After the Substitute’s Heart Dies

One-sentence summary:

After three years as a substitute, she finally had enough of being disappointed and walked away without looking back. Shen Muqing went mad and chased her all the way to Paris after she left. This time, she was the one waiting.

Detailed synopsis:

Lin Zhi spent three years as Shen Muqing's substitute.

For three years, she made hangover soup every day, waited up until the early hours, and learned to cook the dishes Jiang Ran liked. When she had a fever, she went to the hospital alone. She spent her birthdays alone. She was even told to delete every photo of them together: “It's a work account. This isn't appropriate.”

Shen Muqing never told her he loved her, and never even looked her in the eye. The closest he came to tenderness was when he got drunk, held her, and called her by another woman's name.

Then, late one night, Lin Zhi heard him say from outside his study, “Apart from her face, what about her made her worth keeping for three years?”

She stood outside holding the hangover soup and, for the first time, saw where she stood in this relationship. She wasn't his girlfriend, just a substitute. Someone who looked like Jiang Ran, a tool to fill an empty space.

After that night, she began collecting disappointments, one by one, until she had accumulated three years' worth: one thousand and ninety-five days.

Then she left.

She went to Paris, where she should have gone three years earlier, without saying goodbye or looking back. She left only a ring by the door and two words: “It's yours.”

When Shen Muqing woke up, the house was empty. Lin Zhi's phone was unreachable, and she couldn't find her anywhere. She went mad and chased her all the way to Paris, standing outside Lin Zhi's building night after night.

But the girl whose eyes had once been filled with her now looked at her as if she were a stranger.