A week had passed since the incident at the hospital. Ruobing's arm had healed into a thin, angry scar, hidden beneath the sleeve of her Chanel blazer. She sat in her office, her eyes fixed on a trending hashtag that was spreading across the internet like a virus: #ColdHeartedEmpress.
A video had been leaked. It was edited with surgical malice. It showed Ruobing standing in the hospital room, looking tall and imposing, while Lin Yue cowered in the bed. The audio was manipulated to make Ruobing's offer of medical help sound like a cold, financial threat.
The headline above the video read: "Billionaire Shen Ruobing Bullying Trauma Survivor: 'My Money Can Buy Your Life.'"
The door to her office burst open. Lu Tingli didn't knock. He never knocked anymore.
"Is this your doing?" he demanded, throwing his phone onto her mahogany desk. On the screen was a legal notice from the Shen Group's PR department, demanding the removal of the video.
Ruobing didn't look up from her monitor. "I am protecting my company's image, Tingli. And my own."
"Your image?" Tingli laughed, a harsh, mocking sound. "Yue-er is crying herself to sleep because strangers are calling her a 'homewrecker' in the comments of that video. She didn't leak it! She's a victim of the paparazzi, and instead of helping, you're threatening her with lawyers?"
Ruobing finally raised her head. Her eyes were like frozen lakes. "She is the one who leaked it, Tingli. The metadata of the original upload traces back to a burner phone purchased near the hospital."
"Enough with your 'metadata' and 'algorithms'!" Tingli slammed his hand on the desk. "Not everyone thinks in spreadsheets, Ruobing. She's a girl who lost five years of her life! She doesn't even know what a burner phone is. You're just jealous because for once, there's someone in this world you can't control with a contract."
He leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a hiss. "I saw the way you looked at her in the hospital. You looked at her like she was a bug you wanted to crush. If anything happens to her—if she loses her will to recover because of your 'legal' bullying—I will never forgive you."
At that moment, Ruobing's private line buzzed. It was her head of security.
"President Shen," the voice said, sounding urgent. "There's a situation at the Charity Gala venue. Miss Lin Yue is there. She's... she's standing on the balcony of the mezzanine. There's a crowd. She's telling people you threatened to 'make her disappear' if she didn't leave the city."
Ruobing's blood turned to ice. The Charity Gala was her crowning achievement—an event to raise funds for the very orphanages she supported.
"I have to go," Ruobing said, standing up.
"I'm coming with you," Tingli said, his face hardening. "I won't let you hurt her again."
The gala was a sea of silk, diamonds, and flashing cameras. But the music had stopped. Everyone was looking up at the mezzanine.
Lin Yue stood by the railing, wearing a simple white dress that made her look like a dying swan. Her hair was disheveled, and she was weeping softly into a microphone she had somehow acquired.
"I just wanted to come back to the man I love," Lin Yue sobbed, her voice amplified throughout the hall. "I didn't know he was married to the most powerful woman in the country. She told me... she told me my life was worth nothing to her. She told me she could erase me and no one would find the body."
The socialites whispered, their eyes turning like daggers toward the entrance where Ruobing and Tingli appeared.
"Yue-er! Get down from there!" Tingli shouted, rushing toward the stairs.
Ruobing walked forward, her head held high even as her world began to burn. She saw the cameras. She saw the influential donors backing away from her as if she were a monster.
Lin Yue looked down and locked eyes with Ruobing. Beneath the tears, there it was again—that tiny, triumphant glint.
"I'm sorry, Tingli!" Lin Yue cried out. "I can't live in fear anymore!"
She made a show of swaying, her foot slipping on the marble edge.
"No!" Tingli screamed.
Ruobing moved. She was faster than anyone in the room—a result of years of training. She reached the mezzanine in seconds, her hand reaching out to grab Lin Yue's arm to pull her to safety.
But as Ruobing's hand closed around her wrist, Lin Yue leaned in and whispered, so low only Ruobing could hear:
"He'll never believe you, Empress. Watch how I take your crown."
Then, Lin Yue didn't fall. She threw herself backward, wrenching her arm out of Ruobing's grip with such force that it looked to every camera in the room like Ruobing had deliberately pushed her over the edge.
"Ruobing, NO!" Tingli's voice echoed in the hall, filled with a horror and hatred that shattered the last remaining piece of Ruobing's heart.