Chapter 9

Chi Mo froze. The angry, pouty look on her face dimmed in an instant.

She glanced at Song Huaiyu and slumped back against the seat in defeat.

Eyes down, lips pursed.

"...How'd you know I'd cry?"

Song Huaiyu let out a cold laugh. "When have you not cried?"

"You know everything, huh... Are we even that close..."

The highway was pitch black. Only the headlights ahead cut through the dark, glaring and harsh. Tree shadows rushed past, branches thrashing like claws in the blur...

Song Huaiyu's voice came through unusually clear, edged with displeasure. He asked, word by word, "That time at Borong Manor—you walked in and saw Guan Yizhou drinking a cross-cup toast with someone. Tell me. Did you cry or not? That time at Yulan Huayue, when Xu Yicheng egged Guan Yizhou on to carry a woman into the pool—did you cry or not? And Hong Kong. Didn't you two fight?"

Chi Mo hadn't expected him to remember so much from back then. Her eyes went wide and she turned to stare at him.

"Song Huaiyu, you remembering all this so clearly makes it really hard not to suspect... You... are you secretly in love with... me?"

The words came out soft, but honestly, there was no other way to explain why a man like Song Huaiyu would hold onto such trivial details that had nothing to do with him.

Those fights over this and that were at least five or six years ago now. Hong Kong really had been the worst one between her and Guan Yizhou—because before that, Chi Mo had never fought with him at all.

Heartache, misery, all those pretentious feelings she couldn't swallow and couldn't voice—they all turned into tears that flowed down into her stomach.

A relationship that started off on unequal footing was always going to stay unequal.

How would Chi Mo ever dare fight with Guan Yizhou?

Back then, she'd practically been on her knees begging him not to break up with her.

After hearing her question, Song Huaiyu sneered. "Chi Mo, you really are pathetic."

Chi Mo opened her mouth. It took her a long moment to squeeze out: "I was possessed back then. Just pretend I lost my mind..."

"So the illness is cured now? The ghost's gone?"

"...Who knows." Chi Mo huffed and turned her head back toward the window.

The car went completely silent.

The road stretched on endlessly, yet not a trace of sleepiness came.

It wasn't until the first sliver of sunlight broke through the darkness that Chi Mo, who'd been pretending to sleep with her eyes closed, slowly opened them.

She checked a road sign and asked Song Huaiyu, "When we get to Jiangzhou, you're not going to drag me back to your place, are you?"

"You have a home in Jiangzhou?"

"...So you're saying that the whole time I've been moved out of Guan Yizhou's place, I've just been sleeping on the street?"

Song Huaiyu glanced at her from the corner of his eye.

"Did you ever buy that place you kept talking about?"

Chi Mo frowned. "No." Then, "Wait—how do you even know about that?"

When Chi Mo graduated from university, she'd rented a place with roommates. Less than two months in, Guan Yizhou put his foot down.

He couldn't understand why his girlfriend had to share a rental with other people. So he shoved an apartment access card into her hand and insisted she move within three days.

Chi Mo had hesitated. Their relationship hadn't been approved by his parents yet, and living in a place owned by his family felt like a line she couldn't bring herself to cross.

But Guan Yizhou threw a fit. Said if word got out that his girlfriend was sharing a rental, he'd have no face.

There was nothing she could do but cancel her lease.

Later, Guan Yizhou moved out of the family home too, and they'd lived together in a villa in the suburbs ever since.

The location was actually terrible for someone like Chi Mo, who commuted to the city center every day. The cars sitting in the garage were too flashy, and parking at her company was expensive, so for a while she took the subway.

But there was no subway station near the villa district. So Chi Mo had to leave half an hour early every day just to walk to the station.

She kept it up for two months before Guan Yizhou couldn't take it anymore. He told her to either quit her job or drive.

The problem was... driving meant traffic.

Which meant Chi Mo still had to leave half an hour early.

Year after year, Guan Yizhou's parents never budged.

Their attitude stayed ambiguous—no opposition, no approval. If the two of them wanted to live together, fine. But don't even think about marriage.

So... once Chi Mo had saved up a bit of money, she decided to start looking at apartments.

There was a decent building near her office. She'd gone to the sales center to ask about loans and down payments. After running the numbers, she figured she could afford it.

By then, it wasn't really about pride anymore. She just thought living closer would make the commute easier—and if her mother ever came to Jiangzhou to visit, she'd have somewhere to stay.

Chi Mo hadn't even asked Guan Yizhou to move with her.

But Guan Yizhou refused. One sentence from him, and her plan to buy a house was dead.

Move out, and we're done.

To this day, Chi Mo still couldn't figure out how that conversation had fallen apart. Maybe Guan Yizhou had just been in a bad mood that day. Or maybe he was fed up too.

Either way, the house-buying thing fizzled out.

Chi Mo had no idea how Song Huaiyu knew about any of this—he'd been in England at the time. Maybe Guan Yizhou complained about it in their group chat. They probably had a smaller group somewhere, but Chi Mo had always been in the bigger one.

So she said flatly, "I rented a place near my office. If you've got any conscience left, take me there. Otherwise, just dump me at the highway exit."

Song Huaiyu didn't even bother answering. He stomped on the gas, and the SUV surged forward.

Chi Mo let out a dry laugh, leaned back against the seat, and shut her eyes without another word.

Two hours later, the car rolled to a stop in front of Song Huaiyu's house. Chi Mo cracked one eye open, took one look, and immediately shut it again—pretending she knew nothing and going right back to "sleeping."

A full twenty minutes passed. Song Huaiyu didn't urge her once.

Chi Mo finally couldn't take it anymore. She sucked in a breath, opened her eyes, pushed the door open, and got out.

"Open the door. I need to pee!"

The corner of Song Huaiyu's mouth twitched upward. He strode past her and punched in the door code.