In My Fifth Year as a Stand-In in a Wealthy Family, I Jumped into the Sea

The day I jumped into the sea, the whole internet was livestreaming my humiliation.

In the video, my husband, Rong Yan, was watching fireworks with his true love. The comments went wild: “The real deal is back. The stand-in should step aside!”

I smiled and sent him the livestream link. “Tomorrow at nine. See you at the civil affairs bureau.”

Then I turned and leaped into the pitch-black sea.

The search team looked for me for three days and found only one of my high heels. Rong Yan choked up on camera. “She was just throwing a tantrum... She’ll come back.”

He didn’t know that was exactly what I was waiting for him to say.

Three months later, at an auction in Zurich, the work of Luna, a mysterious Chinese artist, sold for an astronomical price. When a reporter asked what inspired her, she smiled at the cameras around the world.

“To commemorate a love that died.”

That night, Rong Yan smashed open my hotel room door, his eyes bloodshot and his stubble unkempt.

He gripped my wrist tightly, his voice hoarse and broken. “Shen Qing... You’re not dead.”

I pulled my hand away and slowly wiped the skin he’d touched with a disinfectant wipe.

“Mr. Rong, you’ve got the wrong person.”

“The Shen Qing you loved...”

“Really did die in the sea.”

Later, the tech company I founded swallowed up half of the Rong family’s empire.

At the celebration banquet, he knelt in front of everyone and held a 51% share-transfer agreement over his head.

I leaned down and lifted his chin with the tip of my high heel.

“Do you know? Those five years weren’t spent learning how to love you.”

“I was learning how to... bring you down.”

“I didn’t jump into the sea to die. I did it so you could see just how beautiful the depths are without you.”