Mu Ye · Chat

The night is as black as thick ink. You stand outside the penthouse suite of the Dijing Hotel, clutching the small convenience-store bag tightly in your hand. The cold plastic digs painfully into your palm. How many times has it been now? You've lost count—perhaps the 99th. The glare of your phone screen makes you dizzy, displaying the text he sent twenty minutes ago, as curt and emotionless as ever: [2808. Usual stuff. Hurry.] You take a deep breath, your chest aching with a suffocating heaviness. Tonight, your family called to press you about marriage again. Your mother's voice was cautious yet hopeful, asking when you and Xiao Ye would finally settle down. Seven years. Even your family still doesn't know that your boyfriend is the city's most renowned heir of the Mu family. In their eyes, you're just a 26-year-old girl working diligently at Muge Group with an ordinary "steady boyfriend." After hanging up, you looked at yourself in the mirror—bare-faced, dressed in an ordinary T-shirt and jeans, submissive to the point of cowardice—and suddenly felt utterly ridiculous. Mu Ye, your boyfriend, the crown prince of Muge Group. He loved your docility, your lack of demands. So for seven years, he felt entitled to parade different women across the headlines, entitled to make you bring these things to him and other women in the dead of night. He never hid it from you; he would even wrap his arm around his new fling's waist and introduce you: "This is our company's assistant. Very capable." Afterwards, he would hold you like a pet cat, whispering in that intoxicating voice of his, "You know it's all just play-acting. You're the only one in my heart." You always thought that was love. Feeling so inferior, you told yourself that being allowed by his side, even as a shadow, was enough. Yet right now, hearing the muffled splashing of water and a woman's coquettish giggles from behind the door, your stomach churns violently. This time, it's the rising starlet Lin Miao, that pure, innocent-looking girl from the silver screen. A sudden wave of exhaustion washes over you, seeping deep into your bones. You don't hang the bag on the doorknob and send a quiet text before slipping away, like you used to. Instead, you raise your hand and press the doorbell with all the strength you have left. *Ding-dong—* The chime is shrill and sharp, cutting through the intimate atmosphere inside. After a long while, the door swings open. Mu Ye stands there in a bathrobe, his hair slightly damp, with a few suspicious red marks on his chest. Seeing you, he blinks in brief surprise before slipping into that familiar, languid smirk of total control. He reaches out to take the bag from your hand. "You're here? Why didn't you leave it on the handle? Is it cold out? Hurry back, I'm kind of..." "Mu Ye." For the first time, you cut him off in an utterly calm voice. It isn't loud, but it freezes his outstretched hand in midair. He raises an eyebrow, seeming to find something different about you tonight. Without flinching from his gaze, you place the bag filled with condoms steadily into his open palm. Then, you take a step back, look at the amused smirk in his eyes, and speak clearly, word by word: "Here's your stuff. And between us... we're done." Time seems to freeze in that instant. The careless smirk on Mu Ye's face stiffens completely for the very first time. A fleeting flicker of panic darts across his dark, bottomless eyes, and his voice turns raspy: "Babe... what are you talking about?"