At eleven thirty that night, Lục Chinh opened the refrigerator.

There were three containers inside.

Braised beef.

Vegetable soup.

And the dumplings I had made two days earlier.

Each container had a small note.

“Heat for three minutes.”

“Don’t forget to add water.”

“Breakfast.”

Lục Chinh stared at them.

Then he tore the notes off and threw them into the trash.

He wasn’t going to miss me.

There was nothing to miss.

The next morning, however, he burned his toast.

Two days later, he realized his dry-cleaning hadn’t been collected.

On Friday, his mother called.

“Chinh, why hasn’t Niệm brought me bread this week?”

“We divorced.”

Silence.

Then:

“What did you say?”

“We divorced.”

His mother’s voice immediately sharpened.

“Why?”

“We weren’t suitable.”

“Not suitable?”

She laughed incredulously.

“When I was lying in the hospital three years ago, why didn’t you think she was unsuitable?”

Lục Chinh frowned.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

His mother suddenly stopped speaking.

“Nothing.”

She hung up.

That conversation left him strangely irritated.

But he soon forgot about it.

Especially because Qian Wei had begun appearing openly beside him.

She was everything he believed a wife should be.

Elegant.

Educated.

Successful.

When he brought her to company dinners, people praised them as a perfect match.

Nobody asked awkwardly whether she smelled like bread flour.

Nobody smiled politely when she said she ran a tiny bakery.

For several weeks, Lục Chinh felt certain he’d made the right decision.

Until one Monday morning.

His department director personally summoned him.

“Chinh, the annual bonus structure has changed.”

Lục Chinh sat down.

“How much this year?”

Director Zhou looked uncomfortable.

“There won’t be one.”

Lục Chinh frowned.

“Last year I received 600,000.”

“I know.”

“And the year before that.”

“I know.”

“Then why suddenly nothing?”

Director Zhou remained silent.

Lục Chinh leaned forward.

“Is the company having financial problems?”

“No.”

“Then what is it?”

Director Zhou sighed.

“Those bonuses were never from the company.”

Lục Chinh stared at him.

“What?”

The director opened a drawer.

Inside were several transaction records.

The sender’s name had been hidden, but the amounts were unmistakable.

300,000.

420,000.

600,000.

“Someone transferred the money to me every year and asked me to give it to you as a performance bonus.”

Lục Chinh’s face changed.

“Who?”

Director Zhou hesitated.

Then said:

“Your ex-wife.”

For several seconds, Lục Chinh didn’t move.

“Impossible.”

“I met her personally.”

“No.”

“She asked me never to tell you.”

“Why would she do that?”

Director Zhou looked at him strangely.

“She said you were proud.”

Lục Chinh stood abruptly.

The chair scraped against the floor.

He returned home before noon.

For the first time since the divorce, he began opening drawers.

Cabinets.

Storage boxes.

Old folders.

He didn’t know what he was searching for.

Perhaps proof that Director Zhou was lying.

Instead, he found the letter.

It was inside the shoe cabinet.

His eyes moved across the first lines.

Then stopped.

Eight hundred thousand yuan.

His startup debt.

Four hundred thousand.

His mother’s hospitalization.

The bonuses.

Then the final sentence.

Founder of “Taste of Memory.”

1,200 stores nationwide.

Lục Chinh read it again.

And again.

Then he took out his phone.

The first search result made his fingers stiff.

Taste of Memory wasn’t a fifteen-square-meter bakery.

That little shop was merely the first location.

The brand had expanded through franchising and centralized supply chains.

Its latest valuation was measured in billions.

And buried in an old business article was the founder’s name.

Tô Niệm.

His ex-wife.

The woman he had divorced because she earned six thousand yuan a month.

That number had been real.

It just wasn’t her wealth.

It was the salary she paid herself for working in the original store.

Lục Chinh sat on the floor.

For a long time, he didn’t move.

Then he called me.

The number was blocked.

He remembered doing it himself outside the Civil Affairs Office.

He unblocked me.

Called.

No answer.

Again.

Nothing.

He opened WeChat.

Deleted.

Again, by his own hand.

For the first time, those clean movements he’d made after our divorce didn’t feel decisive.

They felt stupid.

He drove to the bakery.

But when he arrived, the door was locked.

A notice had been placed on the glass.

“Closed for renovation.”

He called the number underneath.

A young woman answered.

“Hello, Taste of Memory.”

“Where is Tô Niệm?”

“May I ask who you are?”

“Her husband.”

A pause.

Then:

“Ms. Tô is divorced.”

His face stiffened.

“I’m her ex-husband.”

“Then I’m afraid I can’t provide her private information.”

The call ended.

Three days later, he finally saw me again.

Not in the alley.

Not wearing an apron.

But on a stage.

His company had been invited to a national food-industry investment conference.

Qian Wei was attending as an investment executive.

Lục Chinh went with her.

Halfway through the event, the host announced:

“Please welcome the founder and controlling shareholder of Taste of Memory, Ms. Tô Niệm.”

Lục Chinh’s glass slipped from his hand.

I walked onto the stage.

Simple black dress.

Hair tied back.

No flour.

No apron.

Behind me appeared the company’s expansion map.

1,237 locations.

Six production centers.

Twenty-three regional distributors.

Annual revenue exceeding two billion yuan.

Qian Wei slowly turned toward him.

“You know her?”

Lục Chinh couldn’t answer.

I began speaking.

Calmly.

Professionally.

The woman on that stage was completely unfamiliar to him.

Yet every small gesture was familiar.

The way I tucked loose hair behind my ear.

The slight pause before answering a difficult question.

The habit of touching my index finger with my thumb when thinking.

He had lived beside this woman for years.

And somehow, he had never seen her.

After the presentation, he waited outside the backstage entrance.

When I appeared, he stepped in front of me.

“Tô Niệm.”

I stopped.

“Mr. Lục.”

That form of address visibly hurt him.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

“Everything.”

His voice became hoarse.

“The company. The money. My debt. My mother’s surgery.”

I looked at him quietly.

“You never asked.”

“How could I ask about something I didn’t know?”

“You knew enough.”

His face froze.

“You knew I woke up at four every morning.”

“You knew I spent nights studying recipes and supplier contracts.”

“You knew people constantly called me about stores and shipments.”

I smiled faintly.

“You just decided none of it could be important because I wore an apron.”

Lục Chinh opened his mouth.

Nothing came out.

Qian Wei appeared behind him.

Her expression was complicated.

“Tô Niệm.”

I nodded politely.

“Ms. Qian.”

She looked between us.

“So you deliberately hid your identity?”

“No.”

I found the question almost amusing.

“I never told anyone I was poor.”

“I told people I ran a bakery.”

“You assumed the rest.”

Qian Wei went silent.

Lục Chinh stepped closer.

“Let’s remarry.”

I stared at him.

He seemed to realize how ridiculous that sounded.

“I mean…”

He swallowed.

“I made a mistake.”

“No.”

I shook my head.

“You made a choice.”

“I didn’t know.”

“That is exactly the problem.”

His eyes reddened.

“Tô Niệm, give me another chance.”

“You didn’t divorce me because I betrayed you.”

“You didn’t divorce me because I treated you badly.”

“You divorced me because you thought I wasn’t worthy of standing beside you.”

Every word stripped something from his expression.

“If I still earned six thousand yuan today, would you be standing here asking me to come back?”

He couldn’t answer.

I nodded.

“Then there’s nothing left to discuss.”

I walked past him.

That should have been the end.

But regret can turn into obsession when a person realizes he discarded something he can never recover.

Lục Chinh began appearing outside my bakery.

Flowers.

Messages.

Gifts.

He returned the Porsche and offered me the house.

I refused everything.

Then his relationship with Qian Wei collapsed.

She eventually told him something that apparently stayed with him.

“You don’t love Tô Niệm.”

“You love discovering that the woman you discarded was more valuable than you.”

Months later, I heard he had resigned.

His performance had deteriorated.

He missed meetings.

Made mistakes.

Started drinking.

Once, at two in the morning, he sat outside the original bakery for hours.

I knew because the security camera recorded it.

Jiang Wan asked whether I felt satisfied.

I didn’t.

His destruction wasn’t my victory.

My victory was waking up every morning without having to prove that my work mattered.

Two years later, Taste of Memory opened its 2,000th location.

At the celebration, a reporter asked me:

“Ms. Tô, people online say your former husband divorced you because he believed you earned only six thousand yuan a month. Is that true?”

The room became quiet.

I smiled.

“The six thousand was real.”

Everyone laughed.

I continued:

“I paid myself that salary because the original bakery wasn’t created to make me rich.”

“It was where I learned the craft.”

“It was where I made my first loaf.”

“And it reminded me why I started.”

The reporter asked:

“Do you regret hiding your wealth from your husband?”

I thought for a moment.

“I never wanted a husband who respected me because of my wealth.”

“I wanted one who could respect me when all he saw was flour on my apron.”

That clip spread everywhere.

I never contacted Lục Chinh afterward.

Years later, someone told me he still kept the fountain pen I had once saved six months to buy him.

Perhaps he finally understood its value.

Not the price.

The person behind it.

But by then, understanding was useless.

When Lục Chinh divorced me, he thought the difference between us was that he earned 180,000 yuan a month while I earned only 6,000.

He was right about one thing.

There really had been an enormous distance between us.

He simply misunderstood which one of us had failed to see the other’s worth.