The Erased Arc

Shen Zhi could no longer remember how the banquet ended.

She felt as if she had been pulled out of the water—drenched through, yet her soul still hovering in midair. The driver handled the car swiftly and smoothly. The white building of Yunqi Villa, perched halfway up the mountain, stood like a colossal, icy tomb, silently waiting for her return.

The villa was deathly silent.

Lu Jingnian was back, but he wasn't in the master bedroom. The heavy soundproof door to the study was tightly shut, not a sliver of light escaping through the crack, yet faint sounds intermittently seeped out. He was on the phone—an overseas long-distance call. His voice was lowered, but the urgency and panic in it were tones Shen Zhi had never heard in three years.

She had been married to him for three years. He was always the lofty controller, his emotions as stable as a precision instrument. He could be cold, impatient, disdainful—but never flustered.

Barefoot, Shen Zhi stood on the cold marble floor outside the study door for a long time. She couldn't make out what he was saying, only catching a few vague words. Something about "private flight," "landing," "calm down"... and then, extremely soft and fleeting, like a sigh—"Shishi."

Her heart felt as if it had been squeezed by an icy hand. It didn't hurt. It was just numb.

She didn't return to the master bedroom. Instead, she turned and walked into the small parlor next to the study. This was Lu Jingnian's absolute private domain, but he had a habit—or rather, a blind spot. His most confidential business documents were locked in the safe, but some personal letters he deemed unimportant were always casually placed in the top right drawer of his desk.

Because in his eyes, these things were worthless. Not worth guarding against.

Shen Zhi's fingers touched the cold metal handle. Without a moment's hesitation, she gently pulled it open.

Inside the drawer, there was indeed a stack of letters. On top was an opened airmail envelope with slightly worn kraft paper edges. The sender's signature was bold and flowing—two beautiful characters: Lin Shi.

The postmark date pierced Shen Zhi's eyes like a red-hot needle.

Three months ago.

Slowly, she pulled out the thin sheet of letter paper. The elegant yet slightly proud handwriting was a script she had imitated thousands of times. Every turn of the stroke, every press of the pen tip, was etched into her bones.

"Jingnian, don't push me. And don't push yourself."

"The snow in Vancouver is heavy, but I always feel that the tuberoses in our Nancheng home should be blooming by now. Do you still remember, we said we'd watch them together."

"I can't hold on much longer. The treatment here is a joke—they just want to turn me into a normal, docile puppet who forgets everything."

"I'll be back soon. I'll come back in my own way."

The letter was short. Shen Zhi read it word by word, her gaze as calm as if she were reading an irrelevant weather forecast. Until the last line.

"Wait for me to come back. It's not too late yet."

In the bottom right corner of the letter was the signed date. That date—Shen Zhi would never forget it, not even in death.

It was the day before her and Lu Jingnian's third wedding anniversary.

That evening, Lu Jingnian had surprisingly come home early without working overtime. She had cooked a whole table of dishes with her own hands, changed into his favorite white dress, and waited for him at the dining table like a fool. She thought—three years, even a stone should have been warmed by now.

But he only gave her a faint glance and said, "Don't bother with this anymore. Let the kitchen handle it."

So that day, he hadn't come back to celebrate their anniversary with her. He had been waiting for this letter—waiting for his first love to tell him that everything could still be salvaged.

And he, Lu Jingnian, had never once mentioned the existence of this letter to her. Not a single word.

Her three years of marriage, the warmth and companionship she had naively believed in, her painstakingly careful performance—in the end, it was all just a joke. A disposable placeholder, set up to "wait for her return," something that could be discarded at any moment.

Shen Zhi's fingers still rested on the letter, motionless. Something inside her was collapsing piece by piece, shattering, turning to dust. She could hear the deafening roar of that collapse, echoing wildly in her eardrums.

After a long time, she slowly folded the letter back up, slipped it into the envelope, and returned it to its place. She closed the drawer, making no sound at all.

Like a ghost, she drifted back to her own dressing room at the end of the second floor.

The huge mirror in front of the vanity reflected her pale, disheveled face. She was still in her gown, her elaborate updo falling apart, strands of hair sticking to her sweaty forehead. Her makeup was ruined—especially around her eyes, which she had smeared haphazardly, leaving two streaks of grimy black.

For the past three years, every single night, she had performed a sacred, unalterable makeup removal ritual here.

Using the brand of cleansing oil that Lin Shi had favored, warming it in her palms. Massaging her face in the circular motions Lin Shi had used. First removing the foundation from her cheeks and forehead, then finally using cotton swabs to carefully, bit by bit, take off her eye and lip makeup.

Lu Jingnian said Lin Shi cherished her face above all else.

So Shen Zhi had to do the same.

But today—

Shen Zhi looked at the ridiculous woman in the mirror and suddenly felt nauseous. She pulled open the drawer, ignoring the expensive bottles and jars, and fished out a packet of makeup-removing wipes from the very bottom—something she didn't even remember stuffing in there. The cheapest, roughest kind.

She pulled one out. It reeked of cheap alcohol and artificial fragrance.

Then, she raised her hand to her lips and scrubbed viciously.

Once.

Again.

She wasn't removing makeup. She was like someone sanding down a stained piece of wood. She used all her strength, rubbing back and forth across the corners of her mouth. That spot—where she had practiced for three whole years to shape the so-called "gentle yet distant" smile arc that mimicked Lin Shi's.

To perfect that arc, her facial muscles had stiffened countless times. She would wake up in the middle of the night from cramps.

Now, she was going to scrape that damned thing off her face!

The rough surface of the wipe burned her skin. The lipstick color mixed with dead skin cells, leaving dirty red marks on the white wipe. She rubbed again and again, as if nursing a deep-seated hatred, until her lips were scraped raw and tiny beads of blood seeped out.

That fake arc—that mark belonging to Lin Shi—had finally been obliterated, by the most brutal means possible.

She tossed away the soiled wipe and lifted her head to look at the mirror.

The person in the mirror felt alien to her.

It wasn't a replica of Lin Shi. Nor was it the naive, foolish Shen Zhi from three years ago. That face was very pale, lips swollen, eyes devoid of their usual meekness and emptiness. In their place was a mixture of anger, exhaustion, and a hint of almost maniacal ferocity, as if about to shatter the glass.

It was a living face. A real face—her own.

Outside the window, the tuberoses planted all over Yunqi Villa were blooming like mad. Their cloying, sickly-sweet fragrance, like thick, unbreakable syrup, enveloped the entire villa, seeping into every corner. For three years, Shen Zhi's skin, her hair, her clothes, even her breath, had been drenched in this scent.

It was Lin Shi's favorite fragrance. The only feminine scent Lu Jingnian could tolerate.

But now, Shen Zhi raised her own wrist to her nose and sniffed hard.

She couldn't smell anything anymore.

On her own skin, the scent of tuberoses that had clung to her like a second skin for three years—was gone.

Not a trace. Not a single hint.

All that remained was the faint, clean scent of her own flesh.

Shen Zhi looked at the stranger in the mirror. Finally, the corner of her mouth twitched. This time, it wasn't the arc she had practiced thousands of times.

It was a cold, blood-tinged, genuine smile.