Old Matters

The sound of the typewriter was shut out behind her.

Shen Zhi did not return to the master bedroom that was as cavernous as a museum exhibition hall. Barefoot, she walked all the way east along the corridor until she reached the end. There was a small study there—or rather, it was more of a storage room, piled with out-of-season decorations and old books that no one in the Lu family ever read, covered in dust all year round.

It was the only place in the entire villa that truly belonged to her. Because there was nothing here, Lu Jingnian never set foot in it.

She pushed the door open, and a musty smell of paper and wood mixed with dust hit her. Familiar with the room, she walked to a towering bookshelf, stood on her tiptoes, and pulled out a thick copy of *Das Kapital* heavy enough to kill someone. Behind where the book had been, the wall revealed an inconspicuous hidden compartment.

From it, she retrieved a small velvet box.

Opening the box, she found a stack of letters inside. No, actually, there was only one letter, neatly folded and tied with a faded ribbon. The paper had yellowed, its edges frayed.

This was the last letter her father, Shen Huaiyuan, had sent her before he went to prison three years ago.

She still remembered the first time she read it. In this very room, sitting on the cold floor, with the dazzling lights of the Lu family garden outside the window and her life plunged into darkness. Back then, she had read only four words from the letter: "I had no choice."

For the sake of the family, for her father, she had to accept this transaction—to become Lu Jingnian's wife, to become Lin Shi's shadow. She thought it was a tragic sacrifice.

Now, thinking back, it was fucking laughable.

Shen Zhi untied the fragile ribbon and unfolded the paper. Her father's handwriting was strong and forceful, every stroke carrying a stubborn refusal to yield, yet the content was filled with helpless compromise.

"Zhi Zhi, my daughter. By the time you read this letter, your father will no longer be by your side. Do not worry about me."

Such a formal opening. Shen Zhi's fingers traced the familiar handwriting, her heart feeling as if it were being chiseled by a dull tool—not sharp, but aching with a lingering pain.

"Regarding your marriage to Mr. Lu, there are some things I must tell you. This union was proposed by Lu Jingnian himself."

Her gaze stopped on this sentence. Three years ago, she had thought this was the Lu family's final act of mercy toward the Shen family. Now she knew it was not mercy—it was a precise acquisition. Lu Jingnian was not a savior; he was a businessman taking advantage of a crisis, and she was the collateral being appraised.

The letter continued.

"At the time, Shen's capital chain had already broken. The bank's demand notices piled up on my desk. The terms offered by the Lu Group were ones I could not refuse. He promised to inject a huge sum of money to save Shen's, to save all the veteran employees who had worked with me for half my life. He had only one condition."

Shen Zhi closed her eyes. She could almost recite the next sentence.

"He hopes that you, after marriage, would learn more from his friend abroad... Miss Lin Shi."

Learn?

A bitter taste spread in Shen Zhi's mouth. What a refined word. To take a living person and remold them according to another person's template—from their taste in clothing to their tone of speech, even the curve of their smile when they laughed—breaking everything down and rebuilding it. That was called "learning"?

This was called "formatting."

At the end of the letter came her father's apology.

"Zhi Zhi, your father has let you down. I didn't raise you to imitate anyone, much less to be anyone's shadow. I gave you the name Shen Zhi, hoping you would have your own unique fragrance, like a gardenia flower. But I... I had no power to stop this transaction from happening. I couldn't protect our home, and I couldn't protect you. I'm sorry."

Three years ago, reading this, she had cried her heart out. She thought her father was so pitiful, she herself was so pitiful, the entire Shen family was on the verge of collapse—they had no other choice.

But now, the same words hitting her eyes took on a completely different meaning.

She saw a man, a man named Lu Jingnian, and how he used capital to easily strip another father of his right to protect his daughter. He hadn't just bought three years of her life—he had bought and broken a father's dignity.

He made her imitate Lin Shi not because he loved that woman so much.

It was for "purity."

A perfect, flawless concept of Lin Shi that existed only for him. The real Lin Shi would get sick, lose her temper, have her own thoughts, leave him. But she, Shen Zhi, this "counterfeit," would not. Her program was set; as long as Lu Jingnian needed it, she had to be forever perfect, forever present.

What kind of wife was she? She was nothing more than a tool with a pulse that Lu Jingnian used to fight loneliness and longing. A most expensive spiritual comfort item, crafted by his own hands.

"Fuck."

The faintest curse escaped from between her teeth. She felt that these three years had been nothing but a joke. A huge, absurd joke that everyone had watched.

She stood up, carrying the letter to the window. The sky in the distance was beginning to show a hint of pale dawn, a faint light cutting through the gray mist.

She turned the letter over and looked at the back. Blank.

Her fingers unconsciously rubbed the paper—a nervous habit of hers. Then her fingertip suddenly stopped at one spot.

The paper there seemed uneven.

Shen Zhi's heart skipped a beat. She brought the letter close to her eyes, holding it up to the growing light outside. The light penetrated the yellowed paper, and on the back, faintly, almost invisibly, a line of text was reflected.

The words were written extremely small, but with tremendous force, the tip of the pen almost tearing through the paper. It was as if her father, after finishing this desperate letter, had gathered the last shred of his strength to leave her a thread of hope.

Shen Zhi's pupils slowly contracted.

She pressed the letter against the cold window glass, using the first rays of dawn to decipher the words one by one.

"If one day you want to leave, go find He Chuan."

He Chuan?

The name landed like a stone thrown into the stagnant pool of her heart. She rolled the two words over and over in her mind, frantically searching her memory, but found nothing. Among the relatives and friends of the Shen and Lu families, there had never been anyone named He Chuan.

Her gaze moved downward.

After the name "He Chuan," there was half a sentence more, the handwriting even more hurried, as if written in extreme haste and tension.

"He owes the Shen family a favor."

*Boom.*

Something exploded in Shen Zhi's mind.

She clutched the thin sheet of paper, her hands trembling violently. This was no longer a farewell letter like a suicide note. This was a map. An escape route that her father had secretly slipped to her before everything was taken from him.

He told her, I'm sorry, I couldn't protect you.

But on the back, he told her, Run. I've found someone who can help you. Run fast.

The light outside the window finally tore through the mist that had shrouded the villa. Golden rays, like a sharp blade, slashed straight through and landed precisely on those tiny words.

"He Chuan."

The two characters seemed gilded in the morning light, burning hot to the touch.

Shen Zhi stared at that name, not blinking, until her eyes grew sore and swollen. But she let no liquid fall. After three years of crying, her tears had long since dried up. From now on, she would not shed a single tear for anyone.

The typewriter in the study had stopped at some point.

Perhaps Lu Jingnian had already finished writing his affectionate letter and was sealing the envelope, ready to send it to his holy land of love.

Shen Zhi slowly, slowly curled her lips into a cold smile.

It didn't matter.

You write your love letters.

I'll find my person.

Lu Jingnian, you think the game is over, but for me, this round is just beginning. She carefully folded the letter, placed it back in the velvet box, and tucked it into the hidden compartment. When she pushed *Das Kapital* back into place, her movements no longer trembled even the slightest bit.

Her epitaph had already been chiseled.

So now, it was her turn to write elegies for others.