The Blade Beneath the Wedding Dress

Red dancing shoes twirl beneath the stars, while the wedding dress hides a poisoned edge.

Su Qing stood backstage, her fingertips repeatedly brushing the rhinestones on her ballet slippers.

Tonight was her final ballet performance, and the most important day of Jiang Yubai's life: he was bidding on a project that could change their future. She smiled at herself in the mirror. She had embroidered the lace on her skirt through the night, all for the hope that, after winning the bid, he would rush straight to the theater and hold her, saying, “Qingqing, everything will be all right for us from now on.”

The spotlight came on. She rose onto her toes, spinning and leaping, every movement filled with hope for the future. But when the music for the curtain call began, the familiar figure was nowhere among the applauding audience.

Her phone suddenly rang shrilly. The words “Unknown Number” flashed on the screen.

She answered. A police officer's voice came through, cold and mechanical. “Are you Ms. Su Qing? We're with the city bureau's criminal investigation unit. Jiang Yubai... jumped from the roof of the bidding center. Please come to the scene to identify him.”

With a thud, the phone fell to the floor, its screen cracking into a spiderweb of fractures.

Su Qing collapsed onto the backstage floor. Rhinestones from her slippers lay scattered everywhere, like her shattered dreams. How could Jiang Yubai have jumped? He had been so confident, and he'd promised to come to her performance...

The white candles in the funeral hall were still flickering, and Jiang Yubai's ashes had yet to be buried when a man named Chen Mo appeared before her.

He was the head of Moyuan Group, a business tycoon who could turn the tide of the entire corporate world with a flick of his hand. His gaze was as cold as ice, yet the marriage agreement he held out became the only thing she could cling to now.