The gates shut behind him with a hollow clang, the sound echoing too loudly for a house meant to be a home. Lan Jinyue paused in the courtyard, fingers lingering on the knot of his belt, as if he could hold the silence taut and prevent it from fraying.
She was waiting for him in the dining hall. He had known she would be.
Lan did not want this dinner, but he had learned early in life that refusal sometimes provoked storms louder than acceptance. Tonight, he would sit, he would listen, and when it was over, he would tell her of his decision. Divorce. The word coiled sharp and heavy on his tongue, unspoken but certain.
The hall glowed too warmly with lanternlight. Red silk draped the screens; flowers embroidered in thread that shimmered when the flame flickered. At the centre, she sat poised at the table, a dish of lotus root arranged as if it were an offering. Her hair was pinned high, pearls dripping from the combs like frozen tears.
"Jinyue," she said, and her voice was soft enough to almost pass for affection. "You came."
"I was invited." His tone was even, neither sharp nor tender. He took the cushion across from her, lowering himself with the deliberate grace of habit.
The wine—no, not wine, tonight it was stronger—was already poured. Liquor clear as mountain spring rested in their cups, faint vapours curling upward. He knew its bite, having grown up in halls where men tested one another by how much they could endure. He did not reach for it.
Her smile tilted. "I wished to speak to you. To apologise. I was unkind the other night."
Lan's gaze flicked to the side, where the shadows thickened near the screen. That argument had been neither brief nor trivial. She had stood there, cheeks flushed with defiance, insisting on dragging her new toy into their bed, into their life, as though marriage were a game that could be expanded with new players. "A'yuan," she had called him—young, pliant, an adornment she expected Lan to accept.
And he had refused.
The silence stretched. Finally, Lan inclined his head slightly. "An apology is noted."
Her lashes lowered, her voice tightening at the edges.
"Clearly not enough," she said sadly. Her hand brushed the tablecloth, as though to reach for him, but stopped short. Then, a pause, she finally let out a long breath that trembled almost imperceptibly as she continued, "I know you hate him. I know you think of me as promiscuous. But must we be enemies? Can we not move past this?"
Lan's lips curved, faint and humourless. "Some things are not meant to be carried together, Ming Yin."
Her eyes glistened in the lanternlight. "Drink with me, at least. Tonight, let us forget bitterness."
He wanted nothing more than to refuse. But he reached for the cup, his fingers cool against the porcelain. If he were to leave her, let it be after she revealed her mask fully. Not before. He lifted the liquor to his lips and swallowed.
The burn struck sharply and immediately, threading down his throat like fire. He coughed once, controlled, setting the cup back with too much precision. She poured again, unhurried, filling his cup before her own.
He told himself he would take only one. But her gaze lingered, expectant, and so he drank again.
The food before him was beautiful but tasteless. Lotus root, duck braised in spices, and fish steamed with ginger. He picked at it with mechanical grace, every bite heavy as clay. She watched him eat, every movement of her chopsticks too elegant, too practised, as if she were acting for an invisible audience. She was always like this, careful to put up appearances. To think he once loved that habit of hers.
By the third shot, the edges of the hall had blurred. The heat that came was too thick, too sudden. He had drunk before—far more than this—and never felt the world lean so swiftly, lanterns bending as if caught in wind.
He steadied himself against the table. "Enough."
"You used to drink more." Her voice carried an odd note—half amusement, half accusation. Her hand tightened around her cup before relaxing again, the faintest fracture in her composure.
Lan's brow furrowed. His chest rose shallowly, a strange heaviness pressing against his ribs. The liquor burned more than what was expected of it, more than the heat to the stomach. His whole body felt set on fire. His hand trembled as he placed the cup down.
"What—" His voice caught as a wave of dizziness swiftly overtook his senses. "What did you do?"
Her expression did not shift immediately. Then her smile softened, curving almost sadly.
"You wanted to cast me aside." Her voice was low, lilting, threaded with a quiet fury. "After everything I gave, you planned to leave me with nothing. Nothing, Jinyue. Did you think I would let you?"
His pulse thundered in his ears. Heat swelled, followed by a cold wash across his skin. His vision blurred, doubled, lanterns smeared into streams of red.
"You hated him," she continued, her tone rising as if a dam had cracked. "You never even tried to know him. You judged him—judged me—because he was younger, because he was not you. But we could have been happy. If you had only—only let go of your pride"
Lan's hand clenched on his sleeve, knuckles pale. He forced his body upright, though his limbs felt carved of lead. "Happy?" His voice rasped, each syllable dragged through gravel. "You call this happiness?"
Her smile wavered at last. For a moment, grief touched her face. Then it vanished, smoothed away by determination. "It could have been."
He laughed—weak, bitter, choked. The sound dissolved into a cough, his sleeve darkening where he pressed it to his lips.
The room tilted violently. He caught the edge of the table, nails biting the lacquer. The air thickened, incense mingling with the sharp tang of liquor until breathing itself became labour.
She did not move to help him.
Instead, she poured once more, sliding the cup toward him. "One last drink, Jinyue. For what might have been."
His vision swam, the glass blurring into a pale ghost against the red tablecloth. He stared at it, then at her, the image of her face splitting and rejoining as if even the world could not decide which mask she wore.
The bitterness still coated his tongue. Beneath it, a deeper, darker taste lingered.
Lan Jinyue drew a shuddering breath, but he did not reach for the cup. His hand remained on the table, steady despite the tremor in his body. He needed to find a way to call for help, contact one of his servants, anything, instead of dying there uselessly. His body lacked the strength.
The contract lay between them, the ink of his signature still wet. He'd signed it in the car before entering the house, after weeks of negotiations and thoughts on the way forward. She gets the southern estates. The jewels. The summer house by the lake. He'd kept the company, the stocks, the cold, unfeeling assets that had always mattered more to him than her.
Now, the paper seemed to mock him. He had thought that he would be safe from his crazy wife if he offered her half his wealth; she would have gotten half of everything if not more, and still have more than enough to spend on her fling.
His vision blurred more. The characters on the page swam, ink bleeding into the fibres like old wounds. He reached for it, fingers smudging the edges. Proof. As if it mattered now.
She watched him, her expression unreadable. "You always did love your papers more than me."
He wanted to argue. To say he'd loved her, once. He'd tried so hard to give her the life she had always wanted; he sacrificed so many things for her. But the words dissolved before they formed, his tongue thick and useless.
The cup was still in her hand. She swirled it, the liquid catching the light like a promise. "Drink," she said again, softer this time. "It'll be over soon."
He wanted to spit in her face. To overturn the table, to scream. But his body was no longer his. His arms trembled as he pushed himself up, the room tilting violently. The lights became streaks of fire; the scent of lotus root turned to ash in his throat.
This is how it ends. Not even with a bang, but with the click of a glass, betrayal and heartache.