For several seconds, Co Thua An simply stared at the bank notification.

Five million yuan.

Transferred.

Balance: zero.

His first reaction was disbelief.

His second was fury.

“Wen Lai.”

He said my name through clenched teeth.

To Xao, still standing beside him, glanced at the screen and immediately widened her eyes.

“Five million?”

Her voice trembled.

“Mr. Thua An… did Sister Wen Lai take all the money?”

Co Thua An pushed her hand away and called the bank.

The answer he received made his expression darker with every passing second.

The transfer had been legally authorized.

There had been no theft.

No suspicious login.

No forged signature.

Because half of the money belonged to me.

And the remaining half?

It had been transferred according to an agreement Co Thua An himself had signed three years earlier.

Back then, when we opened the joint account, he had barely glanced at the documents.

I had asked him carefully:

“If one day we separate, how should this money be divided?”

He had laughed and kissed my forehead.

“Take it all if you want.”

“You’ll never leave me anyway.”

He had even written those words into the supplementary agreement because I insisted on keeping our finances clear.

Apparently, he had forgotten.

I hadn’t.

Co Thua An hung up.

For the first time since returning home, uneasiness appeared in his eyes.

He suddenly looked around the villa.

Something felt wrong.

Not empty.

Clean.

Too clean.

He walked quickly toward the bedroom and pulled open my wardrobe.

Half of it was empty.

My jewelry box remained on the dressing table, but everything inherited from my mother was gone.

The expensive necklaces he had bought me were still there.

So were the watches.

The handbags.

The diamond bracelet from our fifth anniversary.

I had taken almost nothing he gave me.

That frightened him more than if I had emptied the entire room.

Because Wen Lai had always treasured every gift from him.

Even a cheap hair clip he bought during our first year together had once been carefully stored inside a velvet box.

Now it was lying in the trash.

Co Thua An picked it up.

His fingers froze.

To Xao stood at the bedroom door.

“Maybe Sister Wen Lai is just trying to scare you.”

He didn’t answer.

For the first time, those words didn’t comfort him.

He called my parents.

No one knew where I was.

He called my old friends.

Some numbers had changed.

Others answered coldly.

Finally, one woman laughed.

“Now you remember Wen Lai has friends?”

The call ended.

Co Thua An stared at the black screen.

That evening, he began searching seriously.

Hotels.

Airports.

Train stations.

Properties under my name.

Every trail ended nowhere.

It was as if I had spent months preparing to disappear.

Because I had.

Three months earlier, I had already discovered that To Xao had access to more than our front door.

She had used our family driver.

She knew the password to Co Thua An’s private office.

She attended dinners where spouses were invited while I received messages saying the events were “business only.”

The fingerprint lock had not destroyed my marriage.

It merely gave me the courage to admit that the marriage had already been broken for a long time.

By the third day, Co Thua An stopped going to the company.

By the fifth, he had people searching ports.

On the seventh morning, his lawyer finally called.

“Mr. Co, there’s something you need to know.”

“What?”

“Your wife has appointed legal representation.”

Co Thua An stood up.

“Give me the address.”

“I can’t.”

His expression turned cold.

“What do you mean you can’t?”

“Mrs. Co specifically requested that her location remain confidential. All communication regarding the divorce will go through her attorney.”

Something crashed.

He had thrown the glass in his hand against the wall.

To Xao rushed into the office.

“Thua An!”

But he barely noticed her.

“She planned this.”

His voice was hoarse.

“She planned everything.”

For the first time, he understood.

I wasn’t waiting somewhere for him to come find me.

I didn’t want to be found.

Meanwhile, hundreds of kilometers away, I stood on the deck as the ship entered a foreign harbor.

Morning sunlight spread across the water.

For years, my mornings had begun with Co Thua An.

His breakfast.

His clothes.

His schedule.

His preferences.

That morning, I bought coffee from a small shop by the harbor and sat alone beside the window.

No one knew me.

No one called me Mrs. Co.

No one asked where my husband was.

I should have felt lonely.

Instead, I felt strangely light.

My lawyer sent a message.

“He refuses to sign.”

I smiled.

“Proceed according to the original plan.”

A second message arrived.

“And the company shares?”

I looked at the sea.

“Not yet.”

There was something Co Thua An had forgotten besides the bank agreement.

Eight years ago, when his company was close to bankruptcy, no bank wanted to lend him money.

He thought an anonymous investor had saved him.

He never knew that investor was me.

Before marrying him, I had inherited a trust from my grandfather.

I quietly used part of it to acquire shares when his company was nearly worthless.

Over the years, through several investment entities, those shares had grown.

Co Thua An believed he controlled his company.

Technically, he did.

But if several minority shareholders acted together, control could shift overnight.

And every one of those minority entities ultimately belonged to the same person.

Me.

I had never planned to use them against him.

Until now.

Back in the city, Co Thua An finally returned to work after a week of chaos.

The moment he entered the conference room, every director was already seated.

To Xao hurried behind him with his documents.

He stopped.

His uncle was there.

So was the company’s legal counsel.

Three representatives from investment firms he rarely saw had taken seats opposite his.

“What is this?”

Nobody answered immediately.

Then the chairman pushed a folder across the table.

“An extraordinary shareholders’ meeting.”

Co Thua An frowned.

“Who authorized it?”

“The shareholders.”

“I’m the largest shareholder.”

The chairman looked at him strangely.

“You were.”

Silence filled the room.

Co Thua An slowly opened the folder.

His eyes moved down the first page.

Then the second.

His face changed.

Several investment companies had consolidated their voting rights.

Together, they now held more influence than he did.

At the bottom was the name of their authorized representative.

Wen Lai.

His hands tightened around the papers.

Impossible.

The wife he believed had abandoned her career.

The woman he thought had spent years depending entirely on him.

The woman he assumed would return within three days and apologize.

She had been sitting quietly inside his empire all along.

“Where did she get these shares?”

His lawyer hesitated.

“Mr. Co…”

“Answer me!”

“They date back eight years.”

Eight years.

Co Thua An went completely still.

Eight years ago was the darkest period of his life.

The company had been days away from collapse.

An anonymous investment fund had appeared at the last moment.

He had spent years trying to discover who had saved him.

But the investor had never revealed themselves.

Suddenly, a memory surfaced.

That rainy night, I had waited outside his office with an umbrella.

He had hugged me and said:

“Wen Lai, someone invested today.”

“We survived.”

I had smiled.

“That’s good.”

He had never asked why my eyes were red.

Now he knew.

The conference room door opened.

A courier walked inside carrying a sealed envelope.

“For Mr. Co.”

Co Thua An tore it open.

There was only one document inside.

A formal notice.

My shares had not been transferred.

I had not sold them.

I had simply exercised the voting rights I had possessed all along.

Attached was a handwritten note.

Only one sentence.

“You were right about one thing—I couldn’t help you anymore.”

Co Thua An stared at the words.

Then he suddenly ran from the conference room.

“To Xao!”

She hurried after him.

“Find her!”

“I don’t care how much it costs.”

“Find Wen Lai!”

But before she could respond, the chairman called after him.

“Mr. Co, there’s one more matter.”

Co Thua An turned.

The old man’s expression was complicated.

“Mrs. Co did not call this meeting to remove you.”

That stopped him.

“Then what does she want?”

The chairman slowly placed another document on the table.

“She wants an investigation.”

“Into what?”

Nobody spoke.

Then the company lawyer turned toward To Xao.

Her face had suddenly gone pale.

The chairman answered quietly.

“Seven unauthorized transfers were made from the company over the last eighteen months.”

“Every transaction was approved using your executive credentials.”

Co Thua An frowned.

“I never approved them.”

“We know.”

His eyes moved toward To Xao.

She took one step backward.

“Mr. Thua An, I can explain…”

His phone rang.

Unknown number.

He answered immediately.

“Wen Lai?”

There was silence.

Then my lawyer’s voice came through.

“Mr. Co, my client asked me to give you a message.”

Co Thua An gripped the phone.

“What message?”

The lawyer paused.

“Mrs. Co says the fingerprint lock was never the reason she left.”

Co Thua An looked at To Xao.

Her hands were trembling.

The lawyer continued.

“It was simply the reason she finally checked who else had been using your fingerprints.”

And at that moment, Co Thua An realized the woman standing beside him might not have entered only his home.

She might have entered everything he owned.