At the entrance of the Civil Affairs Bureau, Su Wanting held her divorce certificate and stood there for a long time.
She opened it and looked. Inside was a two-inch joint photo. In the photo she was smiling quite happily, and the man next to her was also smiling. Taken one year ago. Back then, one sentence from him - "I'll treat you well" - and she believed it. One sentence from her mother-in-law - "We're one family" - and she believed that too.
Lu Yichen had already walked to the other side of the road. Immaculately dressed in a suit, walking very fast, not turning his head back once. A white BMW was parked roadside. A face appeared from the car window.
Meng Yao. Vice President of Ruiheng Real Estate, Lu Yichen's supervisor. She had met her several times at company annual meetings. Each time Meng Yao saw Wanting she would smile and call her "Mrs. Lu," acting extremely affectionate. At last year's annual meeting she even held Wanting's hand and said, "Yichen is truly fortunate to have married you."
Lu Yichen pulled open the car door and got in. Meng Yao reached out to straighten his collar, her movement very gentle, very practiced - clearly something she was used to doing. Before the car window rolled up, Wanting heard a laugh from inside the car - sharp, dispersed by the wind.
The BMW turned a corner and was gone.
Wanting stood in place. The March wind was chilly, blowing hair all over her face. She looked down at herself - a shirt washed until it was white, black pants, the heel of her left leather shoe worn crooked. This outfit she had specifically chosen for the divorce, wanting to appear presentable. Now she found it laughable.
One year of marriage, exchanged for a divorce certificate.
The day before the divorce, her mother-in-law Lin Hui sat on the living room sofa and pushed an agreement in front of her.
"Sign it."
Lin Hui crossed her legs, her finger tapping those two sheets of paper.
"The house - the down payment was paid before marriage, by Yichen. The car was assigned by the company. Savings - you make four thousand five hundred a month, how much did you save in a year?"
Wanting stood without moving. She wanted to say that all the household expenses were paid by her, the groceries were bought by her, the utilities were paid by her. But the moment she looked up and met Lin Hui's gaze - not fierce, just disdainful - it was like looking at something dirty stuck to the bottom of a shoe.
Lin Hui set down her teacup.
"Taking a step back. You married into our family for one year - where's the child? You can't even lay an egg, and you still have the face to ask for family assets? Be sensible. With no money and no kid, clinging to anyone is an ugly look."
Wanting turned her head toward the other end of the sofa. Lu Yichen was looking down at his phone, his thumb swiping across the screen, never lifting his head the entire time.
She picked up the pen and signed. Su Wanting. Three characters. The house, the car, the savings - she didn't ask for a single one. Packed a few changes of clothes and that old laptop she had used for six years.
Dragging the suitcase out of the living room, Lin Hui was watching TV. The shower was running in the bathroom - Lu Yichen was taking a shower.
She closed the door and left.
The rental was in an old neighborhood, fifth floor of a six-story building. No elevator. The kitchen was too small to turn around in. Between the living room and bedroom hung a cloth curtain. Rent was twelve hundred a month.
Three months ago she was still living in a river-view apartment in the east side of the city. One hundred twenty square meters. Floor-to-ceiling windows facing the river. Lu Yichen said once he got promoted to director they would switch to something bigger. Now she lived here. The young couple next door who worked at a restaurant came back late every night, and when they fought the floorboards shook.
Wanting sat on the bed board and scrolled through her phone. The top pinned chat was still labeled "Hubby." She stared at those two characters for a long time, tapped in and scrolled up.
The most recent message was from three days ago. Sent by Lu Yichen:
"Tomorrow 9 AM, Civil Affairs Bureau. Don't be late."
She replied with an "Okay."
Further back, one month ago, she had sent a photo of her basal body temperature chart and asked when he would have time to go with her for a follow-up checkup. Four hours passed before he replied:
"Don't think about it. Get some early rest."
Further back still was the year they just got married. Dozens of voice messages, each five or six minutes long. Back then he hadn't yet become a supervisor. Every day he rode his electric bike to pick her up from work. A thermos of red date tea hung from the back seat for her. She thought that was love. From childhood to adulthood no one had treated her well. Someone giving her a cup of hot tea and she thought it was the greatest tenderness in the world.
She threw the phone on the bed and fished out a copy of an ultrasound report from the drawer. From the Provincial People's Hospital. Written on it: Bilateral ovaries morphologically normal. Uterus showed no abnormalities. All indicators normal.
But the diagnosis that Lin Hui held in her hand said: Primary infertility.
That diagnosis was done the first year after they married. Lin Hui took her to a private clinic. The doctor had already been bribed beforehand. They went straight to blood work. The report was picked up by her mother-in-law. She hadn't even laid eyes on that piece of paper. Every time after that when she said she wanted a follow-up checkup, Lu Yichen's response was always the same sentence.
"Your constitution is weak. You suffered too much hardship growing up in the countryside. It's normal that you can't conceive."
She had heard this sentence for a year. Each time it was like a needle - not heavy, just constantly pricking.
She folded the ultrasound report neatly and put it in her bag. Her fingernails pinched a crease into it. That infertility diagnosis was fake. From beginning to end.
Her phone rang. Chen Jie, Human Resources Director at Hongtu Real Estate.
"Wanting, the interview is set. Start next Monday. Project Specialist. Three-month probation period."
She stared at the screen for several seconds.
"Okay. Thank you, Sister Chen."
After hanging up she leaned against the wall. Twenty-seven years old. Divorced. Walked away with nothing. Living in a twelve-hundred-yuan partitioned room. But in her hand she gripped a real ultrasound report.
The smoke from the barbecue stall downstairs drifted in through the window gap. The couple next door started fighting again. She put the report back in her bag. A new life, starting next Monday.
Sister Chen sent another message:
"After onboarding, your first project is Star River Bay. The client is Wand Group."
Wand Group. She mumbled it several times. Sounded familiar. Her chest tightened a bit. She couldn't say why.
The phone screen went dark. What she didn't know was that at the exact same moment, at the other end of the city, in an office on the 68th floor of Wand Group Tower, an elderly man with white hair was sitting in front of floor-to-ceiling windows. In his hand he held a yellowed missing person notice.
He was Shen Zhengye, founder of Wand Group, with a personal fortune of tens of billions, the richest man in the province. And the four-year-old girl in the missing person notice, with two small braids and a green jade pendant hanging from her neck - was his biological daughter who had been missing for twenty-four years.
Below the photo was a line of text: Shen Nian'an. Female. Four years old. Went missing October 16, 1994.
Shen Zhengye's finger rubbed back and forth over the photo. Twenty-four years. If Nian'nian was still alive, she would be twenty-eight this year.