The day Xu Zhijin went for a breast examination, she wore a skirt. She had to remove her entire top for the mammogram. The awkward part was that the doctor standing beside the machine, holding the side of her breast to position it for the scan, was the husband she had impulsively married and then lost contact with for two years.
"Your breasts are small. You need help," Ye Lingchuan said, his white coat buttoned to the very top. Behind his rimless glasses, his gaze was as clinical as if he were looking at a specimen. His fingers touched her with professional propriety, but the heat of his palm made Xu Zhijin's scalp tingle.
When the examination was over, he handed her his business card. His tone was strictly professional. "Let's add each other on WeChat. It'll make it easier to discuss your condition."
Xu Zhijin added him.
Her first message was to ask him to mail her the divorce papers.
She thought they could end things amicably.
After all, the gulf between them was more than just two years of no contact. It also included Ye Lingchuan's status as the heir to the richest family in the capital.
He signed for the papers but didn't reply.
Xu Zhijin went on with her life as usual: working, going on blind dates, and getting by.
But Ye Lingchuan began showing up in her life again and again.
When someone plagiarized her work, he quietly sent the Ye family's legal team to handle it. When she moved, he appeared downstairs the very next day. When she went on a blind date, he cornered the man in the restaurant parking garage, his eyes dark with obsession. "Mrs. Ye, trying to cuckold me?"
Xu Zhijin froze. "Didn't you receive the divorce papers?"
"I received them." Ye Lingchuan looked down at her, the corner of his thin lips lifting. "But did I reply?"
Only then did Xu Zhijin realize that the amicable ending she'd imagined had been her plan alone from beginning to end.
He wouldn't sign, wouldn't let go, and wouldn't let her leave. In the name of a husband, under the guise of a doctor, he laid his plans step by step and pursued her to the bitter end.
