She cried herself to sleep… without meaning to. Exhaustion finally pulled her under like a tide carrying away the last pieces of pride she had been clinging to.
It was the first time in three years she closed her eyes without planning tomorrow around him.And it was the first time she slept deeply enough to forget dawn existed.
Warmth touched her cheek. Soft, gentle morning light. Birds outside chirped like nothing in her world was falling apart. Her eyelashes fluttered, vision swimming before it focused on the ceiling.
A peaceful morning.Until her heart jolted.
Morning.
Her breath caught—sharp, panicked. She sat up abruptly, messy hair falling around her swollen eyes.
She never woke late. Not once. Not since she became Mrs. Shen.
Her routine was her armor. Her pride. The only thing she contributed to this marriage—she thought. Duty wrapped in affection, even if unreturned.
But the room was bright. Too bright.
She swung her legs out of bed, heart racing.No rustle from the bathroom.No sound of shoes by the door.No scent of the coffee he liked.No untouched breakfast tray waiting for approval or silent dismissal.
He was gone.
Her chest tightened.
On the dining table: nothing.On the sofa: emptiness and silence.On the entrance shelf: his car keys gone.
He hadn't even opened the curtains on her side. He left her wrapped in night as if her existence didn't matter.
Her throat burned. Her lips trembled. Something inside her—fragile, hopeful, young—finally exhaled not in relief, but in surrender.
He didn't wake her because… she didn't matter enough to wake.
She stood there, barefoot and lost in a house she maintained like a temple for a god who never worshipped back.
This silence wasn't peaceful.It was abandonment wearing politeness like clothing.
She leaned on the counter, closing her eyes, letting the ache spread slowly because there was no one here to see her break.
No one ever did.
Minutes—or hours—passed before she finally moved. Water splashed on her face in the bathroom mirror, but it couldn't erase the puffiness around her eyes, the sorrow etched like fingerprints across her expression.
Her gaze fell on her hair.
Long, soft waves that fell past her waist like a river she had nurtured carefully. Brushed every night. Oiled every weekend. Braided gently because she once believed beauty could make her worthy.
And memory stung like cold steel.
A charity gala, three years ago. She wasn't even married then, just a girl in love with her future and him.
She had stood close enough to hear him compliment another woman:
"Long hair suits women better. It's elegant."
The woman had blushed, laughing lightly as she twirled a glossy curtain of hair between her fingers. He had smiled—not politely, but warmly.
Warmth he had never offered Lian Yue.
And something foolish inside her cracked even then. She grew her hair longer after that night, thinking one day he would look at her with that same soft approval.
He never did.He never even noticed it grow.
Suddenly, these strands felt like chains. Heavy. Meaningless. A monument to unreciprocated devotion.
She lifted her chin. Her breath steadied. It was a small moment, but it felt like standing at the edge of a cliff and finally deciding not to be afraid of the fall.
Lian Yue grabbed her purse.
She didn't make breakfast.She didn't straighten the cushions.She didn't leave a note.
For once, she simply left.
The salon smelled like citrus and warm air. Mirrors everywhere, reflecting women who seemed so sure of themselves.
The stylist smiled. "Mrs. Shen, back again? Trim today?"
Lian Yue shook her head. Her voice came from somewhere deeper.
"No. Cut it short. A bob."
The stylist hesitated, glancing at the long waves cascading behind her like a silk curtain.
"Are you… sure? You always said he liked—"
"He won't notice," Lian Yue whispered.
It wasn't bitterness. It was truth.
The scissors lifted. Metal gleamed. And then—snip.
A thick section fell.
Her breath hitched—not in regret, but in release.
Another snip. And another. Tears slipped down her cheeks silently, reflecting pieces of the girl she used to be falling with every severed inch.
Grief.Memory.Devotion.Hope.
All landing on the salon floor like petals from a dying flower.
When it was over, a lighter woman stared back at her in the mirror—neck bare, eyes red but steady, hair framing her face in a simple bob that made her look unfamiliar and painfully real.
"Beautiful," the stylist whispered.
Lian Yue touched her new hair. It felt like touching a wound and a new beginning at once.
I always liked short hair… but because of him I changed myself. For someone who never liked me, she thought bitterly.
No applause.No approval.No husband's reaction waiting at home.
Only her.
And yet, despite the ache still burning deep, she felt something shift—
A quiet, trembling strength trying to breathe.
She stepped outside, wind brushing her exposed neck. For the first time in years, she felt air on skin she once hid behind sacrifice.
She looked at her reflection in a shop window—short hair, trembling lips, but a fierceness in her gaze that had never been there before.
"I cried enough yesterday," she whispered to herself."Today I begin un-loving you."
A promise. Fragile, quiet, but real.
She turned away from the window and walked—not toward home, but toward herself.
And somewhere between the fallen strands and the morning she overslept…
A wife who lived for him began to turn into a woman who might one day live for herself.