The discovery did not come from Emma's confession, but from a chance moment, revealed unintentionally by a third party.
It was at a small family gathering. One of Emma's cousins, who had watched her grow up and was close to her, was present. After a few glasses of wine, the atmosphere relaxed, and the conversation drifted to youthful follies. The cousin laughed, pointed at Emma, and said to Gu Liang: "Don't be fooled by how proper she looks now. Back then she was a complete idiot in love, a reckless novice. We almost thought she'd never figure it out, never like anyone. And then, out of nowhere, she shocked us all—the first person she ever brought home was you."
The words, playful and affectionate, fell into Gu Liang's mind like a stone into a still lake.
Emma immediately interrupted, embarrassed, a faint blush rising to her ears, trying to steer the topic away.
But Gu Liang froze. The first person she ever brought home was you. The phrase echoed in his mind, each word striking like a hammer against his long-held beliefs.
The first? The Emma he remembered—unrestrained, always surrounded by Omegas, seemingly adept and even cold in matters of love—had never brought anyone home until him?
"Idiot in love," "reckless novice"—these words clashed violently, almost absurdly, with the image of the Alpha he thought he knew.
Suddenly, countless overlooked or misunderstood details strung together like pearls, shining with new meaning. He remembered how, when they first met, her seemingly practiced pursuit sometimes betrayed awkwardness and nerves unbefitting an Alpha. He remembered how, during their passionate days, her excessive dependence was not a sign of boredom, but of uncertainty. He even remembered her final breakup—her decisiveness perhaps masking a childish panic at not knowing how to handle the fatigue of love.
He had always believed himself just another entry in her long romantic record, discarded when she grew "tired." He had never considered that he might have been her first—her initiation, her stumbling attempt at love, the only one she had ever brought into the core of her life.
This belated truth did not crash over him like a wave, but seeped in slowly, like a subtle spice—at first unnoticed, then gradually permeating, rewriting his understanding of the past.
The pain that had nearly torn him apart, the nights spent chewing on the poison of "boredom," the hatred that fueled his world of revenge—all of it had not sprung from her supposed skill or coldness, but from… poverty. A barren ignorance in the realm of sustaining love.
The realization left him weightless, disoriented. The fist of revenge he had clenched with all his strength had struck not a demon, but a blind novice—deaf and unseeing in love.
He saw another Emma before him—not the sharp executive, not the cold Alpha who ended things, but a beginner lost in the maze of love. She had blundered into his world, dazzled by its brightness, but when the relationship demanded patience and cultivation, her ignorance bred fear and cruelty. Her "boredom" was not true indifference, but the childish abandonment of a test she did not know how to solve.
The thorn lodged in his heart—I was just another passerby—was suddenly pulled free. In its place was a hollow relief. He had not been unworthy. He had simply been the sole specimen in her trial-and-error, bearing the catastrophic consequences of her clumsiness.
Relief gave way to deeper sorrow—for the three years lost, for the nights of torment that could have been replaced by growth and understanding. Sorrow that they had endured their most important love in such ignorance, so hastily, so destructively.
This belated answer brought no celebration, only silence after an emotional earthquake, and on that ruin, a new understanding quietly sprouted.
That night, when the children were asleep and the house was still, Gu Liang looked at Emma beside him, already asleep, his gaze heavy with complexity. He reached out, brushed aside the hair on her forehead. In that moment she seemed quiet, stripped of all sharpness, like the "reckless novice" who had once tried to love without knowing how.
He suddenly understood. Her later changes—the clumsy persistence, the stubborn devotion tinged with atonement—were not only born of responsibility or the children. They were also the efforts of a "love idiot" who, after painful loss, had finally stumbled toward learning how to truly, steadily love.
She was his calamity, his target of revenge, the mother of his children, his chosen partner. And now, she was something more—his first love, and astonishingly, he was hers.
This realization was the final puzzle piece, completing their twisted, difficult map of love. All hatred dissolved, replaced by a love heavy with pity, deep understanding, and ultimate forgiveness.
He sighed softly, pulling her into his arms, holding tighter than ever before.
They had both endured their first, clumsy love in different ways. Hers had begun too late, and the cost had been too great. But they still had enough of life ahead to relearn, and to love well.