Chu Nghien Bach’s message contained only five words.
Where are the children?
I looked at it for several seconds.
Then replied:
With me. They’re fine.
His answer came instantly.
Where are you?
Sanya.
The phone rang.
I declined.
He called again.
I declined again.
On the third attempt, I turned the phone off.
For three years, he’d barely spoken ten sentences to me in a day.
Now he suddenly discovered the telephone.
Too late.
The next morning, someone knocked on my hotel-room door.
I thought it was breakfast.
Instead, when I opened it, Chu Nghien Bach stood outside.
Black shirt.
Wrinkled coat.
Bloodshot eyes.
For perhaps the first time since I’d known him, he didn’t look immaculate.
He looked furious.
“Khuong Van.”
I leaned against the door.
“General Manager Chu.”
His face darkened.
“Why did you leave?”
I almost laughed.
“You told me to.”
“I told you to sign the agreement.”
“And move out within three days.”
“Did you even read the agreement?”
“No.”
His expression became almost unbelievable.
“You signed a document involving ten billion without reading it?”
“Yes.”
“Khuong Van!”
My son appeared behind me.
“Mom?”
Chu Nghien Bach immediately stopped shouting.
His expression changed when he saw the boy.
“Dad?”
My son ran toward him.
Chu Nghien Bach crouched and caught him.
Then my daughter began crying from inside.
For several seconds, the cold heir of the Chu family simply held his son and listened to his daughter cry.
Then he looked at me.
“Let me in.”
I let him enter for the children’s sake.
He walked directly to the stroller.
My daughter stared at him.
Then turned her head away.
Chu Nghien Bach froze.
“She doesn’t recognize me?”
I said nothing.
He slowly looked at me.
“Khuong Van.”
“She barely saw you.”
His face lost color.
That sentence hurt him more than anything I could have shouted.
He pulled the agreement from his coat.
“Read it.”
“No.”
“Read it!”
I took the papers.
The first pages were ordinary confidentiality provisions.
Then I reached the financial section.
My fingers stopped.
The ten billion wasn’t listed as compensation.
It was an irrevocable transfer.
Beneficiary:
Khuong Van.
Purpose:
Independent family asset allocation.
Then came shares.
Properties.
A trust for both children.
And one clause I read three times.
If I chose to leave the Chu residence, the assets remained mine.
Whether or not I maintained any relationship with Chu Nghien Bach.
I looked up.
“What is this?”
His jaw tightened.
“What do you think?”
“Why would you give me this?”
He stared at me as though I were the impossible one.
“Because you’re the mother of my children.”
“That explains the children’s trust.”
I lifted the agreement.
“Not this.”
Silence.
Then he said:
“My grandmother told me you were planning to leave.”
I froze.
“When?”
“After our daughter was born.”
So he’d known.
He had known I was tired.
Known I was unhappy.
And instead of asking me to stay—
he’d sent a lawyer.
I laughed.
“You really are incredible.”
His brows tightened.
“What?”
“You heard I wanted to leave, so you gave me ten billion and ordered me out.”
“I didn’t order you out.”
“The lawyer said I had three days to vacate the villa.”
“Because the villa was being transferred.”
I stopped.
“What?”
“To you.”
Now it was my turn to stare.
Chu Nghien Bach rubbed his forehead.
“The property couldn’t be transferred while certain family holdings remained attached to it. The lawyer was supposed to explain that you’d temporarily relocate while ownership was restructured.”
I remembered interrupting the lawyer.
No need to watch.
Just need 10 billion in my account, I will move out tonight.
For the first time, embarrassment crept up my neck.
But only briefly.
Because another question remained.
“Your message.”
“What message?”
“Then you go.”
He closed his eyes.
“I meant go wherever you wanted for a few days.”
“You couldn’t add that sentence?”
“I thought the lawyer explained everything.”
“He tried.”
Chu Nghien Bach stared at me.
“You didn’t let him?”
“No.”
He looked toward the ceiling.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Our three-year relationship had apparently collapsed partly because two emotionally incompetent adults had refused to finish a conversation.
But that wasn’t the whole problem.
Not even close.
I placed the agreement on the table.
“Fine.”
His eyes immediately changed.
“Then come home.”
“No.”
He froze.
“You know the truth now.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And ten billion doesn’t fix three years.”
His face became still.
I pointed toward our daughter.
“You weren’t there when she was born.”
His fingers tightened.
“You came into my room only when your family wanted children.”
“Khuong Van—”
“You never introduced me as your partner.”
I looked directly at him.
“You gave me money because money is the only language you know how to speak.”
He couldn’t deny it.
“So tell me something without using money.”
Silence.
“Why do you want me back?”
Chu Nghien Bach opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
I smiled sadly.
“Exactly.”
He returned to King City alone.
I stayed in Sanya.
The money remained untouched except for reasonable expenses.
I hired my own lawyer to review every document.
The conclusion surprised me.
The transfer was genuine.
There was no hidden requirement that I return.
No clause forcing me into a relationship.
No trap involving the children.
Chu Nghien Bach had actually given me enough independent assets to ensure that I would never have to stay with him for money again.
It was perhaps the most respectful thing he’d ever done.
And he’d done it in the least respectful way imaginable.
A week later, his grandmother called.
“Khuong Van.”
“Grandmother.”
“You misunderstood Nghien Bach.”
“Partly.”
She sighed.
“That boy has been impossible since childhood.”
I almost smiled.
“He thought giving you independence would prove he didn’t see you as someone he’d purchased.”
My fingers tightened around the phone.
The old woman continued:
“When he first offered you money for a child, I nearly hit him.”
“That would’ve been reasonable.”
She laughed.
“He didn’t understand relationships. His father taught him that everything could be solved with contracts.”
“And now?”
“Now he’s discovering that ten billion can buy many things.”
She paused.
“But apparently not a plane ticket back from Sanya.”
For the next six months, Chu Nghien Bach visited the children regularly.
Not me.
The children.
That distinction mattered.
He learned our daughter’s feeding schedule.
He learned our son’s favorite dinosaur.
He attended pediatric appointments.
He stopped sending assistants.
He stopped bringing expensive gifts every visit after I told him the children needed their father more than another room full of toys.
And slowly, something changed.
Not between us.
In him.
One evening, after putting both children to sleep, he stood at my doorway.
“I understand now.”
“What?”
“Why you left.”
I waited.
He looked toward the children’s room.
“I treated providing for you as if it were the same thing as caring for you.”
I said nothing.
“I thought because you accepted the arrangement, you didn’t need anything else.”
“That was convenient.”
“Yes.”
He surprised me by agreeing.
Then he handed me a folder.
I sighed.
“Another contract?”
“No.”
Inside was a single document.
A signed acknowledgment that the ten billion and transferred assets were mine regardless of whether we ever reconciled.
No conditions.
No repayment.
No relationship requirement.
I looked up.
“Why?”
“Because if you ever choose me again, I need to know it isn’t because you need my money.”
For once, Chu Nghien Bach had finally said something worth hearing.
We didn’t reunite that night.
Or that year.
I used part of my independent assets to start an investment company.
For the first time since university, I had work that belonged to me.
Not the Chu family.
Not motherhood.
Me.
The company grew slowly.
Then quickly.
Chu Nghien Bach never invested.
I wouldn’t let him.
He complained exactly once.
Then respected my answer.
Two years later, our son had a school family day.
The teacher asked every child to draw a picture of home.
My son drew four people.
Me.
His sister.
Himself.
And Chu Nghien Bach.
Underneath, he drew two houses.
I stared at it.
“Why two houses?”
He answered as if it were obvious.
“Because Mom has one and Dad has one.”
Then he smiled.
“But we’re still family.”
Chu Nghien Bach looked at me.
Neither of us corrected him.
That evening, after the children fell asleep, Nghien Bach asked:
“Khuong Van.”
“Yes?”
“Can I pursue you?”
I nearly dropped my tea.
“What?”
He looked completely serious.
“I never did it properly.”
“You offered me money to have children.”
“I know.”
“You sent lawyers instead of speaking.”
“I know.”
“You’re terrible at romance.”
“I’ve been informed.”
I laughed.
Then he asked:
“So?”
I thought for a long moment.
“You can try.”
His eyes changed.
“But I’m promising nothing.”
“I know.”
“And don’t send money.”
His mouth twitched.
“That removes approximately ninety percent of my skills.”
“Then learn new ones.”
So he did.
A year later, when Chu Nghien Bach proposed, there was no ten-billion transfer.
No lawyer.
No family meeting.
No contract disguised as emotion.
Just him, me and our two children eating dinner at home.
He placed a small ring on the table.
Then said:
“Khuong Van, I don’t need you to answer today.”
I stared at him.
He continued:
“The house is yours whether you say yes or no.”
I laughed.
“The money is yours.”
“I know.”
“The children are ours.”
My eyes softened.
“And I…”
For once, the man who negotiated billion-dollar deals hesitated.
“I hope I can be yours, if you still want me.”
This time, I listened to the entire sentence.
And then I said yes.
Years later, people still told the story incorrectly.
They said Chu Nghien Bach paid ten billion to get rid of the woman who had given him two children.
Then regretted it and chased her back.
That wasn’t what happened.
The ten billion was never a breakup fee.
It was his clumsy attempt to remove the one thing that had poisoned our relationship from the beginning:
Dependency.
He wanted me to have enough money to leave freely—
because somewhere along the way, the man who once believed everything had a price had realized that if I stayed only because I needed his money, then he had never truly been chosen.
The irony was that I didn’t listen long enough to understand.
So I took the money.
Took the children.
And disappeared.
But perhaps leaving was still necessary.
Because ten billion couldn’t make me love him.
It couldn’t make him a good father.
It couldn’t repair three years of loneliness.
All it could do was give me freedom.
What Chu Nghien Bach did afterward was harder.
He learned to show up.
He learned to listen.
He learned that providing wasn’t the same as loving.
And eventually, when I returned to him, I didn’t return to his villa.
I didn’t return to his black card.
I didn’t return because he was the heir of the Chu family.
I returned because for the first time since we’d met, I could walk away with everything I needed—
and still chose to stay.
