Seeing his granddaughter suddenly offer to walk Shen Che out, Elder Xu couldn’t hide his surprise. Hm? There’s still hope? Elder Xu thought to himself, and the heavy gloom from just moments ago over the broken engagement lifted slightly.
“Alright then, take care. Ah Che, you must come visit when you have time,” Elder Xu said with a smile, waving his hand. Even if the engagement was off, Shen Che was still his “grandson” in name.
The two walked side by side toward the entrance. The atmosphere was subtly tense. Xu Qiuchi’s heartbeat inexplicably quickened. She bit her lower lip, hesitating to speak several times.
Not far outside the entrance, they stepped onto a stone path that led to the garage. The path was paved with smooth white cobblestones that gleamed warmly under the sunlight, winding into the distance with no end in sight.
They walked side by side, but their footsteps didn’t sync. Xu Qiuchi followed quietly behind Shen Che, her expression unusually conflicted. Her gaze unconsciously fell on his back. Her lips parted slightly, like she had something to say—but she swallowed it again and again.
She kept asking herself deep down, had Shen Che really stopped liking her?
She had always longed for freedom. She should’ve been sincerely happy when Shen Che agreed to break off the engagement. But at this moment, her heart felt like it was tightly tangled in a mess of knots—an aching mix of sourness and disappointment.
Shen Che walked ahead with firm steps. Sensing Xu Qiuchi’s hesitation behind him, he casually glanced back. He saw her brows furrowed, her eyes full of inner conflict.
Shen Che thought silently, Judging by her look, she must have something to say.
But then, he reminded himself that it no longer concerned him. From the moment they decided to end the engagement, their lives had gone separate ways.
Xu Qiuchi’s steps paused slightly. Her mind wrestled with itself for a long time. Her nails dug into her palms. Finally, she summoned the courage and called out in a trembling voice, “Shen Che, um…”
The moment she spoke, she regretted it and wished she could bite her tongue off. But the words were already out—she couldn’t take them back.
She panicked internally, searching her mind for something—anything—to say. Her heart pounded like a drum, ready to burst from her chest.
Her eyes darted around, desperately seeking inspiration from the surroundings.
Under the pressure of tension and awkwardness, a barely passable excuse popped into her head.
She took a deep breath, steadied her emotions, and tried to sound natural, “I just wanted to ask… if we do break off the engagement, will the cooperation between our families continue as usual?”
As soon as the words left her mouth, she looked nervously at Shen Che’s side profile, watching closely for any flicker of expression.
Shen Che’s steps abruptly halted. A flicker of surprise flashed in his previously calm eyes.
He turned slightly, gaze falling on Xu Qiuchi’s face, as if trying to decipher her true intention behind that question.
The Shen and Xu families had maintained close ties for years, and their business partnerships were deeply intertwined. Every joint venture involved the lifelines of both families. If these were cut off due to a broken engagement, it would harm both sides severely.
From a practical standpoint, it would be a lose-lose situation. The seasoned elders from both families would never make such a foolish move. And on an emotional level, decades of friendship couldn’t be severed so easily either. Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
So, for Xu Qiuchi to bring this up now—it was obvious she was just finding something to say. A forced attempt to keep the conversation going.
“It won’t. The cooperation between our families won’t end. Breaking off the engagement is just a personal matter between us,” Shen Che responded calmly.
“That’s good to hear,” Xu Qiuchi replied. Her face returned to its usual cold expression.
Why did I ask him that? she thought to herself, frustrated. I already knew our family’s partnership wouldn’t be affected.
They continued walking along the cobblestone path, soon covering quite a distance.
Just like before, Shen Che walked ahead with steady steps. Xu Qiuchi followed behind him with her cold and quiet demeanor.
Neither spoke again. The silence hung between them like a thin but unbreakable veil.
Shen Che, having read the original novel, understood what Xu Qiuchi’s resistance to him truly stemmed from.
Xu Qiuchi had a knot in her heart—one that had made it impossible for her to love anyone again. Or perhaps, it was more accurate to say that her heart had lost the ability to respond to love.
When she was seventeen, her parents began to fight constantly. Sometimes they even gave each other the silent treatment, living separately.
To her, it felt alien. As a child, her parents had been so loving. But now, they fought like enemies.
By the time she turned nineteen, the situation had reached its peak. Her parents had the most explosive argument ever. That night, her mother slammed the door and left. But a day later, after her father apologized, she returned home.
Then, just a few days later, her father and mother were killed in a car accident on the Fifth Ring Road.
At the funeral, the nineteen-year-old Xu Qiuchi dressed in black, weeping so hard she nearly fainted. At that time, Shen Che had still been on good terms with her and had quietly stayed by her side, comforting her.
Three months later, overwhelmed with grief, Xu Qiuchi went to organize her parents’ belongings to ease the pain of loss.
While sorting through her father’s study, she accidentally found a note in a drawer. On it were the words—”Mo Yanxi, I want you dead!”
Mo Yanxi was her mother. The note was found in her father’s study, and the handwriting matched his. It was too much of a coincidence.
After that, Xu Qiuchi hired handwriting experts to verify the note’s authenticity and its time of writing.
The experts confirmed that the note had indeed been written just a few days before the accident.
Xu Qiuchi was instantly chilled to the bone—her parents’ death hadn’t been an accident!
The terrifying suspicion crept into her mind.
So Xu Qiuchi hired top private investigators to look into the full truth.
Eventually, they uncovered the reason behind the parents’ years of conflict—when Xu Qiuchi was seventeen, her mother had emotionally cheated on her father, hiding it from him.
That was when her father started to grow hysterical and combative toward her mother.
His once obsessive love for her mother twisted into boundless hatred.
After two years of fighting, her father’s resentment exploded. He secretly arranged the fatal car accident, trying to disguise it as an accident to kill Mo Yanxi and settle his grudge.
But things went horribly wrong. In the end, both parents died in that crash.
After learning the truth, Xu Qiuchi was overwhelmed by terror. The entire incident left a deep and lasting psychological scar.
Add to that her later years in university, the exposure to modern education, her internal resistance to arranged marriages, and—of course—Shen Che’s constant, suffocating pursuit.
Shen Che’s love for her… was too much like her father’s love for her mother.
It was that suffocating intensity that reminded her of everything she wished she could forget.
Her father had loved her mother so deeply… and in the end, he wanted her dead.
So at twenty, Xu Qiuchi became convinced that marriage was the grave of love.
With no close friends due to her cold personality, and no one to guide her emotionally, she completely shut herself off from romance.
That was why she had always turned a blind eye to Shen Che’s tireless devotion.
As time passed, her resistance toward his passionate pursuit only grew stronger.
She began to avoid him more and more, as if his burning love might scorch her.
Especially in the past half month, Shen Che had been showing up nearly every day, trying to meet with her, talk to her, express his unwavering love.
Yet Xu Qiuchi mostly responded with indifference.
Sometimes, when Shen Che appeared before her, full of hope, she’d say a few perfunctory words, then find an excuse to leave quickly.
More often, she’d just shut her door and leave him outside, letting him wait in vain—never giving him even a glimpse of the one he longed to see.