The car was silent, but Bai Yuanyuan's voice, shrill with urgency, cut through the quiet. Su Qingyu heard the name clearly: “Qingchen.” She remembered it all too well—the day she’d gotten the positive pregnancy test. She’d rushed into Li Tingchen’s arms, her heart soaring. “Chen,” she’d said, “you’re going to be a father! We’re having a baby! I’ve already thought of a name. If it’s a girl, Li Qingchen. If it’s a boy, Li Qingchen. A piece of both of us. What do you think?” She prayed she had misheard. But Li Tingchen met her gaze without flinching, his answer sharp and clean. “His name is Li Qingchen.” “You bastard!” Su Qingyu’s hand flew, the slap cracking across his face. This time, he didn’t dodge. He let her hit him. “How could you give her son the name we chose for our baby?” The child had been her last line of defense. Now, it shattered. Tears streamed down her face, and with a wild cry, she threw herself at him. “You monster! Why did God take my baby? Why couldn’t it have been you who died?” Losing all reason, Su Qingyu hammered her fists against Li Tingchen’s chest again and again. “He doesn’t deserve that name!” Li Tingchen seized her wrists. “To Luhai Residence,” he ordered Chen Feng. Su Qingyu struggled, her voice rising in panic. “We’re almost at the Civil Affairs Bureau! If you’re leaving, you’ll leave a divorced man!” “The boy has a high fever that won’t break. I have to go now.” Su Qingyu’s voice was laced with bitter fury. “My father is lying in a coma, and the nurses are hounding me for money so much I can’t even set foot in the hospital! Your son’s life is a life, but my father’s isn’t?” At the mention of Su Qiping, the coldness on Li Tingchen’s face deepened. “You dare compare Su Qiping to Qingchen?” Gasping with rage, Su Qingyu tried to lunge at him again, to claw at his face, but her hands were pinned. Li Tingchen’s voice boomed through the car, “Have you had enough?” She watched helplessly as the car made a U-turn, leaving the Civil Affairs Bureau just around the bend. To stop her from fighting, he pinned her against him, trapping her in his arms. The embrace she had once cherished had become her prison. His strength was overwhelming. Frail and exhausted, she couldn’t break free, her fury turning impotent. “Do you love Bai Yuanyuan that much?” she choked out. For a moment, Li Tingchen seemed to drift. As he held her, he realized just how thin she’d become. She was nothing like the woman from a year ago; he could feel her bones through her clothes. The delicate flower he had once held in the palm of his hand was withering away. Was this truly what he wanted? Just as the doubt surfaced, the image of a woman’s horribly mangled corpse flashed in his mind. His hand on Su Qingyu's waist tightened, crushing the thought. When he looked up again, the flicker of pain in his eyes was gone, replaced by an endless, glacial cold. “Su Qingyu,” he said, his voice dropping to a deadly calm, “try me again, and I’ll have someone pull the plug on Su Qiping’s life support. See if I don’t.” Her hands clenched his shirt, tears soaking the fabric. He had once promised he would never make her cry. Now, he was the source of all her tears. The silence in the car became suffocating. She calmed herself, pushed him away, and sat bolt upright. Su Qingyu sniffled, her voice now devoid of emotion. “You need to see your son. That’s your business. But your problems shouldn’t interfere with our plans. And don’t worry, I won’t cling to you anymore. Even if you don’t want this divorce, I’m getting it. I’m not in the habit of picking up trash.” Li Tingchen’s brow furrowed at the word “trash,” but Su Qingyu pressed on, heedless. “I admit, I was naive. I held on to some ridiculous fantasy about you. But I see the light now. There's no point clinging to ashes; better to just scatter them to the wind. Give me the money, and we can finalize the paperwork whenever you have time. I’ll be there, on call. I won’t back out.” “And if I refuse?” She met his dark eyes. Freshly washed by tears, her own were as bright and cold as a mountain stream after a storm. “Then I’ll jump out of this car right now. If I can’t save my father, I have no reason to live.” Li Tingchen took out his checkbook and wrote out a figure. “The remaining five million will be paid after the divorce is finalized.” A cold smile touched Su Qingyu’s lips. “You really are terrified I won’t divorce you, aren’t you? Don’t worry. Every extra second I spend with a man like you makes me sick to my stomach. Stop the car.” She snatched the check, slammed the car door shut, and walked away without a backward glance. Finally, Dad could be saved. Su Qingyu cashed the check, paid off the medical bills immediately, and then hailed a cab to the address Chen Ling had given her. It was an exclusive, private cemetery, the final resting place for the city’s wealthy and powerful. Old Mrs. Li was buried here, too. Su Qingyu bought a bouquet of bluebells, the old woman’s favorite. It didn’t take her long to find a new grave. Surrounding it was a circle of plum trees. The trees were already covered in buds, promising a sea of blossoms soon. A name she didn’t recognize was carved into the cold headstone: “In Memory of Li Lanrui.” She knew Li Tingchen had adored his younger sister. After she went missing, her name became a forbidden topic, a wound he never allowed anyone to touch. As a result, Su Qingyu knew nothing about her. Lanrui. Was that her name? Su Qingyu had never heard it. She knelt, looking at the photograph on the headstone. It must have been taken before Li Lanrui disappeared, when she was five or six. A cherubic face with chubby cheeks, her eyes held a faint shadow of Li Tingchen’s. Still, it offered no clues. Su Qingyu took a photo of the headstone with her phone, her only lead. She placed the bluebells she’d brought for the grandmother by Lanrui’s grave and began to speak in a low murmur. “Little Rui, my name is Su Qingyu. If you were alive, you would have called me sister-in-law. No, ex-sister-in-law, I guess. I’m sorry we’re meeting like this. I promise, I will find the person who killed you…” The old Mrs. Li's tomb was nearby. In her photo, the matriarch was smiling kindly, her warmth preserved in the portrait. Su Qingyu pulled a roasted sweet potato, still warm from that morning, out of her pocket and placed it before the headstone. “Grandma, I’ve come to see you. It’s winter again. Without you here to fight me for it, the sweet potato doesn’t taste the same.” Her legs grew tired from standing, so she sat down beside the grave, talking as if the old woman were still alive and sitting right there with her. “Grandma, I’m sorry. I couldn’t protect our baby. But don’t worry, that shameless Li Tingchen has already produced an heir for the Li family. You don’t have to worry about the family line ending.” “Grandma, he’s changed. He’s not the man I knew anymore. He used to promise he would shelter me from every storm, but now, he is the storm. If you were still here, you wouldn’t let him treat me like this, would you?” A strained smile played on her lips. “Grandma, Li Tingchen and I are getting a divorce soon. You used to say that if he ever hurt me, you’d climb right out of your coffin and smack him upside the head. I don’t have much time left. When I come down to join you, we can climb out together and give him what he deserves. What do you say?” “Grandma, what does it feel like to die? Is it dark? I’m scared of the bugs… what if they try to bite me?” “Grandma, how about I burn some more spirit money for you? You can save it up, and when I get there, you can buy me a big mansion? A sprawling eight-hundred-square-meter one?” “Grandma, I miss you…”