I signed first.
Lam Lan.
Two characters.
Seven years of marriage ended beneath the tip of a black pen.
Chu Tuan looked at my signature and laughed.
“You really signed?”
“Yes.”
“Fine.”
He picked up the pen and wrote his name with a flourish.
Then he threw it onto the table.
“Happy now?”
I folded the agreement carefully.
“Very.”
That answer seemed to annoy him more than tears would have.
He picked up his phone.
“I’m going out.”
I didn’t ask where.
At 10:47 p.m., Hua Vi posted a photo.
Two wine glasses.
A man’s hand was visible opposite her.
On his wrist was the watch I had bought Chu Tuan for our fifth anniversary.
Her caption said:
Some people will eventually return to where they belong.
I looked at it for three seconds.
Then I blocked her.
After that, I made an appointment for the next morning.
At eight twenty, Chu Tuan was still asleep when I left.
At nine fifteen, he finally called.
“Where are you?”
“Outside.”
“Still angry?”
“No.”
He chuckled.
“Then buy breakfast on your way back.”
I looked at the number displayed above the service window.
“I’m not coming back.”
Silence.
“What?”
“Our appointment is at nine forty.”
“What appointment?”
“The divorce registration.”
He sat up so quickly I heard movement through the phone.
“Lam Lan, are you serious?”
“I was serious last night.”
“You made the appointment already?”
“Yes.”
Another silence.
Then he laughed.
“Fine. Wait for me.”
He still thought it was a game.
Twenty-five minutes later, he arrived wearing yesterday’s shirt.
He signed every document without reading carefully.
When the employee asked us one final time whether the decision was voluntary, Chu Tuan leaned back and looked at me.
“Yes.”
His expression almost said:
Let’s see how long you can keep acting.
I answered:
“Yes.”
The stamp came down.
When the two divorce certificates were placed before us, his smile finally disappeared.
He picked his up.
Opened it.
Closed it.
Opened it again.
“That’s it?”
The employee looked confused.
“Yes.”
Chu Tuan turned toward me.
“Lam Lan.”
I put my certificate in my bag.
“What?”
“You actually divorced me?”
I almost laughed.
“You signed twice.”
“I thought…”
He stopped.
Of course.
He thought I would retreat.
He thought I would cry in the parking lot.
He thought seven years had trained me to forgive an eighth.
“You thought I couldn’t last the night.”
His face stiffened.
I walked away.
I didn’t go home.
I went to a lawyer.
Not to reverse anything.
To recover what legally belonged to me.
The 423,800-yuan watch was only the beginning.
For seven years, I had managed most of our household finances.
I knew every mortgage payment.
Every renovation invoice.
Every transfer.
Every time Chu Tuan said the company needed temporary cash, I had believed him.
Now I stopped believing and started checking.
The first surprise appeared within two hours.
The 300,000 yuan I had withdrawn from our fixed deposit had never entered the company’s operating account.
It went into Chu Tuan’s personal investment account.
From there, 180,000 had been transferred elsewhere.
Recipient:
Hua Vi.
I stared at the screen.
My lawyer asked:
“Do you recognize her?”
“Yes.”
“The watch?”
“No.”
I swallowed.
“She is my ex-husband’s former girlfriend.”
He nodded.
“Then we should examine the rest.”
The rest was worse.
There were transfers for rent.
Furniture.
Travel.
A deposit on an apartment.
Not all directly under Hua Vi’s name.
Some went through a company belonging to her cousin.
Some were labeled consulting expenses.
Some were hidden among Chu Tuan’s business reimbursements.
The total exceeded 1.6 million yuan.
Suddenly, the watch no longer looked extravagant.
It looked careless.
He had become so comfortable using our marital money for Hua Vi that he no longer bothered hiding the final purchase.
Chu Tuan called that afternoon.
“Where are you?”
“At my lawyer’s office.”
Silence.
“What lawyer?”
“My lawyer.”
“For what?”
“To review the division of marital assets.”
His voice changed immediately.
“We already signed an agreement.”
“Yes.”
“You agreed that company shares remain mine.”
“I did.”
“So what are you trying to do?”
“Understand where our money went.”
“Lam Lan.”
His voice became cold.
“Don’t make this ugly.”
I smiled.
For seven years, whenever I asked questions, I was making things ugly.
Whenever he lied, apparently he was preserving peace.
“I haven’t done anything yet.”
“What do you mean, yet?”
I ended the call.
That evening, I returned to the apartment with movers.
Chu Tuan was waiting.
Hua Vi was there too.
She was sitting on my sofa.
Wearing the watch.
I stopped at the door.
Hua Vi stood immediately.
“Sister Lan, don’t misunderstand.”
I almost admired her consistency.
“Why are you here?”
“Chu Tuan was upset.”
I looked at my ex-husband.
“You’ve been divorced less than twelve hours and she already has a key?”
His expression darkened.
“She came to talk.”
“Wonderful.”
I gestured toward the apartment.
“Continue after I leave.”
Hua Vi touched the watch nervously.
Then she said:
“I can return it if you’re really bothered.”
I looked at her wrist.
“No.”
She blinked.
“Keep it.”
Chu Tuan frowned.
I continued:
“My lawyer already has the receipt.”
The room became silent.
Hua Vi looked at him.
“What does she mean?”
Chu Tuan stepped toward me.
“You investigated me?”
“No.”
I picked up a box.
“I investigated my money.”
Within a month, the man who had laughed while signing our divorce agreement stopped laughing.
His lawyer contacted mine.
Then his accountant called.
Then Chu Tuan himself appeared outside my office.
“Let’s talk.”
“About?”
“The settlement.”
“I thought everything was simple.”
His jaw tightened.
“Don’t play games.”
“I learned from you.”
He lowered his voice.
“Hua Vi didn’t know where the money came from.”
“I don’t care.”
“She thought it was mine.”
“I don’t care about that either.”
His expression changed.
That was when he finally understood.
This wasn’t a competition between Hua Vi and me.
I wasn’t trying to make him choose me.
I wasn’t waiting for him to apologize so we could reconcile.
I simply wanted to finish the accounting.
Then I wanted him gone.
“Did you ever love me?” he suddenly asked.
I looked at him.
“Yes.”
His eyes moved.
“Then how can you be this calm?”
“Because I spent years being upset.”
I smiled faintly.
“You just weren’t paying attention.”
Three months later, we reached a revised financial settlement.
I recovered the portion of marital funds my lawyer had traced.
I sold my share of the apartment.
I didn’t fight for Chu Tuan’s company.
I didn’t want it.
With my savings and settlement, I opened a small financial consulting firm with a former colleague.
For seven years, I had managed someone else’s home, someone else’s investments, someone else’s future.
Now I built mine.
Hua Vi and Chu Tuan lasted four months.
Hannah, a mutual friend, told me.
I didn’t ask why.
But she told me anyway.
Apparently Hua Vi had expected the generous man who bought 423,800-yuan watches.
Instead, she got a man facing financial pressure, legal expenses and a company with cash-flow problems.
Romance looked different when the bill arrived.
I laughed once.
Then I changed the subject.
Six months after the divorce, I received an unexpected call.
It was from Chu Tuan’s former finance director.
“Ms. Lam, do you still have the records from the 300,000-yuan transfer?”
“Yes.”
“Could we meet?”
“Why?”
There was a pause.
“Because your money may not have been the only money transferred through that account.”
My smile disappeared.
We met the next morning.
He brought a folder.
Inside were transaction records connected to Chu Tuan’s company.
Large amounts had been moved through several intermediary accounts.
One name appeared repeatedly.
Hua Vi.
“What is this?”
The finance director looked uncomfortable.
“We initially thought Mr. Chu was using company funds to support her.”
“Initially?”
He nodded.
“Then we found transfers going the other direction.”
I looked closer.
Hua Vi had transferred money into one of Chu Tuan’s accounts years earlier.
Long before the watch.
Long before the house-viewing incident.
Even before Chu Tuan first told me they had “reconnected as friends.”
“How long have they been in contact?”
“At least five years.”
My fingers went cold.
Five years.
Chu Tuan had always claimed Hua Vi had returned to his life two years ago.
I turned another page.
Then I saw a document that made me stop.
It was a loan agreement.
Borrower: Chu Tuan.
Lender: Hua Vi.
Amount: 2.8 million yuan.
Date: three months before Chu Tuan and I bought our apartment.
But the strangest part wasn’t the money.
It was the collateral.
The document listed shares in Chu Tuan’s company.
Shares he had later declared in our divorce agreement as entirely his.
The finance director tapped one paragraph.
“Read the condition here.”
I did.
If the debt remained unpaid after seven years, Hua Vi would receive the pledged shares automatically.
Seven years.
I calculated the date.
The deadline was next month.
Suddenly, I understood why Hua Vi had sent me the photograph of the watch.
Why she had made sure I saw the receipt.
Why she had emphasized that Chu Tuan “insisted” on buying it.
She hadn’t been carelessly showing off.
She had wanted me angry.
She had wanted a confrontation.
And she had gotten exactly what she wanted.
A divorce completed almost overnight.
I looked at the finance director.
“Why would my divorce matter to this agreement?”
He opened the final document.
“Because according to the company’s original incorporation records, some of the shares Chu Tuan pledged may not belong solely to him.”
My heart began pounding.
“Who else owns them?”
He turned the page.
My name was there.
Lam Lan.
I stared at it.
Then I remembered something I had forgotten for years.
When Chu Tuan started his company, I had invested the money my parents gave me after our wedding.
He told me the registration was temporary.
He later claimed my stake had been converted during restructuring.
I had trusted him.
Apparently, I shouldn’t have.
The finance director spoke quietly.
“If these records are valid, your signature was required before those shares could ever be pledged.”
“I never signed anything.”
“I know.”
He pushed a photocopy toward me.
There was my name.
My identification number.
And a signature that looked almost exactly like mine.
Almost.
I suddenly remembered Hua Vi’s message on the night my marriage ended.
Don’t misunderstand.
At first I didn’t want to accept it.
He insisted on buying it for me.
I had believed she was showing me the watch because she wanted my husband.
Now I wasn’t so sure.
Maybe the watch had never been the prize.
Maybe my marriage had never been the real target either.
Maybe Hua Vi had spent years waiting for me to leave because, once I was gone, she believed no one would look closely enough at the one thing worth far more than 423,800 yuan.
My share of Chu Tuan’s company.
