The next day dragged on like a slow form of torture. I clocked out of work in a state of suspended agony, torn between desperate hope and crippling dread. Standing outside my apartment door, I took a deep, shaky breath before turning the key in the lock.

The living room was dead silent. A bad omen settled heavy in my gut. I rushed into the bedroom and froze.

Empty.

Nothing remained except the silver chain lying abandoned on the mattress. The sheets were folded neatly, completely smooth, as if no one had ever slept there. Sunset filtered through the window, making tiny dust motes dance mocking circles in the air, laughing at my stupidity.

I pressed a hand over my chest. It was the strangest thing, there was no physical wound, yet it hurt so intensely. It felt as if something deep inside me had shattered, fallen to pieces, and burned out completely.

I let out a bitter, self-deprecating laugh. “Whatever. I got to sleep with him for three whole months, I came out ahead. What right do I have to demand more? After all… we were never from the same world anyway.”

I stooped down to pick up the silver chain. It was ice-cold, stripped of every trace of warmth, like holding a block of ice in my palm.

Ji Shiye was truly gone. He hadn’t returned home, nor had he shown his face at the company. I assumed he was avoiding me like the plague. I tried calling, the number you have reached is no longer in service. I tried texting, message failed to deliver.

In other words, I had been officially erased from his life.

That night, I lay alone on the bed where he had slept for the past three months. It felt hollow, freezing, and suffocatingly quiet. Come morning, I decisively blocked every remaining way he could contact me, cutting the final thread connecting us.

It turned out that all those late-night embraces, all those warm breaths whispered against my ear, were nothing but an illusion. From start to finish, I was just a clown putting on a solo show. Ji Shiye had never liked me, not even a little bit.

A summer downpour broke over the city right on cue, the quintessential “my heart is breaking, so the weather must comply” moment. The second I stepped out of the office, the sky opened up in a torrential deluge as if trying to wash the entire city away. I hadn’t brought an umbrella, and hailing a ride was impossible, so I was forced to walk through the storm.

Watching couples huddle together under shared jackets made me want to laugh bitterly. Two people walking in the rain is romance; one person walking in the rain is just an idiot. I wiped my face frantically, unable to tell where the rain stopped and my tears began.

Just when I was at my absolute lowest, a black Mercedes-Benz G-Wagon slammed on its brakes beside the curb. Hou Xiao threw open the passenger door, pulled his hoodie over his head, and bolted toward me. “Sis, get in!”

Once inside the dry vehicle, my eyes accidentally caught the LV logo on his hoodie, a piece that cost easily over twenty-five hundred dollars, nearly two whole months of my salary. Looking at him sitting in the driver’s seat shirtless because he had surrendered his jacket to me, I asked in disbelief, “Do you even know how much this hoodie costs?”

Hou Xiao glanced over, completely nonchalant. “Not really. It was chilly last week, so I just grabbed it while passing through the mall.”

Ah, the world of the ultra-rich, where “grabbing something on the fly” equaled my entire net worth. Noticing my bloodshot eyes, the boyish grin vanished from his face, his tone dropping into a low, dangerous register. “Were you crying? Who picked on you?”

I let out a tired chuckle. “Nobody. Just went through a breakup. Actually, no. I got rejected before I even got the chance to officially date him.”

Hou Xiao said nothing. He simply reached over and patted my head gently. “He doesn’t know what he’s missing.” Then he added out of nowhere, “Reach into my pants pocket.”

I pulled out a sleek Cartier box. Inside rested a delicate, diamond-paved Trinity necklace. Panicking, I tried to push it back toward him, but his voice turned soft: “Consider it a thank-you gift for mentoring me these past few weeks. Tomorrow’s my last day. I’m resigning and heading back to school.”

A wealthy heir like him was bound to return and inherit his family empire sooner or later. The realization that I wouldn’t see him again brought an unexpected wave of emptiness. He offered a charming wink. “Don’t worry, I’ll still come visit you.”

The G-Wagon pulled up outside my apartment, and Hou Xiao escorted me into the lobby. Just as I turned to head toward the elevators, he suddenly pulled out the necklace, leaned down, and draped it around my neck.

The proximity was overwhelming; I was practically pressed against his bare chest. He was still half-naked, raindrops sliding down the sculpted ridges of his abs and dripping onto the tiled floor. My heart skipped a beat. Under the dim, warm light of the hallway, the atmosphere grew suffocatingly intimate.

Hou Xiao stared down at me, his amber eyes gleaming like liquid honey. “Sis, I…”

Before he could finish his sentence, an icy voice ripped through the air behind us, slicing the tension to ribbons: “What do you two think you’re doing?”

I whipped around, and locked eyes with Ji Shiye standing in the pouring rain.

He held a black umbrella, radiating an aura so cold he looked like he belonged in the Arctic. Clad in a impeccably tailored black suit, his tie fastened tightly to his collar, his gold-rimmed glasses reflected a gaze dripping with cold irony.

“No wonder you wouldn’t answer my calls or reply to my texts,” he let out a harsh, freezing laugh. “Turns out you were busy… upgrading to the new model.”

The corners of his lips curved upward, but the frost in his expression was enough to freeze the entire block solid. “Trinh Gia, you really are something. You swore up and down that you loved me to death, or do you just hand out that speech to anyone who asks?”

I froze for two full seconds before fury erupted inside me like a flipped switch. “Ji Shiye, are you out of your mind?! You’re the one who vanished into thin air, and now you come back trying to play the victim? Just because you don’t like me, am I supposed to sit around waiting for you like a loyal dog?!”

Ji Shiye’s brows furrowed tightly. “I left because my father was hospitalized in the US! I called you, you didn’t answer. I texted you, you didn’t reply. Or was that all just because you had already set your sights on him?”

I stunned into silence. Sure enough, buried in my phone’s junk folder was an unread message:

I stood rooted to the spot, completely paralyzed. “…You changed your number?”

“My old line got locked. This is my secondary number.”

I gripped my phone, frantically trying to explain that I thought it was a spam caller and had blocked it. Ji Shiye merely stared down at me, his eyes as cold as glacial ice. He told me he had abandoned his affairs in the US to fly back on the earliest flight because he was losing his mind with worry, only to be greeted by this ambiguous scene between me and Hou Xiao.

“Trinh Gia, tell me, what were you two doing just now?”

The words choked in my throat. The atmosphere between us seconds ago… if I claimed we were “completely innocent,” even my own conscience wouldn’t back me up.

Ji Shiye didn’t spare me another glance. He stepped into his black Rolls-Royce and sped off, leaving me standing like a statue in the pouring rain.

That night, the apartment remained pitch black. I sat on the edge of the bed, staring blankly at the text message.

He said… he liked me. It turned out he actually liked me back.

I buried my face in my knees, forced to confront a heartbreaking truth: I was the one who had pushed him away. For those two weeks, he was on the other side of the ocean, frantic and sick with concern, while what did I do? The moment Hou Xiao showed up and gave me a slight flutter, I thought to myself: “Ah, so I’m not the only idiot holding onto a one-sided crush.”

Tears streamed down my face. I was the female lead… but I was the dumbest female lead in the entire world.

The next day at the office, while I was frantically trying to figure out how to apologize, Ji Shiye walked right past me as if I were made of thin air. No,  air was actually useful; I was more like invisible dust.

Before I could even find a chance to beg for forgiveness, a coworker nudged my shoulder. “Trinh Gia, have you heard the news? CEO Ji is getting engaged to the youngest daughter of the Ruan You Group!”

In the photo, he stood alongside a drop-dead gorgeous girl, both of them smiling in perfect harmony.

My feet carried me straight to his office, but just as I reached the door, the girl stepped out. Draped in an exquisite dress and radiating old-money elegance, she slipped her arm through Ji Shiye’s, leaning her head intimately against his shoulder. “Shiye, who is this…?”

Ji Shiye cast a fleeting glance at me, his eyes entirely devoid of warmth. “Just someone unimportant.”

With those words, he laced his fingers through hers and walked right past me.

I stood there, unable to move, unable to breathe. Only a single thought remained echoing in my mind: Ah. So that’s how it is.

The guilt, the regret, and the secret love I had harbored for three long years vanished into thin air in an instant. I really was just someone unimportant.

This time, I meant it.