The twenty-second day began like any other.
I woke before my alarm, the city still half-asleep, pale light filtering through the curtains. I brewed coffee, reviewed notes for my afternoon seminar, and stood by the window long enough to remind myself that this calm was real—that it belonged to me.
Then my phone rang.
Not vibrated.
Not buzzed quietly.
Rang.
I stared at the screen.
An international number.
My thumb hovered, unmoving.
I had prepared for this moment. I knew it would come. I just hadn't expected it to feel so… neutral.
I let it ring.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
It stopped.
I exhaled slowly and slipped the phone into my bag.
Some doors, once closed, did not need to be reopened just because someone finally knocked.
---
Han Zhe arrived in the city less than twelve hours later.
He didn't go to a hotel.
Didn't inform his family.
Didn't coordinate with Gu Chengyi or Shen Yu.
For once in his life, he acted entirely on impulse.
"She's here," he muttered, staring out of the car window as unfamiliar streets passed by. "I know she is."
The driver hesitated. "Sir… we don't have confirmation."
Han Zhe's jaw tightened. "Then we get it."
What he didn't say—what he refused to examine—was why it mattered this much.
---
I felt him before I saw him.
It happened outside a small grocery store two blocks from my apartment. I stepped out with a paper bag under my arm, mentally ticking off errands, when the air shifted.
That familiar, reckless energy.
I stopped.
Counted my breath.
Then turned.
Han Zhe stood across the street, sunglasses pushed into his hair, expression caught somewhere between relief and disbelief.
For a moment, neither of us moved.
The city flowed around us—cars passing, people walking, life continuing—while time narrowed to the space between our gazes.
"You found me," I said calmly.
He swallowed.
"So you knew," he replied.
"Yes."
That seemed to unsteady him more than surprise would have.
"You didn't answer my call," he said.
"I wasn't available."
The words were polite.
Final.
Han Zhe laughed softly, shaking his head. "You really disappeared."
I looked at him—not the heir, not the charmer everyone adored, but the boy who had grown up beside me and never noticed when I grew quiet.
"I didn't disappear," I said. "I left."
---
We stood there longer than necessary.
Passersby glanced at us briefly, then moved on. To them, we were nothing more than two people having an awkward conversation on a sunny afternoon.
Han Zhe took a step forward.
I didn't step back.
But I didn't step closer either.
"Yanxi," he said, his voice dropping. "Let's talk."
"We are talking."
He opened his mouth, then closed it again.
This was new territory for him—conversation without charm, without control.
"I didn't mean what I said," he finally blurted. "None of us did."
I tilted my head slightly. "Which part?"
He hesitated.
That hesitation was answer enough.
"I came all this way," he continued, frustration creeping into his tone. "Doesn't that count for something?"
I studied him quietly.
Then I shook my head.
"Distance doesn't equal effort," I said. "And panic doesn't equal remorse."
His eyes widened.
"You think I panicked?" he demanded.
"Yes," I replied evenly. "Because I stopped being available."
The words landed harder than anything I could have said in anger.
---
Three streets away, Shen Yu received the update.
Han Zhe found her.
His fingers tightened around his phone.
Too fast.
Too careless.
"She didn't run," the report continued. "She confronted him."
Shen Yu closed his eyes briefly.
That was worse.
---
Gu Chengyi found out an hour later.
"He went alone?" he asked sharply.
"Yes."
Gu Chengyi stood abruptly. "Get me everything. Now."
For the first time, urgency stripped away his composure.
Not because Han Zhe might fail.
But because he might succeed—
and ruin any chance the rest of them still had.
---
Back on the street, Han Zhe ran a hand through his hair.
"I know we hurt you," he said more quietly. "But we've known each other our whole lives. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"
I didn't answer immediately.
Instead, I shifted the grocery bag to my other hand.
"It means," I said slowly, "that you should have known better."
Silence stretched between us.
His shoulders sagged slightly.
"What do you want from me?" he asked.
I met his gaze steadily.
"I don't want anything from you," I said. "That's the point."
---
That was when he realized it.
Really realized it.
He hadn't come to offer me something.
He had come hoping I would still want it.
And I didn't.
"You can't just cut us off like this," he said, desperation bleeding through. "We're not strangers."
I smiled faintly—not cruelly, but without softness.
"No," I agreed. "We're not."
Then I stepped past him.
---
He didn't follow.
That surprised us both.
Instead, he stood there as I walked away, watching my back disappear into the crowd.
For the first time in his life, Han Zhe understood what it meant to arrive too late.
---
I didn't go home right away.
I walked.
I let the adrenaline burn off, let the encounter settle into something solid and unchangeable.
I had faced him.
And I had not folded.
By the time I returned to my apartment, my phone was buzzing again.
This time, a message.
From an unknown number.
I won't force you. But I won't stop either. Not yet.
I stared at the screen for a long moment.
Then I typed back.
That's your choice. Just don't confuse persistence with entitlement.
I turned the phone off.
---
That night, Han Zhe sat alone in his hotel room, staring at the ceiling.
"She didn't ask me to stay," he whispered.
He laughed weakly.
"She didn't ask me to leave either."
For the first time, charm had failed him completely.
---
Elsewhere, Gu Chengyi loosened his tie and leaned against his desk, staring at a city skyline he no longer saw.
"She spoke to him," he said quietly. "And she walked away."
Shen Yu listened in silence.
Then said, "She's stronger than we thought."
"No," Gu Chengyi replied, voice tight. "She always was."
---
On my balcony, I watched the night settle over the city.
My heart was steady.
Not numb.
Not cold.
Just clear.
The first man had come.
And he had left with empty hands.
Two remained.
And they would soon learn the same truth:
I was no longer the girl waiting to be chosen.
I was the woman deciding who deserved to stay.