The snow had long since stopped falling, yet it felt like winter had only just begun inside Chen Yixuan. A world once wrapped in apathy now ached with a bitterness too sharp to bear.
The morning after Ye Mei's death was gray, silent, and numb.
The mansion was hushed, not from respect—but from fear. No one dared speak of what had happened. The maids moved like shadows, heads bowed. The butlers offered no greetings. Even the wind seemed afraid to whistle past the windows.
Chen Yixuan sat alone in his study. The fire crackled behind him, but he didn't feel the warmth. His clothes were still stained with her blood. He hadn't changed. He hadn't moved.
The moment her body was taken away, he had stayed frozen in that study, Ye Mei's final whisper echoing endlessly in his mind.
"I love—"
But she hadn't finished it. And now she never would.
He clenched his fists. What had he done?
Three years. Three years of cruel silence, dismissive stares, careless insults.
And she had loved him anyway.
He buried his face in his hands, the memory of her final moments tormenting him like a ghost. Her trembling hands, her lips stained with blood, her dark eyes still trying to find him in the storm.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "Ye Mei… I'm sorry."
---
News spread quickly in the city. It was inevitable. The death of the Chen family's daughter-in-law, mysterious and tragic, dominated whispers and gossip.
But no one knew the truth. No one but him.
She had been poisoned. Left to die in the snow.
Who would do such a thing?
Yixuan hadn't slept. His mind refused to let him rest. Every blink, every breath, was haunted by her voice. Her smile. Her soft goodnights that he never returned.
He walked through the hallways like a ghost, touching the places she had touched. The windowsill she always sat at to read. The piano bench where she once quietly listened. The small patch of garden where she tried—so hopelessly—to grow lilies in winter.
He ended up in her room.
It still smelled like her.
On the dresser was her hairbrush, still tangled with strands of black silk. Her journal sat beside her bedside lamp, the edges worn, the pages still warm with the ink of someone who hadn't known her days were numbered.
He hesitated… then opened it.
The first page was simple: Ye Mei. My heart belongs to you even if yours never does.
He turned the pages slowly, each line a dagger to his chest.
March 11 — He looked at me today. He didn't say anything, but he looked. That's enough.
April 2 — I wish I could tell him that I don't mind the silence. I just want to be near him. I hope one day, he'll sit beside me without being forced.
May 7 — I saw him smile once. Just once. It was when he was watching the koi fish. He didn't know I was there. It was beautiful.
Yixuan swallowed, tears sliding silently down his cheek.
She had been watching him. Loving him in the quiet. Taking crumbs of affection and turning them into entire meals for her heart.
He didn't deserve her.
And now he would never have the chance to show her he finally understood. That her love had changed him. That she had taught him what it meant to feel.
---
The funeral was set for the end of the week.
He didn't let anyone else plan it. He chose the flowers himself—white lilies, her favorite. He designed her tombstone. He selected her final dress, the soft blue one she wore the first day they met.
He banned reporters. Banned outsiders. This funeral wasn't for society. It was for her.
And for him.
When the day arrived, the sky was overcast, thick with snowclouds. The graveyard lay in a quiet hill on the edge of the city. Only a few close family members were allowed to attend. Not even the elders from the Chen family said a word when Yixuan arrived, dressed in black, face pale, eyes hollow.
He stood by her coffin, unable to breathe.
"She loved you," an elderly woman whispered behind him. It was Ye Mei's aunt, her only living relative.
Yixuan bowed his head. "And I killed her with my coldness."
"No," she said. "You just didn't know how to love her… until it was too late."
That made it worse.
The coffin was lowered into the earth. With every inch it descended, Yixuan felt a part of him being buried, too.
When the final shovel of earth fell, he knelt beside the grave, trembling.
"I loved you," he whispered. "I just… never told you."
---
Back at the mansion, the silence became unbearable.
Yixuan poured over every detail of the day she died. He questioned the servants, the security, even the chef. He demanded to see the surveillance tapes. Some of the footage was mysteriously missing.
That raised alarms.
Someone had planned this. Someone had wanted her gone.
He wasn't going to let her death go unanswered.
Ye Mei had died alone, in the snow, because someone had taken away her future. A future he never gave her while she was alive.
But now he would. Even if she wasn't here to see it.
He opened a locked cabinet in his study, pulling out something he hadn't touched in years—a pistol.
The cold metal matched the cold rage in his veins.
"Whoever did this," he muttered, "will pay."
Ye Mei had loved with a quiet heart. But his grief… it would roar.
And he would not rest until he uncovered the truth.
Even if it meant becoming the man he swore never to be.
Not for power. Not for pride.
But for her.
For Ye Mei.
To be continued...
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Chapter 5 coming up next...