CHAPTER 126: CHAPTER 126; SCANDALS (C)

He burst through the back corridor, his expensive dress shoes slipping on the polished marble, his carefully styled hair coming undone, his perfectly tailored suit jacket twisted awkwardly from shoving past people. He looked nothing like the composed CEO who’d walked onto that stage twenty minutes ago.

He looked like a man coming apart at the seams.

The loading exit was just ahead, the door still propped open, late afternoon sunlight streaming in like a spotlight.

He reached it just in time to see the Mercedes pulling away from the curb.

"SHUYIN!"

He banged on the window with his fist, too late, too slow, too desperate.

The tinted glass reflected his own face back at him, distorted and frantic, but he couldn’t see inside. Couldn’t tell if she was looking back at him or if she’d already turned away, already moved on, already written him off as another mistake in a life full of them.

The car didn’t stop.

Didn’t even slow down.

It just merged smoothly into traffic and disappeared around the corner, taking with it the woman who’d been his fiancée, his partner, his carefully constructed redemption arc.

Taking with it any chance he had of controlling this narrative.

"SHUYIN!" He ran a few steps after the car, hand outstretched like he could somehow will it to stop through sheer desperation. "PLEASE!"

But she was gone.

The sound of heels clicking furiously on marble made him turn.

Wang Jing was striding toward him, her face a mask of barely controlled fury, her phone clutched in one hand like a weapon she was considering throwing at his head.

"Zeyan! Get back inside! Do NOT run after her in front of cameras, you’ll make it worse!"

"Worse?" He laughed, the sound bitter and sharp. "How could it possibly be worse?"

"There are photographers across the street!" She grabbed his arm, hauling him back toward the building with surprising strength for someone half his size. "Do you want tomorrow’s headline to be ’Desperate CEO Chases Ex-fiance Through Streets’? Because that’s what you’re giving them!"

But he barely heard her.

All he could see was the empty street where Shuyin’s car had been, the space she’d left behind already filling with other vehicles, other people, other lives moving forward while his world came to a complete and total halt.

He’d lost her.

Not just lost the marriage, lost her. The woman who’d looked at him with such hope on their engagement day, who’d smiled at him across the breakfast table, who’d believed him when he said he’d changed.

Gone.

And in her place, nothing but the sound of reporters shouting his name and the knowledge that he’d destroyed the only good thing he had left.

The moment Wang Jing dragged him back inside, the room detonated.

His entire team was waiting, lawyers, PR consultants, financial advisors, board members who’d shown up the second the news broke, all of them packed into the too-small backstage area like a powder keg waiting for a spark.

Wang Jing threw a stack of papers at him the second the door closed behind them.

"Do you understand what you’ve DONE?"

The papers scattered across the floor were stock reports, legal documents, and printouts of social media trends that were probably already outdated by the time she’d printed them.

Lu Zeyan didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer. His throat felt tight, his chest constricted, like someone had wrapped steel bands around his ribs and was slowly tightening them.

Feng Ting, his chief financial officer, was pale and drenched in sweat despite the air conditioning. His hands shook as he held up his tablet.

"Sir, the stock just dropped another 14% in the last seven minutes...."

"Phones are exploding...." Someone else spoke up, but he didn’t even register who.

"Shareholders are demanding an emergency board meeting..."

"The legal team wants a statement within the hour...."

"PR says this is completely unsalvageable...."

"Someone leaked another photo to WeChat already, it’s spreading faster than we can contain it...."

"The board is threatening to call a vote of no confidence...."

"Three major clients just pulled their contracts...."

The voices overlapped, a cacophony of disaster piling on top of disaster, each piece of bad news worse than the last.

Wang Jing cut through it all with a voice like a whip crack.

"EVERYONE SHUT UP!"

Silence fell, heavy and oppressive.

She turned to Lu Zeyan, and for the first time since he’d known her, seven years of working together, of late nights and impossible deadlines and victories that had seemed so important at the time, she looked at him with something like pity.

"Zeyan," she said quietly, and the use of his first name instead of his title made everything feel even more real. "Look at me."

He forced his eyes up from the scattered papers to meet hers.

"Do you understand what just happened?"

"The leak...."

"Not the leak. Do you understand what Shuyin just did?"

He blinked, confused. "What?"

Wang Jing let out a long breath, running her hand through her hair, destroying her usually perfect styling. "She got everything. The money, the property, the moral high ground, the public’s sympathy, and the perfect exit. And then someone, I don’t know who, but someone with perfect timing and access, handed her the detonator to blow up your entire life after she’d already cashed out."

"She wouldn’t...."

Shuyin has never been this kind of person...

"She didn’t have to." Wang Jing’s laugh was sharp and humorless. "That’s the genius of it. She walked away clean. Sympathetic victim. Wronged woman. Perfect angel who gave you a second chance and you threw it back in her face. Meanwhile, you’re standing here holding the bomb while it explodes in your hands."

Lu Zeyan felt something cold settle in his stomach. "You think she planned this?"

"I think someone did. And whether it was her or someone helping her or just a very lucky coincidence, the result is the same." Wang Jing picked up one of the scattered papers, a printout of trending hashtags.