The top-floor office of Hengyao Group was silent in the middle of the night. Only the steady tapping of the keyboard and the faint rustle of turning pages echoed through the space. Jiang Yi had been working continuously for fourteen hours. Documents piled up before him like a small mountain, yet he seemed tireless, reviewing them one after another without pause.
Qin Feng had come earlier in the evening to persuade him to rest. The dinner he brought still sat untouched on the coffee table, long since gone cold. Before leaving, Qin Feng had said, “If you keep pushing like this, your body will collapse,” but Jiang Yi didn’t even lift his head as he replied, “There are still three contracts left to review. You should go back first.”
At two in the early dawn, Jiang Yi finally set down the last document. He stood up and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window. From the height of the twenty-eighth floor, the entire city’s nightscape spread out before him. Neon lights traced the streets, and traffic flowed endlessly. This bustling city never rested… just like the thoughts in his mind, which refused to stop.
Almost unconsciously, he touched the ring finger of his left hand. The wedding ring had already been removed and placed in a drawer, yet a faint mark still lingered on his finger.
At that moment, a familiar melody drifted in from somewhere… it was “Wedding in a Dream.” Jiang Yi’s body stiffened instantly. This song…
Memories surged like a tide, overwhelming him before he could resist.
Three years ago, on a certain night, Shu Jin had leaned against him while watching a romantic movie. The starry sky wedding in the film had filled her with longing. “If only our wedding could have a sky full of stars,” she had said casually, her eyes still fixed on the screen.
She spoke without thinking, but he had taken it to heart. From that moment, a secret plan began to take shape in Jiang Yi’s mind.
He remembered how he had kept it from Shu Jin, secretly reserving the Yunshui Resort on the outskirts of the city. He remembered the countless discussions with designers, insisting on creating a truly realistic starry sky effect indoors. During those days, he handled company matters during the day and supervised the setup at night. Sometimes, he even joined in personally, arranging the details with his own hands.
On the night before the wedding, he had stayed alone in the banquet hall until early dawn, adjusting thousands of miniature projection lights. When the entire dome was finally filled with brilliant starlight, he was so exhausted that he sat down on the floor. Yet his heart was filled with anticipation. You are reading on novelping dot com, the official source.
On the day of the wedding, when Shu Jin was led into the hall blindfolded, he would never forget her expression the moment she removed it.
“This is…” she looked up at the star-filled sky above, her voice choked with emotion, unable to continue.
Thousands of projection lights scattered across the dome, forming a cascade of shimmering points like a real galaxy pouring down. Nebula patterns flowed slowly along the walls, rotating gently, and occasionally a shooting star streaked past. Even beneath their feet, the glass floor was embedded with tiny lights, making it feel as though they were walking across the stars themselves.
Shu Jin wore a wedding dress specially designed with a starry sky theme. The hem was adorned with countless crystals that sparkled brilliantly under the lights. As she gazed up at the sky he had created for her, tears streamed uncontrollably down her face.
“When… when did you prepare all of this?” she asked, her voice trembling.
Jiang Yi smiled as he wiped away her tears, leading her beneath the starry sky. The guests’ exclamations echoed around them, yet in his eyes, there was only her.
When the officiant asked the classic vow, Shu Jin cried so hard she could barely speak. She held his hand tightly and, before all the guests, beneath the sky he had created, said word by word, “Jiang Yi, the luckiest thing in my life is marrying you. From today on, whether in good times or bad, whether in wealth or poverty, I will stay by your side forever, until the end of my life.”
At that moment, he had believed it would last forever.
The memories played out like frames of a film… the way her dress fluttered as she spun beneath the stars, the cream she mischievously smeared on his nose while cutting the cake, the playful glint in her eyes as she tossed the bouquet, and that night in the starry suite when she nestled in his arms and said it was the happiest moment of her life.
Bang…
A dull crash snapped Jiang Yi back to reality. He looked down and realized he had accidentally knocked over the photo frame on the desk. The glass had shattered across the floor. In the photograph, Shu Jin’s smiling face under the starry sky was now fractured into countless pieces. Follow the newest chapters on NovelPing.
He slowly crouched down and picked up a shard. In the photo, her eyes curved into crescents, filled with happiness. Yet now, those same eyes were smiling at another man.
A sharp pain suddenly pierced his heart, far more intense than the pain of smashing his fist against the wall. He braced himself against the glass window, his fingers tightening unconsciously.
Outside, the neon lights still flickered, but in his eyes, all brightness had dimmed. Those once sweet memories had turned into the sharpest blades, slicing into his heart again and again.
He remembered returning home the night before… the unfamiliar pair of men’s shoes at the entrance, Shu Jin rushing out of the bedroom in disheveled clothes, and Gu Chen wearing his pajamas with a look of complete entitlement.
The vows beneath the starry sky still echoed in his ears… yet the person who made them had already changed.
Jiang Yi slowly stood up and tossed the shard of glass into the trash. Every movement felt heavy, as if weighed down by an invisible burden.
He walked back to the desk and opened the lowest drawer. The wedding ring lay quietly inside a velvet box, reflecting a cold, rigid gleam under the light. With a soft click, he closed the box and pushed it deep into the drawer.
Outside, the eastern sky was beginning to pale. A new day was about to begin. But for Jiang Yi, every dawn was a reminder that the star-filled world he once had had completely collapsed.
He picked up the intercom and dialed his assistant. “Notify all departments… the meeting will start one hour earlier today.”
After hanging up, he stood in the faint morning light. His figure was straight and steady like a pine tree, yet there was an indescribable loneliness surrounding him.
The more beautiful the memory, the deeper it cut. And now, the only thing he could do was bury that pain deep within his heart… then drown himself in work, until he could no longer feel it at all.