The penthouse was too quiet.
Jiang Zeyan noticed it immediately, the kind of silence that didn't just fill a room, but echoed. It stretched into corners. It seeped into the way the lights stayed too bright or too dim, into the untouched tea cups, into the spare slippers still sitting by the door.
He hadn't changed them.
He hadn't touched her room.
He told himself it was efficiency. Order.
But it wasn't.
It was denial.
---
The day after she left, he worked longer than usual. Meetings back-to-back. Memos signed without looking. A cold, mechanical rhythm.
But he was slipping.
He called a junior manager by the wrong name.
Ignored a financial report that usually had his full attention.
Missed a call from his own assistant.
Thalia, his PR chief, showed up in his office without knocking.
"You look like a man who lost something and still hasn't admitted it," she said.
"I'm fine."
"Sure," she replied. "And I'm a cactus."
He didn't respond.
She walked closer, placed a folder on his desk.
"This came through internal channels. Anonymous source. Tang Min's fingerprints all over it."
He opened the file.
Photos. Email chains. A contact who had clearly been paid to leak Yaoyue's hospital footage.
"This is hard evidence," Thalia said. "And if you want to go nuclear, now's the time."
Zeyan stared at the folder, then closed it.
Not yet.
Not until he was sure she was safe. And not until he understood why it mattered so much.
---
He tried not to think about her.
But his body betrayed him.
He reached for a second cup when pouring coffee.
Paused when walking past the bookstore she liked.
Nearly asked for her opinion in a board meeting before catching himself.
It was muscle memory now. Her presence had become a part of his routine without permission.
And her absence had carved something out of him.
He hated that.
Hated how much space she took up, not in his home, but in his thoughts.
---
One night, he poured tea.
Chamomile.
Just like the one she hadn't touched that night on the terrace.
He sat alone in the kitchen, staring out the glass wall at the city below.
She would have made a comment about the skyline, or the overpriced cups, or the silence.
He would have ignored her.
But she would've stayed anyway.
He lifted the cup, held it in both hands, and finally admitted something he'd been refusing to say:
"I miss you."
It echoed. Pathetic and honest.
And terrifying.
---
The next day, he called his driver and told him to cancel all appointments.
Then he opened her room.
It still smelled like her. Faint shampoo. Soft fabric. Calm.
He sat on the edge of the bed, looked at the untouched notebooks on her desk, the sweater left folded on the chair.
And in that quiet space, the truth finally settled.
She hadn't been a distraction.
She hadn't been an inconvenience.
She had been the only real thing he'd let into his life in years.
And now she was gone.
Not by force.
By choice.
Because he hadn't protected her when it mattered.
And for the first time in his career, he realized he had lost something he couldn't replace.