Sliding back into the car, she was Rong Shu again: elegant, confident. Lu Qi chuckled. “Xiao Jin Ku has some fresh faces tonight. Want to go check them out?” The name, Xiao Jin Ku, was a playful twist on the classical “den of gilded pleasures”—a place designed for letting loose and spending extravagantly. Rong Shu was unimpressed. “Are you serious? I *just* became single.” He winked, leaning in conspiratorially. “Actually, there’s someone who wants to see you.” “Who?” “Someone you know. You’ll see when we get there.” Rong Shu considered it for a moment, then nodded. “Alright.” Lu Qi had a private booth at Xiao Jin Ku. As they walked in, the young man sitting on the sofa rose to his feet and turned to face them. He looked to be in his early twenties, strikingly tall with a chiseled face and sharp, intense eyes. The moment he saw her, a flicker of recognition lit up his gaze. “We meet again.” The young man looked incredibly familiar, but Rong Shu couldn’t for the life of her place him. “You don’t remember?” Lu Qi prompted. “Six years ago, in Jiangxian County. You and your father sponsored a student from a poor family.” At Lu Qi's words, it all came flooding back to her. “You’re… Li Chuan?” The sharpness in the young man’s features instantly softened, and a charming smile spread across his lips. “That’s me.” Li Chuan turned out to be a great conversationalist. Rong Shu learned from Lu Qi that he was now a sought-after model who had long since left the impoverished mountain region behind and become a familiar face on the magazine covers of Haicheng. Rong Shu’s world had been so consumed by the Fu family that she’d paid little attention to entertainment or pop culture. To think that the timid boy she remembered had transformed into a star filled her with a mixture of pride and wonder. After a while, the three of them prepared to leave. But just as they were passing the bar, a green bottle came flying toward Rong Shu’s head. To everyone’s surprise, Li Chuan moved even faster. He pulled her into his arms just as the bottle smashed against his back with a sickening thud. “Are you alright?” Grateful, Rong Shu quickly checked his back. Relieved to see he wasn't hurt, her face hardened as she turned her icy gaze in the direction the bottle had come from. And there he was: Fu Jinglin. “You bitch! How dare you cheat on my brother!” Fu Jinglin was drinking with his usual cronies. He’d seen Rong Shu walk into a private room with two men and had been stewing ever since. Seeing them emerge now, laughing and talking, his drunken anger boiled over, and he’d hurled the bottle in his hand. Lu Qi rolled up his sleeves, ready to step in. “Hey! This little punk is asking for a beating.” Rong Shu stopped him. “I’ll handle this.” She walked toward Fu Jinglin, each step deliberate. Fu Jinglin sneered. “It’s not like the bottle hit you!” Rong Shu’s expression was blank, her calm gaze unnervingly cold. “There’s something I’ve wanted to say to you for a very long time.” “What?” “Do you have any idea how insufferable you are? For the six years I was married to your brother, you never once called me sister-in-law. It was always ‘that damn woman.’ I had to look after you before school and after school. And all you ever did was order me around or insult me. Sixteen years of education—was it all for nothing? Did you learn a single thing about decency?” Fu Jinglin’s face flushed with anger as she berated him. “You—” “Shut up,” Rong Shu cut him off, her voice sharp. “I’ve already divorced your brother. I have nothing to do with your family anymore. Who I see is my business. You have no right and no say in it. If you ever provoke me again, I promise you, you'll be spending a night at the police station, juvenile or not.” Fu Jinglin's face was beet red, any retort he might have had dying in his throat. Without another glance at him, Rong Shu turned and walked away.