The night air was sharp on the terrace—cool, quiet, and much too honest. The music from the ballroom had softened into something distant, elegant, and irrelevant.
However, unlike the cold evening, Song Qingwan and An Yanming were anything but calm—their tempers burned beneath the polite glitter of the party.
"You said you wanted to prove yourself," Song Qingwan hissed, her voice low but trembling. "I did what I had to—i did it for you."
An Yanming's expression darkened. "For me?" His tone was low, clipped, and dangerous. "What do you mean?"
"I took photos of the proposal and sent you, didn't I?" She said, feeling wronged at the anger that was directed at her. "Wasn't that what you needed?"
For a heartbeat, silence pressed down between them. Then his voice broke it—flat and cold.
"What I needed," he said, "was the real data."
Her face went pale. "What…?"
