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Wu Suowei stared at the woman sitting across from him, wondering how someone who once felt like home could now look so foreign.
Li Xinyue stirred her latte gently, as if she were mixing his pride into it. Her hair was curled perfectly, makeup subtle and expensive-looking. She looked like an art piece that had long been sold to someone who knew its worth — and he wasn’t the buyer anymore.
Her voice, when it came, was soft. Cold.
“I’ve moved on, Suowei,” she said without hesitation. “He’s… everything you’re not.”
Suowei blinked once, slowly. It stung more than he’d expected. He hated that it still hurt. Hated that he still remembered the way her eyes crinkled when she laughed at his stupid jokes, or how she used to finish his sentences like they were lyrics in a song only they knew.
Now, that same mouth was busy drawing sharp lines between what he was and what he wasn’t.
He gave her a smile. It didn’t reach his eyes. “Tall, rich, emotionally constipated?”
She didn’t laugh.
Not even a twitch.
She slid her phone across the café table, her manicured fingers never trembling. The screen was already lit, waiting for him to look.
A photo.
A man.
Tall. Handsome. Dressed in a gray tailored suit that looked like it had been poured over him. Sunglasses perched perfectly. Jawline cut like a blade. Behind him, a sleek black car gleamed like it had never touched dirt. But the car wasn’t what made Suowei flinch — it was the man himself.
He didn’t look real.
He looked expensive.
“Chi Cheng,” she said, her voice softer now, almost reverent. “CEO of Chengshi Holdings. Twenty-five. Runs three subsidiaries. Has never been in a scandal. You wouldn’t understand that world.”
Suowei stared at the screen. The man looked like a sculpture made of ice and ambition. His first thought wasn’t jealousy. It wasn’t even anger.
It was curiosity.
What kind of man could steal Li Xinyue’s heart and not even bother to look at her while doing it?
“You’re right,” Suowei murmured, pushing the phone back toward her with two fingers. “I don’t understand that world…”
He stood slowly, brushing the crumbs of his untouched croissant from his pants. The coffee cup remained full, just like the words he hadn’t said.
“…Yet.”
She narrowed her eyes at that. Something flickered in her expression — confusion? Amusement? Regret?
But he was already walking away, hands deep in his coat pockets, heart thudding like war drums in his chest. A strange cocktail of humiliation, heartbreak, and adrenaline burned through him like gasoline licking flame.
Outside, the wind cut through his coat like it had claws. The city moved around him — fast, distracted, heartless.
Cars honked. A bus splashed through a puddle. Pedestrians scrolled past him with earbuds in and eyes glazed. Nobody noticed the man frozen on the sidewalk, still replaying a breakup that hadn’t even made a sound when it shattered.
He tilted his head back and looked at the sky. Gray. Cold. Unbothered.
If Li Xinyue wanted a prince made of marble and money?
Fine.
Then he’d steal the prince. Break the crown. Burn the throne.
And make the damn prince fall in love with him.
So that one day — one ordinary, painful day — Li Xinyue would scroll her perfect little phone and see them together.
And taste her own damn medicine.
💊
Suowei exhaled, lips curling ever so slightly.
Game on.
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