Three police cars blocked the alley entrance. A young officer was negotiating with the bodyguards. When he saw Lu Sihan emerge, his expression shifted instantly from “Let me see who’s being so arrogant” to “Sorry, sir, my apologies for the disturbance.”
Lu Sihan got into the car.
The moment the car door closed, the live stream cut off.
Then came a black screen—a long stretch of black screen.
But the 5.8 million viewers didn’t leave.
Comments continued to flood the dark screen: “And then? And then? And then?”
“He cried… he cried… that man who always wears a cold expression cried…”
“I don’t care, I’m shipping them. Love still exists in this world…”
“That child is so adorable, so clever, so protective of his mom… a perfect son…”
“Lu Sihan, why didn’t you chase after her? Are you even a man…”
“Open the door! Keep filming! I want to see what happens next!”
“Does anyone know Shen Luning’s address? I’m flying over right now to stake out the place…”
Lu Sihan sat in the back seat, gazing out the window at the sixth-floor window.
He saw the light in the room go out. She had gone to sleep.
He lowered his head, opened his phone, and scrolled to a name in his contacts he hadn’t contacted in a long time—his personal doctor, a psychiatrist, the best in the country.
His finger hovered over the call button. Suddenly, he remembered the child’s eyes.
Those eyes, identical to his own—clear, innocent, untouched by the world’s cruelty.
He didn’t want the child to see him like this—kneeling, bleeding, broken.
He wanted that child to see a… normal… version of him.
He took a deep breath.
“Dr. Zhang, this is Lu Sihan. I need to schedule an appointment as soon as possible.”
There was a brief silence on the other end of the line, likely surprised that the wealthiest man in A City, who had never needed a psychologist, was proactively calling to make an appointment.
“President Lu, could you briefly explain the situation?”
Lu Sihan leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes.
After the light in the sixth-floor window went out, the building’s outline slowly blurred into the night.
He remembered their last argument five years ago, when Shen Luning had tearfully asked him, “Did you ever love me at all?” He hadn’t answered.
Not because he didn’t want to, but because he didn’t know how.
A man abandoned three times since childhood, a man who had known since the age of three that “no one will stay by my side forever.”
He couldn’t even distinguish what it felt like to be loved, let alone know whether he was capable of loving someone else.
He had pondered that question for five years, and now he finally had an answer.
“Dr. Zhang,” he said, “I need to figure something out.”
“What is it?”
“How to love someone like a normal person.”
Another pause on the other end.
“President Lu, that’s not something psychology alone can solve. That’s a life lesson.”
Lu Sihan smiled—a smile devoid of madness, obsession, or the chilling gentleness that sent shivers down one’s spine.
Instead, it held just a trace, a tiny, deeply hidden flicker of vulnerability—like the fragile hope of a newly sprouted seed.
“Then add that lesson to the list,” he said.
“I’ll pay for it.”
The car drove out of the alley and turned onto the main road.
Streetlights flashed past the window one by one, casting alternating light and shadow across Lu Sihan’s face.
He looked down at the obvious dust stains on his knees, his fingertips tracing the shapes of those marks over and over.
Suddenly, he remembered something.
In the live stream, that doorplate number, the location of that building.
The name of that alley, and Xiao Niangao’s face.
He jolted upright as if struck by an electric shock, grabbed his phone, and opened the short video platform.
The live stream had ended, but the video he posted was still there.
Title: [Lu Sihan: Five years ago, I owed you an apology. Today, I’m returning it in front of everyone.]
Views: 80 million.
Comments: 1.2 million.
He scrolled down frantically, his heart pounding so hard it felt like it would leap out of his throat.
He saw the top comment, with 3.2 million likes:
“Sisters, I took a screenshot! The doorplate number is XXXX Community, Building X, Unit X, Room 601!!!! Shen Luning, you’re about to go viral—your man just gave you a live stream broadcast across the entire internet, enjoy your spot at the top of the trending list, you’re welcome!!!”
Lu Sihan’s face instantly drained of color.
He slammed his hand against the driver’s seat: “Turn around!!”
“President Lu?”
“Turn around!! Go back to that community!! Now!! Immediately!! Hurry!!”
The driver had never heard him speak in such a tone before.
It wasn’t a command—it was fear.
The car screeched to a halt in the middle of the road, tires emitting an ear-piercing friction sound before swerving around and speeding back.
Lu Sihan clutched his phone tightly, the screen displaying that screenshot.
He frantically dialed Shen Luning’s number—it was powered off.
WeChat had been blocked.
Every means of contact—all blocked.
He slammed his fist against the seat, his knuckles hitting the leather with a dull thud.
Too late. He had personally delivered her name, her face, her doorplate number, her son’s face, everything she had desperately hidden for the past five years…
Straight to the top of the trending list across the entire internet.
And at this very moment, in the sixth-floor rental apartment, Shen Luning stood on the balcony, looking down at the overwhelming flood of comments and private messages on her phone screen.
Behind her, Xiao Niangao was already asleep, clutching the patched-up rabbit plushie in his arms.
The glow from the phone illuminated her face.
She wasn’t crying.
She just stared at those words, one by one, slowly, as if carving every single character into her bones.
[Shocking scoop!!! Shen Luning is the designer who was convicted of plagiarism five years ago!!]
[I dug it up! Lu Sihan’s white moonlight from back then, Jiang Wan, looks 70% like Shen Luning!!]
[So Shen Luning was a substitute? Got pregnant and ran away?]
[That child is so cute, but is he really Lu Sihan’s?]
[Do you think Shen Luning did this on purpose? Disappearing with a child for five years and suddenly reappearing—what else could it be if not riding the hype?]
[She’s hiding in a rundown old place—you call that riding the hype? Have you ever seen anyone riding the hype living in a sixth-floor rental with no elevator?]
[Anyway, I’m on the man’s side. The richest man knelt on such dirty ground begging her, and she wouldn’t even open the door—that’s too heartless.]
[Have you forgotten what Lu Sihan did five years ago? Who was behind the scenes pulling the strings when Shen Luning’s design award was revoked?]
[What’s there to argue about? None of you know the truth.]
Shen Luning flipped her phone over and placed it face-down on the balcony railing.
The night wind was strong, whipping her T-shirt loudly.
She looked down at the alley below. The twelve Rolls-Royces were gone, and the alley had returned to its usual darkness and quiet.
Only the small convenience store on the first floor still had its lights on. The shopkeeper was cracking sunflower seeds at the entrance, occasionally glancing up toward the sixth floor.
Starting tomorrow, this alley would no longer be quiet.
Starting tomorrow, countless people would flood into this intersection, holding up their phones, filming her door, her windows, her child.
Starting tomorrow, the three characters “Shen Luning” would no longer be just her own name.
They would become a trending search term, gossip fodder, a traffic magnet, a topic for millions online.