By the third month, I stopped checking whether Tran Chu had transferred the 8,000 yuan.

By the sixth, I returned every payment.

He called immediately.

“To Van, what are you doing?”

“I have a salary now.”

His voice became cold.

“Didn’t I tell you not to work?”

“You’re in Germany.”

“That doesn’t change anything.”

I almost laughed.

“Apparently it changes quite a lot.”

There was silence.

Then Lam Chi’s voice sounded somewhere behind him.

“Tran Chu, the car is waiting.”

He immediately said:

“I have a meeting. We’ll discuss this later.”

The call ended.

We never did.

Because I stopped waiting for his permission.

Two years later, Due Hang completed its largest acquisition.

I became financial director.

Three years later, Tham Du Chau made me a partner.

By the fifth year, Due Hang was no longer a small investment company.

We had offices in four cities and investments in technology, logistics, healthcare and advanced manufacturing.

My annual income had long surpassed what Tran Chu once believed I could earn in a lifetime.

Our marriage, however, existed only on paper.

At first he came home once a year.

Then once every eighteen months.

Lam Chi was always nearby.

Photos appeared occasionally.

Frankfurt.

Vienna.

Zurich.

Christmas dinners.

Business conferences.

She never posted anything explicitly romantic.

She didn’t need to.

The woman accompanying my husband through Europe was my best friend.

I was the wife receiving 8,000 yuan back home.

Eventually even my mother told me:

“Don’t make trouble. Tran Chu has an important career. Lam Chi is only helping him.”

I asked:

“Then why doesn’t she help someone else’s husband?”

My mother hung up.

That was the last time I discussed my marriage with her.

Then, one Monday morning, my assistant entered my office.

“Director To, the new overseas compliance team has arrived.”

I didn’t look up.

“Have HR handle orientation.”

“There is one problem.”

“What?”

“The team leader says he knows you.”

I raised my head.

“Name?”

She checked the tablet.

“Tran Chu.”

For several seconds, I thought I had heard incorrectly.

Then I laughed.

Five years.

Life had an extraordinary sense of humor.

“Send him in.”

The door opened ten minutes later.

Tran Chu walked inside.

He had changed.

Older.

Sharper.

More tired.

He was wearing the same kind of dark suit he used to wear when telling me that finance was unnecessary for a woman who already had a husband.

Then he saw the plaque on my desk.

TO VAN
CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER & MANAGING PARTNER

He stopped.

“To Van?”

I closed the report.

“Mr. Tran.”

His eyes moved around the office.

“What are you doing here?”

“This is my office.”

“I mean—”

“I know what you mean.”

He stared at me.

“You work for Due Hang?”

“Technically, Due Hang partly works for me.”

His face changed.

At that moment, Tham Du Chau walked in.

“To Van, the Singapore acquisition—”

He noticed Tran Chu.

Then smiled.

“Mr. Tran. It’s been years.”

Tran Chu looked between us.

“You knew?”

“About your wife?”

Tham Du Chau placed the documents on my desk.

“I’ve known her longer professionally than you’ve apparently known her at all.”

“Du Chau.”

I gave him a warning look.

He shrugged.

“Meeting in twenty minutes.”

After he left, Tran Chu closed the door.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

I actually laughed.

“Tell you what?”

“This.”

He gestured around the office.

“My job?”

“Your position. Your career. All of it.”

“Five years ago I told you I wanted to work.”

“You never told me you actually did!”

“You never asked.”

His mouth opened.

Then closed.

Finally:

“We’re husband and wife.”

I looked at him.

“Are we?”

That silenced him.

I opened my drawer.

Inside was an envelope I had prepared months earlier.

I placed it before him.

Divorce agreement.

Tran Chu stared at the words.

“No.”

“You haven’t even read it.”

“I said no.”

His reaction almost amused me.

Five years earlier, he had decided which woman would accompany him abroad without discussing it with me.

Now he suddenly believed marriage required mutual agreement.

“I’ve already instructed my lawyer.”

“To Van, don’t be ridiculous.”

There it was.

The same tone.

The same man.

“You disappear into work for five years and suddenly divorce me because I came back?”

“No.”

I leaned back.

“I’m divorcing you because five years ago you left with another woman and expected your wife to freeze in place until you returned.”

“Lam Chi and I never had that kind of relationship.”

“Then this should be easy.”

His expression hardened.

“What does that mean?”

“If nothing happened, the divorce isn’t punishment for cheating.”

I looked directly at him.

“It’s the consequence of abandonment.”

That evening, Lam Chi called me.

Five years without a meaningful conversation.

Her first words were:

“To Van, you’ve misunderstood us.”

I smiled.

“Of course.”

“Nothing happened between Tran Chu and me.”

“You lived abroad together for five years.”

“We didn’t live together!”

“You traveled together?”

Silence.

“Spent holidays together?”

Silence.

“Attended events together?”

“To Van—”

“And during those five years, how many times did you call your best friend?”

She couldn’t answer.

I continued quietly:

“Whether you slept with my husband stopped mattering a long time ago.”

Her voice trembled.

“Then why are you divorcing him?”

“Because I discovered I prefer my life without him.”

That was the one answer neither of them knew how to fight.

The divorce took eight months.

During that period, Tran Chu discovered something else.

Due Hang had acquired a controlling interest in the domestic financial-services group that had recalled him from Germany.

Technically, I wasn’t his direct superior.

But the division he had returned to work for reported into a group whose restructuring committee I chaired.

The first time he attended a management meeting and saw me at the head of the table, his expression was unforgettable.

I didn’t humiliate him.

I didn’t fire him.

I didn’t even mention our marriage.

“Mr. Tran,” I said, “please present the European division figures.”

For the next forty minutes, I treated him exactly as I treated every executive in that room.

Professionally.

That hurt him more than hatred would have.

Afterward, he waited outside.

“You’ve changed.”

“Yes.”

“You used to wait for me every night.”

“I had too much free time.”

“To Van.”

He caught up with me.

“I know I was wrong.”

I stopped.

He looked exhausted.

“I thought you were comfortable at home.”

“You never asked whether I was.”

“I thought providing for you was enough.”

“Eight thousand yuan?”

His face reddened.

“It wasn’t about the amount.”

“No.”

I nodded.

“It was about what it represented.”

He waited.

“You gave yourself a career, another country, companionship, choices and a future.”

My voice remained calm.

“You gave me 8,000 yuan and told me not to spend carelessly.”

He lowered his eyes.

“I was arrogant.”

“Yes.”

“I thought because you loved me, you would always be there.”

“Yes.”

“And now?”

I looked at him.

“Now I know love is not a job description.”

The divorce became final that winter.

Tran Chu moved out.

Lam Chi returned to China several months later.

She sent me a long apology.

I read it once.

Then deleted it.

I didn’t need revenge on either of them.

My life had become too large to keep organizing it around people who had once made it small.

Three years later, Due Hang celebrated its tenth anniversary.

Tham Du Chau raised his glass during the executive dinner.

“To the person who found seven tax risks in her first month and has been correcting the rest of us ever since.”

Everyone laughed.

I did too.

Later that evening, my assistant handed me an envelope.

Inside was an old bank card.

The card Tran Chu had left on the table years earlier.

Attached was a note in his handwriting.

I finally understand why you never used it.

I turned the card over in my fingers.

Then placed it in a drawer.

Not because it still mattered.

Because it didn’t.

Once, 8,000 yuan had represented the boundaries of the life my husband believed I needed.

Food.

Utilities.

Mortgage.

Nothing more.

He left for Germany believing he was the one going toward a larger world.

Five years later, he came back and reported to work at a company I helped build.

By then, I no longer needed him to regret leaving me.

I no longer needed Lam Chi to apologize.

And I certainly didn’t need anyone to admit that I had been capable all along.

I knew.

That was enough.

Tran Chu had left me money to survive.

What he never imagined was that, without him there to keep telling me what I couldn’t do—

I would learn how to build an empire.