Gu Yanzhou did not leave immediately.
He held the bouquet in one hand and looked around my little shop.
The old wooden shelves.
The handwritten price cards.
The small fan turning lazily above the counter.
Finally, his gaze stopped on the sign.
NO PROBLEMS.
“Why did you choose that name?”
I continued trimming the hydrangeas.
“Because I like peaceful lives.”
Su Hang’s face tightened.
Six years earlier, peace had been the last thing either of them had given me.
That night in Beicheng was still clear in my memory.
My father had discovered that I was not his biological daughter.
A hospital mistake twenty-two years earlier.
The real daughter of the Su family had been found.
Su Qing.
Beautiful.
Educated abroad.
Fragile enough that everyone immediately wanted to compensate her for the childhood she had supposedly lost.
Within three months, I went from daughter to intruder.
My bedroom became hers.
My mother’s jewelry became hers.
Even my engagement to Gu Yanzhou became something everyone suddenly considered inappropriate.
Then came the accusation.
A necklace belonging to Su Qing disappeared.
They found it inside my suitcase.
I said I hadn’t taken it.
Nobody believed me.
Su Hang had personally carried my luggage downstairs.
He had said:
“Su Yan, the Su family raised you for twenty-two years. Don’t make this uglier.”
Gu Yanzhou had returned the engagement ring.
“You are not worthy of me.”
That same night, I left Beicheng with less than two thousand yuan.
Nobody came after me.
Not once in six years.
Until now.
Su Hang suddenly said:
“Dad is sick.”
My scissors stopped.
Only for a second.
Then continued.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“He wants to see you.”
“No.”
His face changed.
“Su Yan.”
“Sir.”
I finally looked up.
“If you’re not buying anything else, I have work.”
“You still call me ‘sir’?”
“What would you prefer?”
His lips parted.
Brother?
I almost laughed.
That word had died on the night he put my suitcase outside.
Gu Yanzhou placed the bouquet back on the counter.
“We didn’t come here by accident.”
“I assumed Maybachs rarely get lost in Luxi.”
His eyes darkened.
“We’ve been looking for you.”
“Why?”
Neither answered immediately.
That silence told me the answer was not love.
Finally Su Hang took out a folder.
“We found the person who put Qing’s necklace in your suitcase.”
I stared at him.
For six years, I had imagined this moment.
Someone discovering the truth.
My family apologizing.
Gu Yanzhou regretting everything.
I had imagined myself crying.
Maybe shouting.
Instead, I simply asked:
“Who?”
“One of the former maids.”
“And why?”
Su Hang’s voice became lower.
“Qing paid her.”
Mrs. Zhang, who had been pretending to arrange bowls next door, suddenly stopped moving.
I looked at the hydrangea in my hand.
“So she framed me.”
“Yes.”
“And you believe me now.”
Su Hang closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
A small laugh escaped me.
Six years too late.
Gu Yanzhou stepped forward.
“There’s more.”
I looked at him.
“The hospital investigated the records again.”
My fingers tightened slightly.
“The original newborn identification files were incomplete.”
Su Hang’s face was pale.
“Su Qing may not be Dad’s biological daughter either.”
That finally surprised me.
“What?”
“She manipulated part of the DNA testing.”
The truth was almost absurd.
The Su family had thrown away the daughter they raised for twenty-two years to welcome a supposedly biological daughter.
And now even that story might have been false.
I leaned against the counter.
“What do you want from me?”
Su Hang answered immediately:
“Come home.”
“No.”
“You haven’t even thought about it.”
“I had six years.”
His eyes reddened.
“Mom cries every day.”
I looked at him.
“And when I cried?”
He froze.
“When you pushed my suitcase outside, did anyone ask whether I had somewhere to sleep?”
Silence.
“When I called Mom the first week and she blocked my number, did anyone cry?”
Su Hang lowered his head.
I continued:
“You are suffering now because you finally know you were wrong.”
My voice remained calm.
“I suffered when everyone still thought you were right.”
Gu Yanzhou suddenly said:
“I never stopped looking for you.”
I turned toward him.
That was almost insulting.
“You had my phone number.”
“You changed it.”
“After three months.”
He went silent.
“For three months, you knew exactly where I could be reached.”
His hand tightened around the bouquet.
“I was angry.”
“So was I.”
“But I didn’t abandon you.”
The words left my mouth before I could soften them.
Gu Yanzhou’s face changed.
Good.
Some truths did not need to be gentle.
They returned the next day.
Then again.
On the fourth visit, my mother came.
I knew her immediately despite the gray in her hair.
She stood outside the shop crying before she even entered.
“Yan Yan.”
For a second, the twenty-two-year-old inside me almost answered.
Then I remembered the blocked number.
The silence.
The cheap hostel where I spent my first winter after leaving Beicheng.
I bowed politely.
“Mrs. Su.”
Her knees nearly gave way.
“Don’t call me that.”
“What should I call you?”
“Mom.”
I looked at her.
“You asked me never to call you that again.”
She covered her mouth.
Apparently she remembered.
So did I.
People who hurt you often forget the exact sentences.
The person who receives them rarely does.
She placed a bank card on the counter.
“There is money here.”
I pushed it back.
“I don’t need it.”
“The house is still yours.”
“I have a home.”
“Your father wants to restore your inheritance.”
“I have my own money.”
Her tears fell harder.
“What can we give you, then?”
I looked around.
At my flowers.
At the sunlight entering through the old windows.
At Mrs. Zhang scolding a delivery driver outside.
At the ordinary life I had built without the Su surname.
“Nothing.”
That was the answer that finally broke her.
The DNA results arrived two weeks later.
Su Qing had indeed fabricated her relationship to the family.
Her mother had once worked with my father and knew enough private information to construct the deception.
But there was one final twist.
My original birth records were located.
I had not been switched at birth.
I was the biological daughter of neither Mr. nor Mrs. Su.
I had been abandoned anonymously at the hospital and mistakenly registered under another infant’s file.
The Su family had raised me because of an administrative error.
For twenty-two years.
Then thrown me away because of another.
When Su Hang told me, he looked devastated.
I smiled.
“So nothing changed.”
“What do you mean?”
“I wasn’t your sister six years ago.”
His eyes reddened.
“And apparently I’m still not.”
“No.”
He stepped forward.
“You are.”
I shook my head.
“Blood isn’t what made us family.”
His face collapsed before I finished.
“And lack of blood wasn’t what ended it.”
That was the part they finally understood.
They had not lost me because of DNA.
They had lost me because when doubt appeared, twenty-two years of love had weighed less than one accusation.
Gu Yanzhou stayed in Luxi longer than everyone else.
One evening, he entered just before closing.
No suit.
No driver.
Just a simple white shirt.
“A bouquet,” he said.
“For whom?”
“For someone I owe an apology.”
I selected white tulips.
He watched me wrap them.
Then said:
“I was wrong.”
“Yes.”
“I believed Qing.”
“Yes.”
“I thought breaking the engagement was protecting the Gu family.”
“Yes.”
His voice became hoarse.
“Can you stop saying yes like that?”
I looked up.
“What would you prefer?”
“That you hate me.”
I smiled faintly.
“I did.”
His eyes changed.
“Past tense?”
“Yes.”
For some reason, that hurt him more.
He whispered:
“Do you love someone else?”
“No.”
Relief appeared.
I finished tying the ribbon.
“But that doesn’t mean I’ll love you again.”
The relief disappeared.
He stood silently.
Then I pushed the bouquet toward him.
“Three hundred and eighty yuan.”
He laughed bitterly.
“The same price.”
“My flowers don’t become more expensive because customers regret things.”
For the first time, Gu Yanzhou smiled genuinely.
He paid.
Then he left the bouquet on my counter.
I never asked him to take it.
The next morning, I separated the flowers and gave them to customers for free.
Months later, the Su family stopped coming every week.
My mother wrote occasionally.
I answered sometimes.
Not because everything had been repaired.
Because I no longer needed anger to protect myself.
Su Hang visited once a year.
He always bought flowers.
He always paid.
Gu Yanzhou never asked me to marry him again.
Eventually, he understood that regret did not automatically restore rights to someone’s future.
As for me, I stayed in Luxi.
The shop became larger.
I hired two assistants.
Mrs. Zhang still brought me cold jelly every summer and claimed it was the best in the province.
One afternoon, a customer pointed to my sign.
“Why is the shop called ‘No Problems’?”
I smiled.
“Because I used to think a peaceful life meant nothing bad ever happened.”
“And now?”
I looked at the flowers blooming outside.
“Now I think it means bad things happened, but they no longer control where I live.”
Six years earlier, two men stood in Beicheng and decided I was not worthy of remaining in their lives.
Six years later, they drove thousands of kilometers just to stand inside my little flower shop hoping I would return.
But I no longer needed their regret.
They came looking for the Su Yan they had thrown away.
The problem was that she no longer existed.
The woman behind the counter had built a home, a name and a life of her own.
And if they wanted flowers from her?
That was fine.
Three hundred and eighty yuan.
No family discount.
