May 17, 2025. The Bund No. 3, top floor.
Shanghai was so humid it felt like being stewed alive. The air was thick with plum-rain damp and the diesel stink drifting off the Huangpu, sticking to your skin like a bad debt.
I was wearing that Rick Owens black wedding gown, three-metre train trailing behind me like spilled ink.
In the mirror I looked sharp enough to cut glass, collarbones jutting out, a diamond chain across them spelling:
"Control is the only aphrodisiac."
The clasp was a real lock. The key was in Fu Juanzhou's pocket.
I remember thinking: lock me up, fine. I stopped believing in freedom a long time ago.
No guests, no music, just a gold-tier lawyer who charges 100k per minute.
While he read the clauses, my mind went blank.
All I could think was:
This piece of paper is the most expensive thing I've ever sold myself for.
Once I sign, Fu Juanzhou and I become Siamese twins joined at the wallet and the grave. Whoever files first gets flayed alive.
When he stamped the steel seal—"thunk"—something inside my chest actually hurt.
Not touched. Hurt.
Like someone reopened the scar Shen Yijun left six years ago and poured salt in it.
Ceremony over, elevator doors closed, the whole floor was suddenly just us.
Black mirror room—ceiling, walls, carpet, everything mirrored. I felt dizzy looking at a thousand versions of myself with red eyes I hadn't let cry.
I just suddenly remembered the night Shen Yijun promised me the northern lights, same sticky heat, same suffocating sweetness.
Fu Juanzhou came up behind me, chin on my shoulder, voice hoarse:
"Lin Zhi, last chance to back out."
I laughed until my ribs shook. "Back out? Baby, the only thing I regret is not chaining you sooner."
He bit the key between his teeth, metal taste mixing with his breath on my nape.
One tug—the zipper, the dress, everything slid to the floor like dead skin.
I stood naked in front of the mirrors and saw the tiniest curve at my lower belly.
So small, so alien. A time bomb someone had planted inside me while I wasn't looking.
For one second I was terrified—not of him, of myself.
Terrified that I'd blunt my own blade for this kid.
I turned, went on tiptoe, bit his Adam's apple, and cursed him in Shanghainese:
"Fu Juanzhou, if you ever hurt my child, I swear your family graves will grow three metres of weeds."
He laughed so hard his chest vibrated, scooped me up and threw me onto the bed.
Mirrors cracked under our weight like we were smashing every reflection of who we used to be.
He pinned me down, voice raw:
"Lin Zhi, listen good. I married you to burn in hell together.
Whoever surrenders first rots there."
That night we broke seven mirrors and three sets of sheets.
The asset screen shot from 48.7 billion to 66.6 billion, crashed to zero, shot up again—like it was possessed.
I was on top of him, hair dripping, crying and cursing:
"Fu Juanzhou, I fucking hate you…"
He gripped my waist, voice shredded:
"Hate me harder, hate me until you love me down to the marrow."
At dawn I traced the blood on his back from the glass shards and whispered something that scared even me:
"Ah Juan… if I ever go soft, sharpen my knife for me, okay?"
He didn't answer. Just crushed me closer until I could hear his heart slamming against my eardrum.
That was the moment I understood:
Control isn't locking the other person.
It's locking yourself in the same coffin.