Chapter 4: Tangled Hearts
The days blended into one another.
Li Yuyan had long since stopped counting the hours Jiang Zhen spent buried in his work, or the cold silences between them. He was a machine—efficient, unyielding, and distant.
And she?
She was a stranger in his world, bound to him by a contract she had written with blood and bitterness.
But something in her chest stirred every time she saw him, even if his back was turned, even if he never spared her a glance. There was a tension between them, a spark in the air that crackled just beneath the surface. The way he avoided looking at her, but always seemed aware of her presence. The way his voice would soften—barely—not when he spoke to her, but when he thought she wasn't listening.
And Yuyan?
She hated it.
She hated that he had power over her emotions—emotions she had promised herself not to have.
---
It was late one evening when the next crack appeared.
Jiang Zhen had just returned from a meeting. He looked more exhausted than usual, the lines of his jaw clenched, his eyes shadowed with some kind of unspeakable weight.
"You should rest," she said, her voice quieter than usual. She surprised herself with the concern that slipped out.
"I'm fine," he muttered, pushing past her to his study.
But he wasn't fine. She could see it in the way his hand trembled as he poured himself a drink. He was a man broken by his own demons.
And she was supposed to be the one who broke him, wasn't she?
But as he downed the whiskey in a single, harsh gulp, Yuyan caught a glimpse of something she hadn't noticed before: vulnerability.
It was fleeting, gone before she could really process it. But it was there.
Something in her shifted.
She needed to remind herself of why she was here. This wasn't about caring for him. This was about revenge. About everything he had taken from her family, from her.
Still, she found herself unable to leave.
---
The next morning, things were different. The atmosphere between them had shifted, heavy and thick. Jiang Zhen avoided her gaze, and the coldness between them grew until it was almost unbearable.
But then, out of nowhere, he spoke.
"Why did you sign the contract?" he asked, not looking at her, but staring out at the city through the glass windows. "You could have gone after me in another way. Why this?"
Yuyan froze.
His voice was quiet, low. There was no anger, no harshness in it. Just… curiosity.
She took a deep breath, the words tumbling out before she could stop herself. "I wanted to make you pay for what you did to my family."
There it was. The truth. The reason she had agreed to this marriage in the first place.
His back stiffened, and for the first time, she saw the faintest flicker of regret in his eyes. "I didn't know," he whispered. "I never knew…"
She swallowed hard. "Does it matter now?"
A long silence stretched between them, thick with emotions neither of them wanted to admit. Finally, he spoke, his voice quiet and raw.
"Maybe it should."
And just like that, the walls between them shifted again. Not completely, not yet, but enough that she couldn't ignore it.
Enough that she couldn't lie to herself anymore.
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