinlin's apartment door. To him, the distance between Hong Kong and Shanghai wasn't a matter of miles, but of reclaiming a narrative that had been stalled for a decade.
He stood in the dim hallway of her building, the weight of luxury shopping bags in his hand—expensive chocolates for her, an intricate, imported doll for the daughter. He looked the part of the benevolent, if slightly overbearing, benefactor.
In his mind, he was being generous.
He had conveniently tucked away the memory of his last visit—the way he had watched her sleep, the way he had methodically undressed and redressed her while she was dead to the world under the influence of the drug.
He told himself it was an act of intimacy, a way to see the "real" her without the barriers of her current life. He hadn't lowered himself to anything more, so in his warped logic, he was still the saint of this story.
When the door opened, the air changed instantly.
Yinlin stood there, her hair pulled back, her face pale. She didn't look like a woman receiving a guest; she looked like a woman who had been waiting for an intruder. Ever since that night, she'd felt a persistent, sickening itch under her skin—a sense that her privacy had been breached, a phantom violation she couldn't name. Seeing him there, smiling that polished, corporate smile, made her blood boil.
"You," she said, her voice trembling not with fear, but with a visceral, jagged anger. "What do you want this time?"
"I had some leftover time before my meetings," Tao said, his tone smooth and casual. He held out the bags. "I thought your daughter might like the doll. It's a limited edition."
"Get out," she whispered, the words vibrating with rage.
Tao's smile didn't falter, but his eyes sharpened. "Yinlin, I'm just being—"
"Stop it!" she snapped, stepping forward so he couldn't see past her into the apartment. "Stop coming here. Stop the gifts. Stop acting like you're a part of my life. You are my boss—barely that, with how little you actually talk about work. I don't know what you're trying to do, but I feel... I feel sick every time you show up."
Tao felt a flicker of genuine hurt, followed by irritation. After everything he had done to protect her from the harsh reality of her forgotten past, this was her gratitude?
"You're being emotional," he said, his voice dropping to that commanding tone. "I'm looking after an employee who clearly needs the support."
"I don't need your support!" she snapped, her voice rising with a decade's worth of protective instinct. "I don't know who you think you are, but you are a stranger to me. I feel sick every time you're near me. Also, that night... you lied that nothing happened, right?"
The accusation was too close to the truth, but Tao didn't flinch. Instead, he felt a flicker of genuine offense. He had spent a fortune and a week of his life on her, and this was his return on investment?
"You're overthinking things. I'm trying to bring some grace into your life," he said, his voice dropping to a low, commanding vibration. "You're struggling. You're a widow raising a child alone. I have the means to make everything easier for you."
"I'm a widow who loved her husband," she hissed, stepping closer, her face inches from his. "He was a good man. A kind man. He was the only man who had ever had a right to be in my life, and even though he's gone, he's a thousand times the man you are. I don't need your money, your grace. I want you to stay away from my family."
The mention of the husband hit Tao like a physical blow to the chest.
Jealousy, hot and toxic, surged through him.
He hadn't thought about the dead man—the shadow who had occupied his seat, who had touched her, who had fathered her child while Tao was rotting in the memory of her disappearance. To hear her defend a ghost, to realize that this nobody held more space in her mind than he did, was an insult he couldn't forgive.
His face didn't redden; it went pale. The "kind" benefactor vanished, replaced by a man who looked at a problem and how to solve it.
"You still love him?" Tao asked, his voice deathly quiet, devoid of all warmth.
"With everything I have," she said defiantly.
Tao looked at her for a long beat, his gaze moving from her eyes to the closed door behind her. The jealousy didn't go away—it sharpened. If she wanted to cling to a dead man's memory, he would make sure that memory was all she had left. He would strip away the comfort, the job, and the peace she used to fuel that devotion.
"I see," Tao said, half mocking. He didn't drop the bag; he simply set it on the floor with a deliberate, insulting finality. "I'll leave you to your memories, then. I hope they provide you with everything you need in the coming months."
He turned and walked toward the elevator without looking back. His heart was racing, fueled by an obsessive, possessive rage.
To know that your competition would be a dead man was a different kind of insult. So the memory with a dead man worth more to her than him?
He didn't just want her to remember him anymore. He wanted her to regret ever forgetting.
By the time the elevator doors opened, his mind was already drafting his next steps to put her back in her place.