It took less than 24 hours.
One moment, Tang Min was being escorted out of Jinlin Tower.
The next, she was back, not in person, but everywhere else.
Screens. Headlines. Streams.
She went live on her official channel.
No warning. No context. Just perfectly controlled lighting and a tear-glossed expression.
"I never wanted to go public," she said, voice soft. "But when your life is ripped away by someone who doesn't belong in your world, you're left with no choice."
Yaoyue stood in the kitchen watching the screen on her phone. She didn't sit. Couldn't.
"She manipulated him," Tang Min continued. "I don't blame her. I pity her. She used her past like a weapon and it worked. Until it didn't."
The live comments exploded with mixed reactions. Sympathy. Suspicion. Outrage.
"She's lying," Yaoyue said aloud, not even realizing it.
Zeyan, standing across the kitchen island, didn't look away from the screen.
"She's spiraling."
"She's calculated."
"Both."
He reached for his phone.
---
By noon, her video had racked up over a million views.
Bloggers were already dissecting every word.
Talk shows invited "body language experts" to speculate.
Fan accounts dug up every past photo of Tang Min and Zeyan and spun them into tragic romance.
"She's trying to rewrite history," Thalia said, pacing inside the executive conference room. "We need a public response."
Zeyan sat at the head of the table, expression unreadable.
"We won't respond."
Thalia blinked. "I beg your pardon?"
"Not directly. Not emotionally. We let facts speak louder than fiction."
"What facts?"
Zeyan tapped the folder in front of him.
Then handed it to her.
Inside: a full dossier.
Tang Min's fake donation funnel.
Her bribes to journalists.
A quiet payout to a paparazzi team.
Receipts. Messages. Hidden accounts. Even legal violations.
Thalia's eyebrows lifted as she flipped through.
"You want to leak this?"
"No," he said.
"I want to broadcast it."
---
The press conference was called under the guise of a quarterly announcement.
Nothing in the invitation hinted at scandal, which only made the room more crowded.
Everyone came expecting numbers. Everyone left with a detonated career.
Zeyan stood behind the podium, poised, calm, and lethal.
"Before we begin," he said, "I'd like to address a matter of integrity."
He laid out the timeline.
The fabricated leaks. The manipulated footage. The attempt to defame someone under false pretenses.
Then, without raising his voice, he said, "This company will not be used to settle personal vendettas. We do not reward sabotage. We expose it."
A screen behind him lit up with documentation.
Not commentary.
Not interpretation.
Just facts.
Cold, timestamped, undeniable facts.
Tang Min's name wasn't spoken once.
It didn't have to be.
---
Yaoyue watched it all from the back of the room.
She wasn't supposed to be there. She wasn't listed on the press sheet. But Zeyan had sent her a one-line message that morning:
"If you want to see me end this, come at 10:00."
She came.
And as she stood there, surrounded by shocked reporters and stunned executives, something hit her all at once:
Zeyan hadn't just defended her.
He'd ended the one thing threatening her, without ever raising his voice.
She didn't know if it made her want to yell at him, or kiss him.
---
Tang Min released a statement by evening.
Cold. Legalistic. Void of apology.
It didn't matter.
She'd already lost everything that mattered.
Sponsors pulled out.
Investors froze accounts.
Her reputation, once spotless,mwas now synonymous with "slander."
By midnight, one article summed it up best:
"The Queen of Control Just Lost Her Crown."
---
Zeyan sat at home with the city spread out below him, glass in one hand, silence in the other.
Yaoyue stepped into the room, arms folded.
"You didn't tell me you'd go that far."
He looked at her. "Would it have changed anything?"
"I don't know."
She sat down across from him.
"Do you regret it?"
"No."
She didn't answer for a long moment.
Then said, "Neither do I."
He looked at her, really looked.
And something inside him settled.
Not because it was over.
But because for the first time… they were in it together.