Yeri assured Lianna that she would let Shin know.
Lianna gave a soft hum of acknowledgment before adding that she was finally walking her own path.
Though Yeri had refrained from asking about the divorce, Lianna spoke of it first, her voice carrying a quiet blend of relief and fragile hope.
Yeri let out a light laugh. "Then it's a new beginning," she said warmly. "How's Sean?"
Lianna's tone softened at the mention of her son. She explained that Zahn had agreed to the divorce on the condition that Sean would remain with her in the villa.
She found nothing wrong with it, after all, her son needed his mother by his side.
There was a brief pause before Yeri carefully asked, "Does Doctor Neri know about the investigation report I sent you… about the drugging?"
Silence answered her.
On the other end, Lianna's mind drifted back to the moment she received that file.
Her hands had trembled violently as she read through it, tears streaming down her face while broken laughter escaped her lips.
It had felt like clawing her way out of a suffocating abyss, one she had spent years trying, and failing, to escape, only to finally glimpse the sun.
For so long, she had gaslit herself, blamed herself. She had convinced herself that maybe she was at fault, that she had somehow done something wrong. That she should never have attended that banquet, that if she had refused his confession and they never got together, none of it would have happened.
Her emotions had swung like a pendulum, relentless and unforgiving, dragging her deeper into a quiet, consuming depression.
And now… the very incident that had broken her resurfaced. But this time, it did not come to condemn her, it came to set her free.
She was innocent.
The realization had struck her like lightning splitting the sky. At last, she could lift her head.
She could scream the truth she had buried for years.
She could return every insult, every whisper, every ounce of scorn that had been thrown her way and stand, without fear, as Sean's mother. No longer ashamed. No longer afraid of tainting her son's name.
Deep down, Lianna had always suspected her father's involvement. Back then, he had been far too calm, too indifferent, as if he had already known what was going to happen. He had even pushed her toward marrying Zahn Neri, urging her forward like a piece on a board he had already arranged.
But what truly shocked her was Madam Neri.
The very woman who had openly despised the idea of her entering the Neri family had been part of it all along. The disdain, the hostility... it had all been a performance.
A carefully crafted illusion meant to control her, to break her, to mold her into someone obedient and easy to manipulate and she succeeded.
Lianna exhaled slowly before finally speaking.
"Zahn knows about the file," she said. "I made sure he would."
What she did not tell Yeri was what had happened after.
The two continued chatting, drifting toward Lianna's future plans and the lawsuit against her now ex-mother-in-law.
When the topic arose, Lianna's voice remained calm and resolute. She wasn't afraid.
So far, her father had yet to reach out. He and his mistress's family had already moved to another city few years back.
But with the growing uproar among netizens, it was only a matter of time before the storm found him.
After the call ended, Lianna set her phone aside and turned her attention to the materials she needed for the case.
As for the accusations and condemnation flooding the internet, she wasn't the least bit concerned.
She had spent years living like an outcast, enduring mockery and quiet cruelty from those around her. Compared to that, those faceless voices, strangers hiding behind screens, miles away were nothing more than distant noise.
A message notification lit up her screen, it was from Zahn.
He assured her that he would handle the online slander.
Lianna glanced at it, her expression unreadable, before locking her phone without replying.
Her mind drifted back to the day he saw the file.
He had rushed from the hospital, disheveled and breathless, his usual composure shattered. The moment he saw her, he had broken, apologizing over and over, his voice hoarse, almost unrecognizable.
Lianna had only looked at him and asked, "Why are you apologizing? Wasn't it always your stance that it was all in the past?"
He had always treated that incident like a forbidden subject, something to be buried, never spoken of again. But had it ever occurred to him… that while it may have been "the past" to him, it had never left her?
It clung to her like a shadow, inescapable, and suffocating.
Even then, Zahn believed things could still be salvaged. That the family, though cracked, could be pieced back together, that Lianna would eventually turn back to him.
Even after learning that his mother had treated Lianna like a servant, that she had driven her into severe depression, even after Shin revealed how deeply his mother had corrupted the hospital, mismanaging it while carrying on a scandalous relationship with a man decades younger, Zahn still held on.
Clutching that fragile, flickering illusion that the Neri family could remain whole.
Apart from being a surgeon, he started delegating everything from hospital affairs, corporate matters, placing them in the hands of others while he focused on one goal: to fix things. To have his mother acquitted, to make her realize her mistakes, to have her apologize to Lianna.
And then, perhaps Lianna would forgive and forget.
Perhaps she would no longer want the divorce.
But in the end, he was not only naive but also a hypocrite.
When Zahn saw the file Lianna had sent, it felt as though he had been plunged into icy water. His thoughts froze, his mind blank, the world around him collapsing into a deafening silence.
The truth unraveled before him, layer by layer. His mother's schemes, her manipulation, it hadn't begun recently. It had likely started long before he and Lianna had even been together.
How could she be so cruel?
The woman who had raised him, taught him, guided him, the woman who had smiled so kindly, who always claimed to want the best for him...
Was it all an illusion?
Had any part of her ever been real?
And then, a more unsettling thought crept in.
Perhaps he was no different. Perhaps his mother had simply raised him exactly as she intended.
It wasn't that he hadn't noticed Lianna's suffering, he had simply chosen to interpret it differently.
Back then, he did investigate the drugging incident. He had followed the trail until the moment the initial results pointed to Lianna purchasing the drug.
That was enough.
In that instant, he had already judged her guilty.
Why had he stopped? What had he been afraid of? What else might have been uncovered?
Zahn remembered the emotions he had felt at the time, shock, disappointment perhaps even anger. But more than anything, he remembered how quickly he had justified his decision.
He told himself it was to protect her.
That if she were truly found guilty, the backlash would destroy her completely. That he was sparing her from greater harm.
It was a convenient lie.
A carefully crafted excuse.
Because the truth was far simpler, he was a coward. It was never for Lianna, it was to protect himself.
He kept telling himself that he loved Lianna, that it didn't matter whether she had drugged him or not since he had already decided to marry her.
That her intentions were irrelevant, whether her feelings were genuine or merely drawn to his status as the family heir. As long as she stayed by his side… that was enough.
But now, that belief felt hollow. Self-serving.
He had been so consumed by his own narrative, casting himself as the victim, the one wronged, the fool blinded by love that he failed to see the truth standing right in front of him.
Under the pretense of a medical mission, he had left her, but in truth, he had been running.
Running from the possibility that her feelings for him were never real.
What had he done?
Lianna was right. It was precisely because he had done nothing that she had suffered.
And perhaps she was right about something else too, about how, deep down, he had seen her as a stain on his otherwise perfect life.
The realization struck him with brutal clarity.
Someone like him no longer deserved to be her husband, even less did he deserve her forgiveness.
It was time to face the truth.
What the Neri family had done to Lianna was not something that could be erased with a simple apology or money.
Their marriage itself had been born from malice, woven through with conspiracy under his mother's careful orchestration.
Her innocence, the years she had endured within that family, her sincerity and feelings— All of it had been trampled beneath the weight of his silence and his mother's schemes.
Only then did Zahn truly understand why Lianna had been so resolute in seeking a divorce.
And this time… He let her go.
---
That very day, Zahn made a public statement, not just a written release, but a full interview broadcast through the hospital's official page.
"The divorce had not been my decision. It was my wife."
He also admitted, without hesitation, that he loved her and that he always would. But he had hurt her, and that was something he could never undo, something that could not be forgiven.
"She deserved a life of her own choosing." He continued.
More importantly, he revealed carefully, but unmistakably, that Lianna had never been the culprit in the drugging incident years ago. He stated that he would fully support her in the upcoming lawsuit.
At the end of the video, his tone turned firm.
He urged the public to cease spreading falsehoods and malicious slander against Lianna or he would not hesitate to pursue legal action.
For a brief moment after the release the netizens went silent.
It was as if the entire online world had paused, stunned, trying to process the sudden reversal.
Then the comments section exploded.
Lines of disbelief flooded in, sentences crashing into one another, punctuated by exclamation marks and question marks in chaotic waves.
Some questioned whether the video was AI-generated. Others wondered if the hospital's account had been hacked.
But how could that be with the hospital using KGG'S advanced network security?