Chapter 10: The Ghost of Familiar Face
1633 Words
The ballroom had never felt colder.
The woman stood close now — close enough that Xiao Nai could see the delicate arch of her cheek, the tilt of her mouth, the exact way Jiali used to blink when surprised.
But Jiali was dead.
And yet…
“I’m sorry,” the woman said gently, smiling as though they were long-lost friends. “You keep staring. Do I know you?”
Her voice was different.
Lighter. With a lilt. Not the deep, velvety murmur of Jiali, but bright and clear.
Still, Xiao Nai didn’t answer. Couldn’t.
His mind echoed with memories — Jiali holding his hand, Jiali singing to the child they never met, Jiali dying alone in that sterile white room while he ran toward her too late.
He blinked.
Behind the crowd, Ziya stood — forgotten for a beat — watching.
She saw how tight his jaw was. How pale his fingers turned against his glass. How that woman’s presence wrapped him in silence, not because of attraction — but something deeper.
Resurfacing pain and Ziya knew she had just been replaced in his heart for a brief, shattering second.
*****
Back at the estate, Xiao Nai barely spoke.
He sat in his chair, fingers steepled against his lips.
Ziya sat across from him, belly heavy, hands folded on her lap. Her voice broke the silence first.
“She looks like her.”
His eyes flicked up, a flash of guilt crossing them.
“I know.”
“Do you… want to know who she is?” she asked, her tone too soft to be neutral.
“I don’t know what I want,” he admitted.
A pause. Then:
“I need to think.”
She nodded.
But inside — she broke.
*****
That night, Ziya stood in front of the mirror and stared at her reflection.
The stretch marks beginning to form. The swollen ankles. The dullness in her eyes from lack of sleep.
“I’m not Jiali,” she whispered to herself.
Not elegant like her. Not poised. Not unforgettable.
“I’m just the aftermath.”
A knock startled her.
It was Madam Luo, carrying a steaming mug and her usual sharp eyes.
“Stop looking at yourself like that.”
Ziya blinked. “Like what?”
“Like you're a mistake.”
She walked in, settled beside her.
“Xiao Nai was drowning in grief long before you came into his life. And grief… plays dirty. It shows you ghosts, not truth.”
“I know she died. I know I’m not her—”
“You’re not meant to be her,” Madam Luo snapped. “You’re meant to be you. Lee Ziya. The woman who made him look forward again. The one who gave him a second chance.”
Ziya’s throat tightened.
“What if he can’t stop looking back?”
“Then you look forward,” Madam Luo said. “And do what that other girl never got the chance to do — fight for your family.”
*****
The next morning, while Xiao Nai left for a walk alone, Ziya dressed herself in a clean blazer, her bump hidden under a soft blouse. She asked Zhou Chen to accompany her.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“To find out who that woman was.”
She didn’t wait for permission. She didn’t wait for Xiao Nai to come around.
She pulled out the guest list, circled unfamiliar names, and began digging.
Within a day, she had her name.
Yin Ruoxi.
A freelance model and aspiring actress from another province. Recruited as a plus-one by a board member’s assistant. A few minor roles. A campaign that never aired. No connection to Jiali. No hidden past.
Just… a tragic resemblance.
Ziya sat quietly with the file in her lap.
Then slowly, she smiled.
Not bitter. Not triumphant. Just… free.
*****
That night, she waited for Xiao Nai in the garden, beneath the string lights he had once hung for her.
When he saw her there, standing so still, he paused.
“I know who she is,” Ziya said.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Ziya held up the file.
“She’s just a face. A ghost you saw in a crowded room.”
“I thought I’d buried Jiali,” he said, ashamed. “But seeing her…”
“You never stop grieving someone like her,” Ziya said, voice steady. “But I need to know… is there still room for me, Xiao Nai?”
He reached her in two steps.
Pulled her against him, pressed her ear against his chest.
And she heard it again — that steady rhythm, faster now, strong again.
“There isn’t just room,” he said against her hair.
“There’s a throne.”
*****
Ziya was gone. It has been five days and Ziya is no where to be found. Another two days is the wedding ceremony.
No messages. No calls. No trace.
Her phone last pinged near the bridal boutique, but after that — silence. The cameras on the route had been looped. Her driver drugged. The salon staff said she never arrived.
It was as if the earth had swallowed her whole.
The estate turned into a command center.
“Trace everything,” Xiao Nai ordered, his voice hoarse and cracked. “Salon. Manicure. Boutique. Even the damned tea shop she loves.”
His jaw unshaven, shirt stained with yesterday’s grief, and eyes red, he refused to rest.
“You haven’t eaten, sir—”
“I will not eat until she’s home.”
Even the guards avoided his gaze. Zhou Chen, trembling with emotion, took over logistics with Xiao Nai’s head bodyguard, desperate to pick up her scent.
But there was nothing.
No ransom call. No clue. Just pain.
Xiao Nai stood every night outside the gate, whispering, “Please come back. Please, Ziya. I can't lose you too.”
*****
In a dim, abandoned countryside villa, Ziya was bound to a chair, her wrists raw from trying to escape.
Across from her, Lin Yue paced with uncombed hair, dark circles under her eyes, whispering as if the walls could hear.
“You stole him from me. First, it was Jiali. But she’s dead now. And you — you think you can replace us both?”
Ziya’s mouth was dry. “You need help, Lin Yue—”
“I need justice!” she screamed, throwing a wine glass at the wall. “I waited all my life for him. You showed up with your quiet little voice and swollen belly and now you’re everything.”
Ziya winced, struggling to shift her bound hands behind her. Her ankles ached. Her baby — she pressed her knees tighter, protecting it instinctively.
“Xiao Nai will never forgive you,” she whispered.
Lin Yue smiled like a child. “He doesn’t need to. He won’t have the chance.”
She raised a blade.
Ziya flinched, ducking down, twisting her torso to shield her bump, bracing for the pain—
BANG!
The door burst open. Gunfire echoed. A scream. Then silence.
Ziya felt warm arms around her, a voice calling her name over and over.
“Ziya—Ziya, I’m here. I’m here.”
She looked up through blurred tears and saw him — Xiao Nai, unshaven, thinner, but alive with frantic love.
“You look like a ghost,” she said, dazed. “Go shower. You stink.”
He sobbed and laughed, clutching her face.
“You disappeared five days and I forgot how to live.”
Zhou Chen choked behind them, trying not to cry. “Boss literally hunger-striked. Wouldn’t eat. Just stared at your photo.”
Ziya blinked. “Idiot.”
She leaned her forehead into Xiao Nai’s chest and whispered, “Feed yourself. Or I will.”
Later, at the hospital, she sat propped up in bed, feeding him spoonful by spoonful, while he stared at her with awe.
“Promise me,” he murmured. “Don’t disappear again. Ever.”
“I promise,” she said. “Even if I’m angry. I’ll stay and yell in your face.”
He grinned, mouth full of rice. “That’s my wife.”
The wedding was a sea of white and gold. Madam Luo wept softly during the vows. Lady Wen stood with a softened expression beside her, wearing a quiet regret like a shawl.
After Xiao Nai placed the ring on Ziya’s finger, he turned to Lady Wen. “Ziya deserves your apology. Not just as a mother, but as a woman.”
Lady Wen bowed her head. “I was wrong. She is ten times the woman I ever expected.”
Ziya offered a gentle nod. Her forgiveness was quiet but powerful.
*****
Recovering from the gunshot to the shoulder, Lin Yue was later transferred to a private mental institution.
At her final hearing, Lady Wen refused to defend her.
“I raised her wrong,” she admitted. “And now she pays the price.”
Lin Yue sat in her room at the ward, staring at a wall she thought was a mirror, whispering Xiao Nai’s name like a prayer lost in time. Lost in her world. Smiling and giggling as if Xiao Nai was smiling at her.
*****
That night, under soft candlelight, Xiao Nai leaned against the headboard while Ziya rested beside him.
“You fell in love with me while I was your mistake,” she said, smiling faintly.
“No,” he replied. “You were my miracle wrapped in a mistake.”
He kissed her bump. “And you both are my future.”
Outside, the wind carried away the last remnants of storms past — and within the quiet of their shared world, only love remained.
- Writer
