The rain had completely stopped.
The wet city was cut into countless fragments of flowing light by streetlamps and neon signs. They reflected in Zong Yi's eyes, yet they could not illuminate the deep pool within.
The cold touch of the steering wheel against her forehead felt like a fine needle piercing through the thin membrane she had long maintained—something called reason.
Regret?
Someone like Yan Hanxie… could regret things too?
Those two words were like poison-tipped hooks lodged into flesh—not deep, but bringing a continuous dull ache, mixed with an absurd sense of irony.
She straightened up and started the car. The low roar of the engine sounded especially lonely in the empty garage.
The SUV slowly drove out of the underground parking and merged into the traffic after the rain.
Water still covered the streets. As the wheels rolled through it, splashes rose with loud whooshing sounds—like echoes of the unrest in her mind.
When she returned to her own apartment, the antiseptic-like cleanliness of the cold space rushed toward her.
Zong Yi kicked off her high heels and walked barefoot across the floor, step by step, into the bathroom.
The woman in the mirror looked pale, dark circles beneath her eyes. Only her eyes were unusually bright, churning with emotions she herself found unfamiliar—
Anger?
Grievance?
Unwillingness?
Or… something else?
She turned on the faucet and splashed cold water onto her face, trying to extinguish the nameless fire rising from her chest.
Water droplets slid down her cheeks and into her collar, making her shiver from the cold.
She raised her head. Water trails wound across the mirror, blurring the face that had always been so calm and controlled.
—
The following week felt as though someone had pressed a strange mute button.
The prayer beads remained on Yan Hanxie's wrist.
Her vegetarian lunches remained the same.
Occasionally the faint scent of sandalwood still drifted through the office.
But she no longer criticized the temperature of the coffee Zong Yi brought in the morning.
She no longer abruptly added unnecessary work for Zong Yi during meetings.
And she certainly didn't send ambiguous addresses late at night anymore.
She returned to being what a CEO should be toward a capable subordinate—trustful, distant.
Assigning tasks.
Listening to reports.
Making decisions.
When their eyes met, they were calm and still, as if all the previous probing, closeness, step-by-step pressure—even that light sentence of "regret"—had been nothing more than Zong Yi's own illusion.
Zong Yi also returned to the track she was best at.
Work. Efficient. Precise. Impeccable.
She even voluntarily took on several difficult projects outside her own responsibilities, filling her time and occupying her mind with an almost self-punishing focus.
Only occasionally—late at night when reviewing the final set of data, or when waking from nightmares in the early morning—the skin on the inside of her wrist would suddenly feel that phantom weight again.
Heavy.
Wooden.
A lingering illusion that made her fingers pause slightly over the keyboard or around a glass of water.
—
Friday afternoon, near the end of the workday.
Zong Yi scanned and archived the final signed contract, rubbing her tired eyes.
The sunset outside was beautiful. Golden-red light spread across half the city.
She packed up and prepared to leave.
When she passed the CEO's office, the walnut door happened to open.
Yan Hanxie stepped out, holding a document, apparently about to look for someone.
She was wearing a light gray cashmere suit today, which made her skin appear even paler. Her hair was loosely tied up, giving her a bit more casualness than usual.
The prayer beads on her wrist glowed softly in the warm sunset light.
They met face to face in the corridor.
"President Yan." Zong Yi stopped and nodded slightly.
"Director Zong." Yan Hanxie also stopped. Her gaze rested on Zong Yi's face for a brief moment before shifting to the document in her hand. "'Spark Project' pilot site risk assessment. I've read the final version. It's good.
"You'll host the launch meeting on Monday."
"Understood," Zong Yi replied.
The air grew quiet for a moment. At the end of the corridor, colleagues walked past chatting and laughing, their voices faint.
Yan Hanxie seemed as though she wanted to say something more. Her lips moved slightly, and her fingers unconsciously rubbed along the edge of the document.
Sunlight slanted in from the window behind her, wrapping her figure in a soft golden glow. Even the prayer beads seemed unreal in their gentleness.
Zong Yi waited quietly.
But in the end, Yan Hanxie only nodded, stepped aside, and walked past her.
The hem of her silk shirt lightly brushed against Zong Yi's arm, leaving a faint, almost imperceptible tickle.
The prayer beads traced a quiet arc in the air as she walked.
She did not pause.
She did not look back.
Zong Yi stood there, listening to the steady sound of those footsteps fading into the corner of the corridor.
The sunset stretched her own shadow long across the polished floor—lonely and clear.
She lowered her eyes and looked at her empty wrist.
Sunlight had left a small warm mark there, but as the light shifted, it quickly disappeared.
She turned and walked toward the elevator.
Her steps were steady. Her back was straight.
Only when she reached the parking garage, sat in her car, and closed the door—shutting out all noise and light—did she lean back in the driver's seat and close her eyes.
The engine remained off.
The sensor lights in the garage quietly turned off due to her long stillness.
Darkness wrapped around her gently.
What replayed in her mind was not the sharp confrontations.
Not the binding restraint of the prayer beads.
Not the hot breath by her ear or the drunken murmurs.
Instead—
It was the quiet arc of those beads cutting through the air in the sunset corridor.
And the tiny hesitation when Yan Hanxie's fingers rubbed the edge of that document, as if she wanted to say something but stopped.
And even earlier, in the rain-soaked car, that sigh-light sentence:
"If I said… I regret it a little?"
Regret what?
Starting what?
The method?
Or… simply that she had let Zong Yi see that brief moment of exhaustion and confusion?
In the darkness, Zong Yi slowly raised her hand and pressed her fingers against the inside of her left wrist.
Her pulse beat steadily there.
Suddenly she remembered a long time ago—when she was still an intern, when Yan Hanxie had first called her into the office alone because of an almost perfect market analysis report.
Back then, Yan Hanxie had no prayer beads.
No vegetarian meals.
Only a pair of eyes as sharp as a hawk's, capable of piercing through all vanity and disguise.
She had placed the report on the desk and said only two sentences:
"Good work. But here—" her fingertip tapped one of the data deductions, "you skipped a step in the logic. Fix it."
Direct. Efficient. No unnecessary pleasantries or encouragement.
Yet at the time, Zong Yi had felt a thrilling excitement—the recognition of a top predator.
When had those eyes begun to hold something more than scrutiny and control?
And when had those "other things" begun to feel like the darkness of this garage—everywhere, yet impossible to grasp?
Suddenly her phone screen lit up in the dark, blue light illuminating half her face.
It was a routine weekly report reminder from the work group chat.
Zong Yi opened her eyes.
The brief confusion and turbulence in them had already settled, returning to her usual clarity and calm coldness.
She started the car.
The engine's roar tore through the silence as the headlights pierced the darkness, illuminating the familiar exit ahead.
The steering wheel felt steady beneath her palms.
She pressed the accelerator, and the car smoothly slid out of the parking spot, heading home.
Her wrist was empty.
Only her pulse beat beneath the skin—once, and once again—steady and stubborn.
—
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