At seven the next morning, Ryan was still sitting outside the Civil Registry.

I knew because Sophie sent me another photograph.

His uniform shirt was wrinkled. The bag of buns beside him remained unopened. His head rested against the stone pillar, and the document folder was still clutched in his hand.

Sophie added:

“He looks terrible.”

I finished chopping scallions.

“He’ll survive.”

“You’re not going?”

“No.”

The answer came more easily than I expected.

In my previous life, if Ryan had waited for me all night, I would have run to him before sunrise.

This time, I opened Nanfeng Restaurant at six-thirty.

Some people waited one night and thought it proved love. I had waited three years and learned otherwise.

At eight, the first customers arrived.

At nine, Ryan walked through the door.

Everyone became quiet.

He looked as if he had spent the night fighting the sidewalk.

My father glanced at him from the kitchen.

My mother continued calculating the accounts without raising her head.

Ryan stopped in front of me.

“Olivia.”

“Would you like noodles?”

His jaw tightened.

“I came to talk.”

“Then order first. Customers have priority.”

He stared at me, clearly unfamiliar with this version of myself.

Finally, he sat down.

“Beef noodles.”

I wrote it on the ticket.

“Twenty-two.”

He looked almost offended.

“You’re charging me?”

“My restaurant isn’t a police charity.”

Sophie nearly choked behind the counter.

Ten minutes later, I placed the bowl in front of him.

Ryan didn’t touch it.

He pushed the marriage documents toward me.

“Yesterday was my fault.”

I paused.

That sentence had never existed in my previous life.

Ryan Cole never admitted fault.

He explained circumstances.

He described responsibilities.

He reminded everyone that his job was difficult.

But he never said those three words.

Still, I felt nothing resembling hope.

“You were late,” I said.

“I know.”

“Because of Lily.”

“Yes.”

He looked exhausted.

“But her mother was genuinely missing.”

“I know.”

His eyes sharpened.

“Then why are you acting as if I betrayed you?”

I smiled.

There it was.

The old Ryan had returned in less than thirty seconds.

“I’m not angry because you helped someone.”

“Then what?”

“Because you always choose her first and ask me to understand afterward.”

He opened his mouth.

I raised my hand.

“My birthday.”

He stopped.

“My fever.”

Silence.

“Our anniversary.”

His fingers slowly tightened around the folder.

“The day your mother was hospitalized, I cancelled an important dinner to stay with you,” he said.

“And halfway through the night, Lily called because her electricity went out.”

Ryan’s face changed.

“You remember that?”

“I remember everything.”

That was the problem.

In my previous life, I had collected disappointments like restaurant receipts.

Small individually.

Heavy together.

Ryan looked down.

“Lily doesn’t have family.”

“Neither did your wife when she needed you.”

He suddenly raised his head.

I corrected myself.

“Your almost-wife.”

He went pale.

Before he could answer, the restaurant door opened.

Lily walked in.

Of course she did.

White dress.

Fragile expression.

Eyes already red.

“Olivia.”

Sophie muttered:

“Here comes the emergency department.”

Lily ignored her.

She approached me cautiously.

“I wanted to apologize about yesterday.”

“No need.”

Ryan stood.

“Why did you come?”

Lily looked at him.

“You didn’t answer my calls.”

Something in my chest almost laughed.

Even now.

Even after an entire night waiting for me.

She called, and his attention immediately moved toward her.

Lily looked between us.

“I heard you cancelled the marriage because Ryan helped me. Please don’t misunderstand. We’re only friends.”

“I know.”

She blinked.

“You do?”

“Yes.”

I wiped the counter.

“The problem isn’t whether you love him.”

Then I looked at Ryan.

“It’s whether he knows how to stop choosing you.”

His face stiffened.

Lily suddenly started crying.

“I never asked him to choose me.”

My mother finally spoke.

“No. You merely call him every time something happens.”

Lily turned red.

“My mother really was missing yesterday.”

My mother nodded calmly.

“And there are police stations, emergency numbers, coworkers, neighbors and dozens of other people in this city.”

She pushed her glasses upward.

“Interesting that your emergencies always require someone else’s boyfriend.”

Ryan frowned.

“Aunt Margaret—”

My father slammed his knife into the chopping board.

“Don’t correct my wife in my restaurant.”

Silence.

Ryan slowly sat again.

For the first time, nobody was protecting him from discomfort.

Lily left crying ten minutes later.

Ryan did not follow.

That surprised me.

But it did not change anything.

Over the next month, he came almost every day.

Sometimes he ate noodles.

Sometimes he simply sat outside.

He stopped defending Lily.

He stopped asking me to register the marriage.

Eventually, he even returned the apartment deposit we had paid together.

Then one afternoon, Sophie rushed into the restaurant holding her phone.

“Olivia.”

Her expression was strange.

“What?”

“Lily has been arrested.”

I froze.

Ryan arrived twenty minutes later.

His face looked terrible.

He placed a police report in front of me.

Lily’s mother had never been missing on the day of our marriage registration.

She had been playing mahjong at a neighbor’s house.

Lily knew exactly where she was.

She had invented the entire emergency.

Not only that.

Investigators found dozens of messages she had sent friends over the years.

One sentence appeared repeatedly.

“As long as I call, Ryan will leave Olivia.”

Ryan stared at the floor.

“I ruined everything for someone who was testing whether she could control me.”

I shook my head.

“No.”

He looked up.

“She revealed what was already there.”

“What?”

“You wanted to be needed more than you wanted to be my partner.”

His eyes turned red.

“Olivia…”

“I don’t hate you.”

That hurt him more than anger would have.

“But I won’t marry you.”

Months passed.

Nanfeng’s night shift became unexpectedly popular.

Then we opened a second location.

A year later, I signed the lease on a third.

Ryan transferred to another district.

Occasionally, I heard things about him.

He became quieter.

More careful.

He stopped rushing to solve everyone’s problems.

Two years after the day I refused to marry him, I walked past the Civil Registry again.

Ryan was standing on the opposite side of the street.

For a moment, neither of us moved.

He smiled first.

“You look well.”

“I am.”

He glanced at the building.

“I used to think waiting for you all night meant I loved you.”

I said nothing.

“Now I understand.”

His voice softened.

“Love would have meant not making you wait for years.”

I smiled.

This time there was no pain.

“Take care, Ryan.”

“You too, Olivia.”

Then we walked in opposite directions.

I did not turn around.

In my previous life, I had spent three years waiting for him to choose me.

In this life, I finally understood something much simpler:

The best second chance was never getting Ryan back.

It was getting myself back.