2038, the 29th of the twelfth lunar month.
Shanghai so cold it felt like a blade sliding between your ribs.
The day Fu Juanzhou walked out of prison, snow fell heavier than two years ago.
I stood at the gate in black, four-year-old Fu Zhijiang in my arms.
The kid already knew the word "Daddy," but not how many bodies were buried beneath it.
The iron gate clanged open.
He stepped out—skin and bones, hair one-third grey, the scar on his left ear purple in the wind.
Yet the moment he saw me, that same bastard smirk from Bund 18 rooftop curled his lips.
"Wife, take me home."
Voice like sandpaper on steel, still cocky as ever.
I didn't speak, just pushed the child forward.
Zhijiang stared three seconds, then launched himself at Fu Juanzhou's legs, milky voice shouting:
"Daddy!"
That was when my eyes finally betrayed me.
Not from joy.
From hating myself for not holding the knife tighter all those years.
On the drive back he sat shotgun, hand never leaving my thigh.
I floored it, wind screaming through the cracked window, whipping his hair wild.
He suddenly said:
"Gu Xinghe's dead. Heart attack in detention last year."
I slammed the brakes; the car fishtailed on ice.
"Tang Shi?"
"Missing. Some say he went northeast. Others say he's fish food in the Huangpu."
I stopped asking.
Back at Tai Ping Lake villa, door slammed, I pinned him against the wall and kissed him like I wanted to bite his soul out.
Eleven years without touch—I tasted rust in his mouth.
He laughed, voice shaking:
"Still the cruelest, wife."
That night we smashed everything smashable.
The kid slept upstairs like the dead while I cried like a child whose candy got stolen.
When I finished, I asked:
"What now?"
He pulled me close, voice ice:
"Now?
We collect what they owe us.
Principal and interest."
Three days later, New Year's Eve.
Bund 18 rooftop lit up again.
I wore blood-red qipao, waist cinched viciously tight, like I could squeeze eleven years of blood right out.
Everyone who ever stepped on us was here.
I went table to table with my glass, smile sweeter than poison:
"Thank you for putting my husband away all those years.
Tonight I toast you.
Drink up—
and we're square."
No one dared refuse.
No poison in the wine—I'm not that tasteless.
But after they drank, none of them could smile anymore.
Because I knew the real poison
had been planted in their hearts
ten years ago.
Zhijiang tugged my hem, whispered:
"Mommy, why is everyone scared of you?"
I crouched, kissed his forehead:
"Because Mommy is the most expensive woman in Shanghai.
Touch me
and you pay with your life."
At midnight the fireworks exploded.
I stood on the terrace, wind snapping my qipao like a war flag.
Fu Juanzhou wrapped arms around me from behind, chin on my shoulder.
"Remember when we signed the lock-up here the first time?"
I laughed until tears fell:
"Yeah.
Thought four years would be enough.
Now I know
a lifetime isn't."
Fireworks reflected in his eyes like another liquidation.
But I knew
the real reckoning
had only just begun.
Because the Huangpu
never buries the dead.
It only pushes the blood
farther downstream
wave
after wave
after wave.