For the next few days, Cheng Yanzhou handed his work over to the vice president and locked himself inside the villa he shared with Shen Qi, forbidding anyone from coming near.
Cheng’s father and mother heard rumors while abroad and hurriedly called back, only to be placated by Cheng Yanzhou with reassurances that it was all mere gossip and that Shen Qi was doing fine.
The dim space remained unlit as he let out a deep sigh into the empty air.
On the living room coffee table sat the ordinary mug that Shen Qi had left behind. The sofa still seemed to retain the indentation from where he used to sit, yet the house no longer held any trace of that person.
Over and over, he scrolled through their chat history, from the sparse, business-like text exchanges to the unsent message that read: [Wait until you come back so we can talk]. His heart felt as though it were being gripped by an invisible hand, making even breathing hurt.
It was not until the fifth day that his private investigation yielded no new progress.
Suddenly, a sharp phone ring cut through the silence. Thinking the investigative team had finally located Shen Qi, Cheng Yanzhou answered it with a surge of eagerness.
Instead, his assistant’s frantic voice came through from the other end: “Mr. Cheng, Mr. Shen went to the police station to issue a death certificate, and he even contacted the funeral home. He is planning to hold the funeral as early as tomorrow, saying he needs to claim the insurance payout right away.”
Before the voice on the other end could finish speaking, a vein throbbed at Cheng Yanzhou’s temple. He grabbed his car keys and sprinted out.
That bastard Shen Wanli.
His car shot forward like a black flash of lightning, smashing directly through the iron gates of the Shen family courtyard.
Shen’s father was sitting in the living room discussing funeral arrangements with a few relatives. Printed obituaries lay scattered across the table, the words [The Deceased: Shen Qi] stinging painfully against his eyes.
“Who the hell authorized you to hold a funeral?”
Cheng Yanzhou’s voice was frigid, laden with monstrous fury. He rushed forward and violently flipped the table over, sending obituaries and teacups scattering across the floor.
Startled, Shen’s father recoiled a step before stiffening his spine. “I am his father! What business is it of yours if I hold his funeral? Who do you think you are? Now that he is gone, you refuse to hand over the insurance money, and you still want to block me?”
“Insurance money?”
Cheng Yanzhou stared at him, his gaze burning with a near-destructive madness. “Your son is gone, and all you care about is money?”
He lunged forward, grabbed Shen’s father by the collar, and slammed him against the wall.
“From the day he was born, did you ever care about him for a single day? Now that he is dead, you care about nothing except rushing to hold a funeral, even stripping away his last shred of dignity?”
Intimidated by his overwhelming presence, Shen’s father trembled as he spoke. “I am his father. Holding a funeral is only right and proper.”
“Right and proper?” Cheng Yanzhou laughed, his laughter dripping with utter desolation. “If he knew his funeral was being held just for insurance money, how heartbroken would he be?”
He loosened his grip, causing Shen’s father to swallow hard and collapse limply onto the floor.
Meanwhile, Shen Qi’s stepmother, who had been hiding aside for the moment, suddenly lunged forward, patting Shen’s father’s chest while wailing and carrying on like a shrew.
Surveying the utter wreckage of the room, Cheng Yanzhou suddenly felt a wave of profound helplessness.
Why was he the only person in the entire world who firmly believed Shen Qi was not dead?
Shen Qi would never die.
There were still so many blessings he had yet to enjoy, so much love still owed to him. He had to come back, and he had to return safe and sound.
He could not even bear to let Shen Qi endure the pain of a forced mark, how could he ever allow Shen Qi to experience the agony of a car crash or the scorching flames of an explosion?
Before leaving, he smashed the funeral wreaths that Shen Wanli had purchased in advance into absolute smithereens. Turning around, he cast a sidelong glare at everyone inside the house, the atmospheric pressure around him dropping to a terrifying low as he spoke in a chilling, lethal tone:
“Unless Shen Qi’s actual remains appear right in front of me, whoever dares to hold a funeral for Shen Qi will find me holding one for them.”
Gritting out those words through clenched teeth, he calmly returned to his car and sped away.
Returning home, a familiar sense of ease washed over him.
Only then did Cheng Yanzhou realize with a daze that Shen Qi was no longer at home waiting for him.
Pushing open the door, the dimness of the villa enveloped him like a net, slowly wrapping around and digesting the hostility he had just brought back from the Shen household.
When changing his shoes, his fingertips brushed against the side drawer of the entryway cabinet, where their wedding rings were kept.
Prompted by the thought, he instinctively opened the drawer and retrieved the box.
When they had first married, there truly was no emotion between them to speak of. Aside from the wedding day itself, purchasing these rings had served as mere window dressing.
Even later, after Cheng Yanzhou fell in love and understood he had to intentionally keep his distance to dispel any suspicions from Shen Qi, he never wore the ring again.
Shen Qi had occasionally worn his in the beginning, but for a very long period afterward, that ring had vanished from his ring finger.
He knew he had wronged Shen Qi, owing him far too much.
Yet there was no alternative. He lacked the courage to confess everything before clearing away the obstacles, only to nervously stumble into a perilous relationship where his pheromone mania could very well destroy Shen Qi.
A profound sense of sorrow gripped his heart.
He thought to himself: If Shen Qi were truly dead, would he regret not telling him the truth for the rest of his life?
His thoughts drifted, but his hands kept moving as the box popped open.
Cheng Yanzhou’s expression froze the instant he saw what was inside.
His own platinum ring lay quietly in its velvet slot, while the adjacent space belonging to Shen Qi was completely empty.
He abruptly stood up, his heart pounding frantically as a premonition drove him rushing into the bedroom.
The framed wedding photograph had originally stood upright, but now it was flipped face down, glass pointing toward the table surface, as though someone never wanted to look at that picture again.
Cheng Yanzhou flipped it back over, his fingertips brushing across Shen Qi’s smiling face, that standard smile required by the wedding photographer, bright yet gentle.
Suppressing a sharp ache in his chest, he began searching the room.
Opening the wardrobe, several of the clothes Shen Qi wore frequently were gone, though not all of them.
What remained were the expensive suits he had bought for him, while everything taken away consisted of comfortable, inexpensive old clothes.
He casually picked up a suit jacket he had custom-made for him last year and sniffed the fabric.
Although Shen Qi was a Beta without pheromones, he was sentimental. His shampoo, body wash, and even laundry detergent were always the exact same scent. Having hung in the wardrobe for a long time, this suit had absorbed Shen Qi’s signature scent.
Closing his eyes in thought, memories suddenly surged back.
On the morning Shen Qi set off to leave Haishi, he had run into him in the company elevator. Shen Qi’s gaze had flickered when he saw him, and he had not even been willing to ride the elevator with him.
When asked why he came to the company, he had said he needed to finish up some unfinished work.
Knowing how hard Shen Qi always worked, he had not thought much of it at the time.
Yet looking back now, it gave rise to the chilling sense that he had been trying to detach himself.
As if he were planning to vanish entirely from his world.
The missing wedding ring, the overturned photograph, the elevator exchange, the nonchalance during those phone calls while away.
These fragments suddenly pieced themselves together into a chilling hypothesis.
Shen Qi had not died. He had engineered this fake death entirely to escape him.
Earlier, when combing through their chat history, the unsent message [Wait until you come back so we can talk] was still lingering in the input box.
Perhaps from the very beginning, Shen Qi had never intended to wait and talk.
A certain scene flashed vividly back into his mind.
“As long as you are still breathing, don’t even think about leaving this home.”
Those were the harsh words he had blurted out in a rage fueled by his rut and pheromone mania when Shen Qi first brought up divorce.
So that was it.
Shen Qi chose to die in front of him just to break free from this house?
The sky outside the window had darkened completely. Sitting in the pitch darkness without turning on a single light, Cheng Yanzhou finally understood.
So, he had deliberately wanted to leave him behind.
Shen Qi must have hated him to the bone.
Taking several deep breaths, Cheng Yanzhou managed to keep the moisture in his eyes from spilling over.
He pulled out his phone and brought up the contact info for the investigative team, his finger hovering over the screen without pressing down.
If Shen Qi truly wanted to leave, what good would it do for the investigative team to track him down? Forcibly dragging him back would only push him further away.
Cheng Yanzhou closed his eyes, a profound bitterness welling up in his throat, hurting far more than the initial news of Shen Qi’s death.
It turned out that compared to losing someone, being deliberately pushed away was the one thing that rendered him truly powerless.