CHAPTER 110 — The Last Severed Thread
The courtroom was silent—so silent it felt like even the walls were holding their breath.
Shi Yunxi stood in the center of the aisle, surrounded by the heavy presence of reporters, lawyers, and policemen. Flashing cameras froze her in bursts of white light, but she didn't flinch. She didn't blink. She didn't break.
She had done all her breaking years ago.
Today wasn't for pain.
Today was for closure.
Today was for freedom.
Across the room, Shi Zhenai and Roulan were escorted in, both in handcuffs, both in disgrace, both visibly shaken. The father who once strutted through business halls like a king was now a hollow man—hair disheveled, face sunken, pride gone. And Roulan—
Roulan looked like she hadn't slept in weeks.
Her eyes were swollen red from nonstop crying.
Her once-perfect hair hung limp and tangled.
Her wrists trembled violently in their restraints.
She looked nothing like the glamorous heiress she once pretended to be.
She looked broken.
She looked exactly like what she had always been: a coward pretending to be powerful.
Shi Zhenai's gaze flicked around nervously until it landed on Yunxi. His lips curled into a snarl.
"You!" he spat. "You ungrateful—"
"Silence," the judge snapped before he could continue.
Shi Zhenai shut his mouth, but his glare didn't waver.
Yunxi didn't return it. She didn't need to.
People who were drowning always reached for anything to pull down with them—that was all the Shi family had ever been.
The prosecution read out the charges—embezzlement, tax evasion, illegal detention, child endangerment, multiple counts of abuse. Each accusation struck like a hammer. Each one dragged the Shi family deeper into their grave.
And Roulan?
Her crimes were listed last.
Kidnapping.
Attempted harm to a minor.
Attempted coercion.
Conspiracy to commit murder.
Her legs buckled.
A murmur rippled across the room.
Yunxi didn't move.
Roulan looked up sharply—her eyes bloodshot, unfocused. She started laughing.
The kind of laugh that didn't belong to sanity.
The kind of laugh a person makes when all the lies they built collapse on top of them.
"Isn't it funny, Yunxi?" she giggled, hair falling over her face. "After everything Daddy protected… after everything we did… it still wasn't enough."
Shi Zhenai flinched. "Roulan, shut up!"
But she didn't stop.
She pointed at Yunxi with trembling fingers.
"It's your fault! If you didn't exist—if you didn't look like that—if people didn't like you—NONE OF THIS WOULD HAVE HAPPENED!"
Her voice cracked, morphing into a hysterical sob.
"You ruined us! You ruined me!"
The judge slammed the gavel. "Defendant, control yourself!"
But Roulan couldn't.
She lunged forward only to be yanked back by officers.
"YUNXI!! SAY SOMETHING!! SAY SOMETHING, YOU—YOU—"
Yunxi finally lifted her head.
Everyone fell silent.
Her voice was soft.
But it sliced sharper than a knife.
"I don't need to say anything," she said. "The truth already did."
Roulan froze.
Shi Zhenai stiffened.
The court held its breath.
Yunxi continued, eyes calm, expression steady.
"For years, you tried to break me. You tried to own me. You tried to make me disappear."
Her gaze moved from Roulan to Shi Zhenai.
"But I survived. Despite you. Not because of you."
Shi Zhenai's chest heaved. "You dare—"
She cut him off with a cold, final look.
"I stopped fearing you a long time ago."
Roulan shook her head violently, tears spilling down her face. "You think you're better than us? You think you can walk away? YOU'RE A SHI!"
This time Yunxi smiled.
Not a gentle smile.
Not a pained one.
A tired, finished one.
"No," she said softly, "not anymore."
She reached into her folder and pulled out a single document.
A renunciation certificate.
The official paperwork declaring she was voluntarily cutting all legal and familial ties with the Shi family.
Gasps broke across the courtroom.
Roulan stared in disbelief. "You're—leaving? Leaving us?"
Yunxi met her eyes.
"I left the moment you hurt my children."
Roulan collapsed.
Literally.
Her knees hit the floor, shoulders shaking, the last fragments of her dignity scattering like dust.
Shi Zhenai's face turned deathly pale. "Yunxi—if you walk out that door, everything—EVERYTHING our family built—"
"—was never mine to protect," Yunxi said calmly. "And it's not my job to save you from the consequences of your own sins."
The judge nodded to the bailiffs.
"Take the defendants back into custody."
"No! NO!!" Roulan screamed. "YUNXI!! YUNXI COME BACK!! COME BACK!!"
But Yunxi didn't look back.
Not even once.
Mu Lingchen stepped forward from the back of the courtroom and offered her his hand.
She took it.
They walked out together—into the light outside the courthouse, into the roar of cheering reporters and supportive crowds, into a future where the Shi family no longer existed in her shadow.
The sky was clear.
Warm sunlight touched her face.
Her children—Shi Yichen, Shi Qing'er, and Mu Rui—ran toward her, shouting "Mommy!"
Yunxi dropped to her knees and hugged them all at once.
Lingchen knelt beside them, wrapping his arms around all four of them.
This—
This was her family now.
This was all she needed.
Behind them, the Shi legacy—of cruelty, lies, and rot—crumbled into dust.
Before them, a new life stretched wide open.
Freedom.
Real freedom.
For the first time in her life, Yunxi breathed without fear.
And she didn't look back.