I looked at Lam Vi for several seconds.
Then I smiled.
“Don’t leave.”
Her fingers froze around Chu Hoai’s sleeve.
Everyone seemed surprised.
Even Chu Hoai relaxed visibly.
“Nien Niem…”
I raised one hand.
“I haven’t finished.”
Then I turned toward the MC.
“May I borrow the microphone?”
He hesitated before handing it to me.
I stood in the center of the banquet hall in my wedding dress and looked at nearly three hundred guests.
“Since everyone is already discussing whether I should be more generous, I think I should explain something.”
Chu Hoai’s mother immediately stood.
“Nien Niem, don’t embarrass both families.”
I looked at her.
“Madam Chu, please sit down.”
Her face stiffened.
It was the first time I hadn’t called her Mom.
Chu Hoai noticed.
“Nien Niem.”
I ignored him.
“Three months ago, I discovered that Chu Hoai was still regularly contacting his ex-wife.”
Whispers spread through the hall.
Lam Vi’s expression changed.
Chu Hoai stepped forward.
“Those were normal conversations.”
“Good.”
I nodded.
“Then let’s talk about normal conversations.”
I picked up my phone.
“March 7, 11:42 p.m. Lam Vi called because her water heater wasn’t working.”
Someone laughed awkwardly.
“March 19, 1:13 a.m. She called because she had a fever.”
“April 2, Chu Hoai canceled dinner with my parents because Lam Vi’s car broke down.”
My mother’s eyes widened.
That night, he’d told us there was a company emergency.
“April 17, he transferred her twenty thousand.”
Chu Hoai’s expression darkened.
“She needed money.”
“Exactly.”
I looked at him.
“You always had a reason.”
Lam Vi finally released his sleeve.
“Miss Shen, you’re making ordinary things sound dirty.”
“I haven’t said they’re dirty.”
I smiled.
“I’m saying I asked my fiancé to establish boundaries with his ex-wife, and he told me I was insecure.”
The room became quieter.
“Then yesterday, I asked him one final question.”
I turned toward Chu Hoai.
“Do you remember?”
His jaw tightened.
Of course he remembered.
I had asked:
If Lam Vi and I both needed you on our wedding day, who would you choose?
He had laughed.
He’d called the question childish.
Now I looked at Lam Vi standing beside him in a cream-white gown.
Apparently, I had received my answer.
“Nien Niem,” Chu Hoai said through clenched teeth, “enough.”
“No.”
I removed the wedding ring.
“This is enough.”
His face changed completely.
“What are you doing?”
“Ending the wedding.”
The hall erupted.
My mother covered her mouth.
Chu Hoai’s mother slammed her palm against the table.
“Are you insane?”
“No.”
I placed the ring beside my untouched wine glass.
“I’m actually thinking very clearly.”
“You want to cancel a marriage because his ex-wife came for one toast?”
I looked at her.
“No.”
“I am canceling it because your son invited his ex-wife without telling me, seated her at a family table, held her hand in front of me and then asked me to accept it.”
I paused.
“And because his entire family believes my dignity is less important than avoiding embarrassment.”
Chu Hoai grabbed my arm.
“Nien Niem, stop.”
I pulled away.
“Don’t touch me.”
His face went white.
For the first time, panic replaced irritation.
“You can’t cancel everything like this.”
“Why not?”
“The hotel, the guests, the contracts—”
“I paid the hotel deposit.”
He stopped.
“The wedding planner is contracted through my company.”
Another pause.
“The photography team was paid by my father.”
I looked toward the stage decorations.
“And the apartment you planned for us to live in after marriage?”
His mother suddenly looked uneasy.
I smiled.
“Mine.”
That apartment had been a gift from my parents before the wedding.
Yet Chu Hoai’s mother had already told relatives that her son had “prepared a marital home.”
I had remained silent because I thought we were becoming family.
That silence ended today.
Lam Vi stepped backward.
“This has nothing to do with me.”
I looked at her.
“You’re right.”
She seemed surprised.
“You didn’t promise to marry me.”
My eyes moved toward Chu Hoai.
“He did.”
For the first time that evening, Lam Vi had no answer.
Chu Hoai lowered his voice.
“Come upstairs with me. We’ll talk privately.”
“We had months to talk privately.”
“Nien Niem…”
“Today you wanted everyone involved.”
I gestured around the banquet hall.
“So let’s finish publicly.”
I turned toward the guests.
“Please continue eating. The banquet has already been paid for.”
Several people stared at me.
I smiled.
“Consider it a family dinner celebrating my escape from a very expensive mistake.”
Someone at my father’s table laughed.
Then another person did.
My father’s expression finally softened.
Chu Hoai’s mother looked furious.
“You’ll regret this.”
“Perhaps.”
I handed the microphone back.
“But if I regret leaving, that’s my mistake.”
I looked at her son.
“If I marry him after today, that’s a mistake all of you helped me see coming.”
I went upstairs and changed clothes.
Twenty minutes later, I walked out of the hotel wearing jeans, a sweater and comfortable shoes.
My parents came with me.
Chu Hoai followed us into the lobby.
“Nien Niem!”
I stopped.
He looked nothing like the confident groom from half an hour earlier.
“Lam Vi has already left.”
I almost couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“And?”
“I told her we shouldn’t contact each other anymore.”
“Congratulations.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
He stepped closer.
“I chose you.”
I shook my head.
“No, Chu Hoai.”
My voice was calm.
“You chose me after choosing her became expensive.”
He went silent.
I walked away.
For the next week, he called constantly.
Then his mother called.
Then his aunt.
Their arguments changed every day.
First I was impulsive.
Then ungrateful.
Then cruel.
Finally, when none of that worked, I became “too independent to understand marriage.”
I blocked them all.
Three weeks later, Lam Vi contacted me.
Her message contained only one sentence.
Can we meet?
I almost deleted it.
Then another message arrived.
There is something about Chu Hoai you should know.
Curiosity won.
We met at a café.
Lam Vi looked nothing like the triumphant woman from my wedding.
She placed her phone on the table.
“I thought he would come back to me.”
At least she was honest.
“He told me your relationship wasn’t good.”
I said nothing.
“He said you were controlling.”
Still nothing.
“He told me the wedding was mostly pressure from both families.”
That made me laugh.
“Did he?”
Her face reddened.
Then she opened several messages.
I read them.
Most were exactly what I expected.
Chu Hoai comforting her.
Remembering birthdays.
Checking whether she’d eaten.
Telling her that nobody understood him like she did.
But one message stopped me.
It had been sent two weeks before our wedding.
Lam Vi had written:
If you still have feelings for me, don’t marry her.
Chu Hoai’s reply:
I have to marry Nien Niem.
Lam Vi:
Why?
His answer was only one sentence.
Because her father’s company is entering the southern market next year.
I stared at the screen.
Suddenly, the wedding humiliation seemed almost insignificant.
Lam Vi whispered:
“I didn’t know what that meant until after the wedding.”
I did.
My father’s company had recently received regulatory approval for a major expansion.
Chu Hoai’s business had been struggling to enter the same supply chain.
Marriage would have given him something far more useful than a wife.
Access.
I sent the screenshots to myself.
Then I stood.
Lam Vi looked up.
“Aren’t you angry with me?”
“I was.”
“And now?”
I thought about it.
“Now I think we both believed different versions of the same man.”
Two months later, my father’s company announced its southern partnerships.
Chu Hoai’s company wasn’t among them.
Not because I asked my father to punish him.
There simply was no longer any reason to treat his business as family.
That was enough.
The last time I saw Chu Hoai was outside my office.
He looked exhausted.
“Nien Niem.”
I stopped.
“Did you know?”
“Know what?”
“That your father removed our company from consideration.”
I looked at him.
“My father didn’t remove you.”
His expression changed.
“You were never guaranteed anything.”
“But after our marriage—”
He stopped himself.
Too late.
I smiled.
“Exactly.”
His face turned pale.
That one unfinished sentence told me everything.
I walked past him.
Behind me, he called my name.
I didn’t turn around.
On my wedding day, everyone thought Lam Vi had humiliated me by standing beside my groom like a second bride.
They were wrong.
She had accidentally given me the most valuable wedding gift possible.
The truth.
And because she arrived before I signed the marriage certificate, I was lucky enough to walk away with my home, my career, my family—and my future still entirely my own.
