The entire floor seemed to go silent after Luc Canh Sam sent the photos.

For several seconds, all I could hear was my mother-in-law’s uneven breathing.

I stared at the two broken pieces of jade in my palm.

My mother’s last gift.

Broken.

My private photos stolen.

Sent to strangers.

And the eight-year-old standing in front of me was still smiling because he believed there would never be consequences.

“My father owns this place,” he said proudly. “You can’t do anything to me.”

I slowly closed my fingers around the jade.

“No,” I said. “Your father doesn’t own this place.”

Tham My So laughed.

“Still pretending?”

She raised my phone and waved it in front of me.

“You heard my husband yourself. He’s coming down right now. When he arrives, let’s see whether you still dare to talk like that.”

My mother-in-law suddenly grabbed my arm.

Her hand was trembling.

Not from fear.

From rage.

She had spent years defending her son.

Whenever someone said Luc Dien had married me for money, she was the first to argue.

Whenever I complained that he had become distant after taking control of the group, she told me gently that managing such a large company was exhausting.

She believed in him almost as much as I had.

And now she had discovered that while she was alive and treating me like her own daughter, her son had told another woman that his mother was dead.

The elevator chimed.

Everyone turned.

Luc Dien stepped out surrounded by four shopping-center executives and two security guards.

His expression was furious.

“Who touched my son?”

Tham My So immediately rushed toward him.

“Husband!”

Canh Sam ran after her.

“Dad!”

Luc Dien bent down and examined the red mark on the boy’s cheek.

His face darkened.

“Who did this?”

“I did.”

My voice wasn’t loud.

But Luc Dien froze.

Slowly, he raised his head.

Our eyes met.

All the anger disappeared from his face.

Then the blood drained from it.

“Thien… Thien?”

Tham My So’s smile vanished.

I stood beside the fitting room, my hair disheveled, my clothes wrinkled from being pushed around.

My mother-in-law stood beside me with a bright red handprint still visible across her cheek.

Luc Dien stared at us as though he had seen two ghosts.

Which was almost funny.

After all, according to him, one of us was supposed to be dead.

“Mom?”

My mother-in-law laughed.

It was a broken, bitter sound.

“So you still remember you have a mother?”

Luc Dien’s lips trembled.

“Mom, what are you doing here?”

She walked toward him.

Then slapped him.

The sound echoed across the store.

Nobody moved.

Tham My So screamed.

“What are you doing?!”

She rushed forward, but Luc Dien shoved her hand away.

“Shut up!”

She stared at him.

“Husband?”

“Don’t call me that!”

Now everyone was confused.

Especially the employees who had been insulting us minutes earlier.

One saleswoman whispered:

“Didn’t Mrs. Tham say his mother was dead?”

Luc Dien heard her.

His face became even paler.

He looked at his mother.

“Mom, I can explain.”

“Explain?”

She pointed at Tham My So.

“Explain why that woman calls you husband?”

Then she pointed at Canh Sam.

“Explain why that child calls you father?”

Finally, she pointed at herself.

“Or explain why you’ve been telling people I’m dead?”

Luc Dien couldn’t answer.

Tham My So finally seemed to understand that something was terribly wrong.

She looked at me.

Then at Luc Dien.

“Who exactly are these women?”

I smiled faintly.

“Didn’t you already tell everyone?”

I stepped forward.

“This is Luc Dien’s mother.”

Then I pointed at myself.

“And I’m his legal wife.”

The store exploded into whispers.

Tham My So stared at me.

“No.”

She immediately shook her head.

“Impossible!”

She grabbed Luc Dien’s arm.

“Husband, tell them!”

Luc Dien didn’t look at her.

He was staring at me.

That was enough.

Tham My So released him as if burned.

“No… You told me your wife was sick. You said she never came outside. You said the marriage existed only because of business!”

So that was his story.

I almost laughed.

Luc Dien rushed toward me.

“Thien Thien, listen to me. It’s not what you think.”

“Eight years.”

He stopped.

I looked at Canh Sam.

“You’ve been with her for at least eight years.”

Silence.

“Don’t insult me by calling it a misunderstanding.”

His face collapsed.

Then his gaze fell to my hands.

“What happened?”

I opened my palm.

The broken jade lay there.

Luc Dien recognized it immediately.

He knew exactly what it meant to me.

“Who broke that?”

Canh Sam hid behind Tham My So.

I answered calmly.

“Your son.”

Luc Dien’s jaw tightened.

Then I continued.

“He also entered my fitting room while I was changing and took photos of me.”

Luc Dien turned white.

“He did what?”

“He sent them out too.”

This time, even the shopping-center executives looked horrified.

Luc Dien spun toward Tham My So.

“You let him do that?”

“He’s a child!”

She screamed the same excuse again.

“He was only playing!”

I pulled out my mother’s phone.

Fortunately, she had recorded part of what happened after realizing things were getting out of control.

I pressed play.

Canh Sam’s voice came clearly from the speaker:

“My father is the general director of Thien Xuyen Group! From now on the whole group will be mine! Whatever I do is right!”

Nobody spoke.

I stopped the recording.

Then I looked at the executives behind Luc Dien.

“Call the police.”

Luc Dien immediately stepped toward me.

“Thien Thien, we can handle this privately.”

I looked at him.

“Privately?”

My voice finally turned cold.

“This happened inside my family’s shopping center.”

His expression stiffened.

“And that’s the second matter we’re going to discuss.”

I turned toward the shopping-center general manager.

“Who authorized Luc Dien to represent himself as the owner of Thien Xuyen?”

The man’s forehead instantly covered with sweat.

“Chairwoman… I…”

That single word changed everything.

Chairwoman.

Tham My So’s eyes widened.

The sales staff stared at me.

Her friends stopped breathing.

I had stayed away from company affairs for years because of my health.

That did not mean the company had stopped belonging to me.

My parents founded Thien Xuyen.

Their shares passed to me.

Luc Dien had management authority because I trusted my husband.

Nothing more.

I took out my phone and called the chairman of the supervisory board.

“Uncle Zhou.”

His voice came immediately.

“Thien Thien? Is something wrong?”

“Yes.”

I looked directly at Luc Dien.

“Effective immediately, suspend all of Luc Dien’s executive authority pending a full audit.”

Luc Dien’s face changed.

“Thien Thien!”

I continued.

“Freeze every corporate account he has signing authority over. Review every transaction connected to Tham My So and her relatives for the last ten years.”

Tham My So stumbled backward.

“What?”

“And send legal counsel to Thien Xuyen Shopping Center.”

I looked at the broken jade.

“There is also a police matter.”

When I ended the call, Luc Dien looked as though the ground beneath him had disappeared.

“You can’t do this.”

I almost smiled.

“You seem to have forgotten something.”

I stepped closer.

“You were managing my inheritance.”

His lips parted.

“You never owned it.”

Police arrived twenty minutes later. Pasted text

By then, the store employees who had tried to throw us out were suddenly eager to provide security footage.

The same people who had laughed when my privacy was violated were now bowing and apologizing.

I didn’t accept any of it.

The footage was preserved.

The phones were examined.

And because intimate images had been taken and distributed without permission, I made it clear that I wanted the matter formally investigated rather than quietly buried. Pasted text

As officers escorted Tham My So away for questioning, she suddenly turned on Luc Dien.

“You lied to me!”

He didn’t answer.

“You said everything belonged to you!”

Still nothing.

She laughed hysterically.

“You said your wife was useless! You said once she died, everything would belong to Canh Sam!”

That finally made me stop.

Luc Dien’s face changed.

My mother-in-law stared at him.

“What did she just say?”

He rushed toward me.

“Thien Thien, she’s lying!”

But I was no longer listening.

For years, Luc Dien had encouraged me to stay home.

To recover.

To avoid stress.

He had taken over more and more company matters because he supposedly wanted to protect me.

And suddenly, all those acts of tenderness looked very different.

I turned to the police officer.

“I want that statement recorded.”

Then I looked at Luc Dien.

“And I want the audit expanded.”

Three months later, the divorce was finalized.

The corporate investigation took longer.

It uncovered properties, gifts and company funds Luc Dien had quietly diverted toward the life he had built with Tham My So.

He lost his position.

He lost access to the company.

And most importantly, he lost the thing he had mistaken for weakness:

my trust.

My mother-in-law chose to live with me afterward.

People found that strange.

I didn’t.

A bad husband did not erase the years in which she had treated me like a daughter.

One afternoon, she handed me a small velvet box.

Inside was my mother’s jade.

A restoration specialist had repaired it with a thin golden seam.

I touched the line running through the center and felt my eyes burn.

“It will never be exactly as it was,” she whispered.

I smiled.

“Neither will I.”

And for the first time, that didn’t sound like something sad.

Some things break because we fail to protect them.

Others break so we finally see the truth hidden inside them.

Luc Dien thought my inheritance was his kingdom.

Tham My So thought her son was its crown prince.

They were both wrong.

Because the day they broke my mother’s jade was also the day I finally took back everything that had always been mine.