When the red light over the operating room went out, I received a call from Lu Yan.
"Song Qingci, Lin Weiyue is back. Let's get a divorce."
His voice was very calm, like he was commenting on the weather in New York today. In the background, there was piano music—some upscale restaurant. He was having dinner with someone else, while my mother was in the operating room, her life hanging in the balance.
Three years ago, he'd used that same tone to say another sentence to me.
"You look like her. So you'll do."
That was in the top-floor office of Lu Corporation. He sat in a black leather chair and didn't even stand. A lawyer stood beside him, handing me a contract. Three years of marriage, ten million dollars. The conditions were—know your place, be a good stand-in.
I signed it then.
Because my mother was in the hospital, and a single round of chemotherapy cost eighty thousand.
"Miss Song?" Lu Yan's assistant walked over from the end of the corridor, his leather shoes striking the hospital floor, each step steady. He held a document bag, which he handed to me. "Mr. Lu sent me to handle the paperwork."
I opened the bag. A divorce agreement. And a check for ten million dollars.
"Mr. Lu said you just need to sign. You don't need to worry about anything else."
The light over the operating room went out.
I ignored him, rushing to the door. It opened, and the lead surgeon pulled down his mask. "The surgery was successful, but follow-up treatment will require another two million dollars."
Two million.
I looked down at the check in my hand. Ten million. Enough to save my mother. Enough for all her treatment.
"Miss Song?" The assistant held out a pen.
I took it.
The hallway was very quiet, just the beeping of monitors. I held the pen, its tip hovering over the signature line.
A lot of things flashed through my mind—the three years he'd never once looked me in the eye, the way he introduced me at every family gathering as "Song Qingci," not even adding the word "wife." He'd bought the wedding ring half a size too big because it was Lin Weiyue's size. It kept slipping off my finger, so I'd wound red thread around it.
He'd never noticed. He'd never looked at my hands.
I put the pen down.
In front of the assistant, I picked up the divorce agreement and tore it in half.
The sound of ripping paper was loud in the corridor. The ten-million-dollar check fluttered down, landing on my gray hoodie, stained with my mother's blood.
The assistant froze. "Miss Song, what are you—"
I spoke to his phone. I knew Lu Yan was listening.
"Lu Yan, the contract hasn't expired yet. I won't sign. Unless you come to the hospital yourself and say it to my face."
There was a long silence on the line.
The piano music stopped.
Then he said, "Song Qingci, are you threatening me?"
"I'm waiting for you to act like a human being."
I hung up.
The December wind in New York swept in from the end of the hallway, scattering the torn paper across the floor. They floated like snow, each piece stamped with Lu Yan's name—sharp, cold, each stroke a declaration of how little he cared.
I stood there in my three-day-old hoodie, the cuffs stained with blood, my hair plastered messily to my face.
But my eyes were bright.
Bright as the eyes of the Charging Bull on Wall Street—that stubbornness of being trampled into the mud and still looking up at the sky.
I knew, from this moment on, I was no longer a stand-in.
I was Song Qingci.