Chapter 2: Her Terror, My Doubt
1437 Words
Time stopped.
At least, that's what it felt like.
Zhang Tianyou stared blankly at the shredded paper scattered across the table. Then at the woman across from him—chest heaving, eyes blazing with something he'd never seen in her before. Not contempt. Not indifference.
Panic. And something that looked almost like desperation.
It took his brain a full ten seconds to reboot.
What the hell just happened?
"We're not getting divorced."
Her words echoed through his skull like a cursed chant, each syllable more absurd than the last.
Not divorced?
You've got to be kidding me!
Three years. Three years this woman treated him like furniture, cold as a goddamn glacier. Three years of silence and distance and frostbite. Just minutes ago, she'd practically shoved the pen in his hand, hurrying him out the door with that charity-case tone she'd perfected.
Now he'd given her exactly what she wanted。
And she ripped it up with her own two hands?
His first instinct: this was some new humiliation tactic. Some fresh angle to make him suffer.
But he killed that thought fast.
This wasn't how you humiliated someone. This was self-immolation. And Wang Wanru—proud, pristine, untouchable Wang Wanru—did not do undignified. That wasn't in her DNA.
Those phoenix eyes of hers weren't cold right now.
They were terrified.
The kind of terror that lives in your marrow. The fear of something you can't explain, can't fight, can't even name.
What was she afraid of?
He forced himself to calm down. Two lifetimes of instinct kicked in, sorting through possibilities at machine-gun speed.
And landed on what seemed like the most logical explanation.
[Ah. Got it.]
A silent, bitter laugh.
[Zhou Minghao's back, but you haven't locked him down yet, have you? Or maybe dear old dad's company is in trouble again, and you need your token husband to keep playing shield.]
[Wang Wanru. You really are a virtuoso at using people.]
[Fine by me. Soon enough, your precious white moonlight will start dismantling your empire piece by piece. When the cash flow dries up, let's see how high-and-mighty you can afford to be then.]
He thought this was the most vicious guess he could muster.
He had no idea.
That mental monologue—dripping with ridicule, practically vibrating with schadenfreude—slotted itself directly into Wang Wanru's brain with perfect, crystalline clarity.
If his earlier "prophecy" about Zhou Minghao had shaken her, this supplementary commentary hit like a lightning strike directly to her skull.
Cash flow.
He knew about the cash flow.
The "Star" project was bleeding money. The company's liquidity was stretched thinner than anyone outside the inner circle realized. Her father was preparing to approach the banks for a massive emergency loan.
This information was vault-level confidential.
And Zhang Tianyou—the human accessory, the walking redundancy, the man excluded from every meeting that mattered—how did he know?
Coincidence?
Once, maybe. Twice, possibly.
Three times? Four?
Wang Wanru's heart seized in her chest like a fist closing around wet sand.
Her composure—that flawless, impenetrable armor she'd worn for years—cracked right down the middle.
She shot up from the sofa, crossed the distance between them in one stride, and grabbed his arm with both hands.
Her manicured nails dug into his sleeve. Through the fabric, he could feel her shaking.
"What is Zhou Minghao planning to do to my father's company?" Her voice came out high, ragged, stripped of all ice. Nothing left but raw, bleeding panic. "Tell me!"
That sentence.
Zhang Tianyou's pupils contracted to pinpricks.
The blood in his veins flash-froze.
His mind went white.
What is Zhou Minghao planning to do to my father's company?
This—this was what he'd just thought. Inside his head. He hadn't spoken a single syllable out loud.
So how did she
A thought. So insane it circled the drain of his consciousness, so preposterous it shouldn't even qualify as a hypothesis. But it was the only hypothesis that fit.
What if
What if she could hear him?
No.
Impossible.
This kind of s**t didn't happen in real life. It was more ridiculous than his own rebirth, and that was already off the charts.
His inner world exploded into chaos. But two lifetimes had forged him into something that could stand in the center of a meltdown and project perfect stillness.
He didn't answer. Didn't even shake off her grip.
He just raised his eyes and examined her—inch by inch, slow and deliberate. That beautiful face, now twisted by fear. Under his microscope gaze.
If his insane hypothesis was correct...
Well, then.
This could get interesting.
A plan formed. Bold, borderline sadistic. The kind of test that would either confirm everything or prove he'd finally lost his mind.
He held her gaze. Softened his expression into something that might pass for affection, if you squinted.
Meanwhile, his thoughts took a sharp left turn into the absurd.
[Nice lipstick. Dior 999, right? Good color for you. A little heavy on the application today, though.]
[Oh, and your eyebrows. Left arch is maybe 0.1 millimeters higher than the right. The curve's a bit stiff too. Did your makeup artist call in sick, or did you just butcher it yourself?]
[Tsk tsk. President of the Wang Group, Haicheng's first beauty, walking around with rookie mistakes on her face. If some gossip photographer catches this, you'll be tomorrow's front page. Hilarious.]
Petty. Catty. The kind of ruthless interior monologue only a straight man cornered into discussing cosmetics could produce.
If spoken aloud, it would've started a war.
These thoughts, every single one, bulleted directly into Wang Wanru's cerebral cortex.
Her grip on his arm went rigid.
The terror on her face transmuted into something more complex. Shame. Embarrassment. And the deep, primal horror of being exposed.
Lipstick...
Eyebrows...
How did he
And with such precision.
This morning, her regular makeup artist had called in sick. Yes, she'd done her own face. And yes, the left eyebrow had felt wrong all day—she'd been fighting the urge to wipe it off and start over.
These were private details. Microscopic. Things only she knew.
And Zhang Tianyou, by her three years of observation, was constitutionally incapable of distinguishing lipstick from ChapStick.
Unless
Unless he hadn't observed anything.
Unless he'd simply... accessed the information.
All color drained from Wang Wanru's lips. Her hands fell away from his arm. One drifted up, almost involuntarily, to touch her left brow.
That movement.
That tiny, unconscious gesture.
To Zhang Tianyou, it was a lightning strike parting storm clouds.
Confirmed.
She could hear him.
She could actually hear his goddamn thoughts.
A current of savage delight—tinged with ice, with power, with something almost holy—sizzled from his crown to his heels.
He'd just stepped through a door into a new world.
On the other side: an abyss on the left, a throne on the right.
The divorce problem? Irrelevant now. Dust.
In its place rose something he'd never experienced before: the intoxication of absolute control.
So this was why he'd been reborn. Not just for revenge.
For this.
A gift from heaven, delivered through the hands of the woman he most wanted to escape.
How beautifully ironic.
He looked at Wang Wanru—trembling now, caught between terror and humiliation and his eyes changed.
The expression of a hunter staring down at a rabbit that had just fallen into its trap.
[Wang Wanru, Wang Wanru. You thought tearing up that agreement would keep me leashed, keep me useful.]
[Wrong.]
[You're the one in the cage now.]
[You put the collar around your own neck. And the leash?]
[It's in my hand.]
[From now on, we play by my rules.]
His silent voice had shed its venomous bitterness. What remained was cold. Absolute. The pronouncement of a man who had just become judge, jury, and executioner.
Wang Wanru's body swayed slightly, as if the floor had tilted beneath her feet.
She understood now.
Understood exactly what kind of monster she was dealing with.
And Zhang Tianyou, having completed his silent declaration of sovereignty, finally spoke.
His voice was quiet. But it carried an ease, a casual amusement, that had never been there before.
"You want to know what Zhou Minghao is planning to do to your father's company?"
He looked at her—those terror-widened eyes, that bloodless face—and the corner of his mouth pulled into something that wasn't quite a smile.
"I can tell you."
A pause.
"First, though. You should probably get used to... the way I communicate."
- Writer
