11:47 PM. The rain wouldn't stop.
Xu Wanyin gripped the steering wheel so tight her knuckles went white. She could barely see through the windshield, the wipers were going crazy but it didn't help. Rain just kept coming down in sheets and her eyes were blurry anyway because she'd been crying for the last hour.
Four years. She'd wasted four whole years on him.
Her phone buzzed in the cupholder again. She didn't even have to look, she already knew who it was. Shen Jingwei. Of course it was him. It was always him calling, texting, demanding she come back.
"Where did you go? Come back to the room. Stop being dramatic."
Dramatic. That's what he called it when she got upset. When she cried because he cancelled on her again to have dinner with his wife. When she asked him when he was going to leave Jiang Meilin like he promised. When she begged him to at least acknowledge her in public.
She was so tired of it. Tired of being the secret. Tired of the Shanghai apartment he bought her that felt like a prison. Tired of waiting and waiting and never being enough.
The phone kept buzzing and buzzing.
Without thinking, she reached for it. Just to turn it off, just to make his name stop lighting up the screen. She couldn't take it anymore, couldn't take seeing "Jingwei" pop up one more time with another excuse or another demand.
That's when everything went wrong.
Headlights. Bright, blinding headlights coming right at her.
The other car was in her lane, it wasn't even trying to move, it was just coming straight for her and Xu Wanyin screamed and jerked the wheel to the right. Too fast, way too fast. The tires lost grip on the wet road and suddenly she was spinning, the whole world was spinning, rain and lights and the horrible screech of metal on metal as her car hit the guardrail.
The impact came next.
Everything exploded. The airbag slammed into her face and she felt her ribs crack, felt something in her shoulder snap. Her head hit something hard. The car was rolling, flipping, she couldn't tell which way was up anymore. Glass was everywhere, raining down on her like sharp little knives.
When the car finally stopped moving, she couldn't breathe right. Every breath hurt. There was blood dripping down into her eyes, warm and sticky. She tried to move but her body wouldn't listen. Pain was everywhere, sharp and burning and wrong.
Her phone was on the floor somehow, still working, still lit up with his name.
"Wanyin, answer me right now. You're being childish about this."
Childish. Even now he thought she was just throwing a tantrum.
She wanted to laugh but blood came up instead, filling her mouth with copper taste. Four years she'd given him. Four years of making herself small and quiet and convenient. Four years of being told she was too emotional, too needy, too demanding when all she wanted was to be treated like she mattered.
Her vision started going dark. The rain kept pounding on what was left of her car and she could smell something chemical, something bad. Gasoline maybe. That meant she needed to get out but she couldn't move and everything hurt so much and—
The last thing Xu Wanyin thought about before she passed out was that hotel room. The one with the view of the Bund that he'd rented for them. She'd sat on the bed for three hours in the red dress he liked, waiting for him to finish his family dinner and come see her.
She'd left her self-respect in that room. Left it folded up next to that stupid red dress she'd never wear again.
Now she was leaving everything else.
---
Sirens. Red and blue lights flashing through the rain. Hands pulling at her, voices yelling things she couldn't understand. Someone kept saying her name but it sounded weird, far away, like she was underwater.
"Miss Xu! Miss Xu, can you hear me?"
She couldn't answer. Her body felt so heavy, like someone had filled her with concrete. Her thoughts were all scattered, breaking apart like the windshield.
A young paramedic's face appeared above her, he looked scared. "We're losing her! BP is dropping fast!"
More hands touching her. Someone was cutting her seatbelt. When they moved her, pain shot through her chest and she tried to scream but only made a weak sound.
Her phone was still buzzing. Even now, even while she was dying on the side of the Yan'an Elevated Road, he was still calling. Still thinking she'd pick up. Still expecting her to come back like she always did.
The paramedic grabbed the phone, looking for emergency contacts. "Who should we call? Miss Xu, who can we notify?"
If she could talk, she would've told him there was nobody. Her parents stopped answering her calls two years ago when they found out about the affair. Her modeling friends had all moved on. Her little sister Xu Qian had made it very clear she wanted nothing to do with her.
The only number in her phone was his. The man who'd never claim her, not in public, not to his family, not even now when she was dying.
"Shen Jingwei," she whispered through the blood. It was barely a sound. "Tell him... tell him I'm done."
Then everything went black and Xu Wanyin stopped fighting.
For the first time in four years, she felt free.
---
THREE WEEKS LATER
Everything was too white. The hospital room, the sheets, the lights that made her head hurt. Xu Wanyin stared at the ceiling, trying to remember how she got here.
The doctors said she'd been in a car accident. A really bad one. They said she was lucky to be alive, kept saying words like "traumatic brain injury" and "coma" and "miraculous recovery."
When they asked her what year it was, she knew. When they asked her name, she remembered. But when they asked about her family, her job, her life... that's when things got confusing.
"Miss Xu, what's the last thing you remember doing?"
She frowned, thinking hard. "I was... I had a photoshoot. For Vogue China I think. They wanted me for their spring collection."
The doctor looked at the nurse. It wasn't a good look.
"Miss Xu, that photoshoot was five years ago. You were modeling back then, yes. But you quit. Do you remember why you quit?"
Five years?
That couldn't be right. She just got signed to the agency like six months ago. She was twenty-three years old. She'd finally made it, finally become the model she dreamed about being when she was just a teenager in Hangzhou with big dreams and a train ticket to Shanghai.
"I don't... what are you talking about?"
The doctor's face got gentle. "You have retrograde amnesia. The accident damaged your hippocampus. You've lost about five years of memories. Everything you remember clearly is from 2021, but right now it's 2026."
2026.
Five whole years just... gone.
"What happened?" Her voice broke. "What did I do for five years?"
The doctor hesitated. He looked uncomfortable. "I think your family should explain that part. They're outside, they've been waiting to see you. Should I let them in?"
Family. She should've felt relieved but instead something cold twisted in her stomach. Some instinct was screaming at her that whatever happened in those missing five years, whatever she'd done, she wasn't going to like finding out about it.
"Okay," she said quietly. "Let them in."
The door opened.
Xu Wanyin's nightmare was about to begin.