I left the Giang villa at four in the afternoon.
At six thirty, Giang Than finally found Ta Vu Yen.
She was not kidnapped.
Not injured.
Not lost.
She was sitting in a lakeside hotel less than forty kilometers away, drinking tea with her phone switched off beside her.
When Giang Than entered, breathless and furious, she apparently smiled.
“You came.”
He threw the divorce petition onto the table.
“I did what you wanted.”
Ta Vu Yen looked at my signature.
Then laughed happily.
“She really signed?”
“Yes.”
“Did she cry?”
Giang Than paused.
“No.”
“Did she beg you?”
“No.”
That answer disappointed her.
She picked up the papers again.
“But you told her it was real?”
“I told her it was only for show.”
Ta Vu Yen’s smile returned.
“So she still thinks you’ll go back to her.”
Giang Than frowned.
For the first time, something about the game felt strange.
But not strange enough.
He stayed with her until evening.
Then finally drove home.
He expected to find me waiting by the door.
As always.
Instead, the first thing he saw was dirt.
The peach forest was gone.
Five years of trees had been uprooted.
No pink flowers.
No little stone bench.
No lanterns I hung every spring.
Only bare earth.
Giang Than stopped in the middle of the garden.
Then ran inside.
“Thai Y?”
No answer.
He opened the bedroom.
Empty.
My clothes were gone.
My cosmetics.
My books.
Even the slippers beside the bed.
He ran to the study.
That was where he found everything.
The concentric jade pendant.
The red book.
Every piece of jewelry he had given me.
Neatly arranged.
Beside them was a handwritten inventory.
And one sentence:
Everything you gave me is here. Everything I gave you, I no longer want back.
Giang Than stared at it.
Then he saw Uncle Vuong.
“Where is she?”
The butler lowered his eyes.
“Madam left.”
“Where?”
“She didn’t tell me.”
“Why didn’t you stop her?”
Uncle Vuong looked at him for a long time.
Then said quietly:
“You told her to sign the divorce.”
That was the first moment Giang Than’s confidence cracked.
He called me thirty-seven times that night.
I knew because when I switched on my new phone the next morning, the old number had forwarded the notifications.
I deleted them.
Then I went to meet my lawyer.
Giang Than had made one mistake.
The papers he gave me were not fake.
They were real divorce documents prepared by his family attorney.
He only intended to use my signature to reassure Ta Vu Yen.
I intended to use it for its actual purpose.
My lawyer reviewed everything.
“The proposed division is reasonable.”
“Good.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t want to negotiate for more?”
“I want what is legally mine.”
Not everything.
Not nothing.
My share of the savings accumulated during the marriage.
My personal investments.
The belongings I bought myself.
Nothing tied to keeping Giang Than in my life.
The next morning, my attorney formally submitted the paperwork.
At 10:18, Giang Than received notice.
At 10:23, he called Uncle Vuong.
At 10:25, he called me.
This time I answered.
His breathing was rough.
“Thai Y.”
“Yes?”
“What did you do?”
I almost smiled.
“I signed the divorce.”
“I know you signed it!”
“Then why ask?”
“I told you it was fake.”
“And I decided to make it real.”
Silence.
Then:
“Where are you?”
“That no longer concerns you.”
“Come home.”
I looked around my small rented apartment.
Two suitcases.
One table.
A window facing an ordinary street.
For the first time in years, nobody was waiting for me to cook dinner.
Nobody was asking why I called.
Nobody was disappearing to test another woman’s love.
“I am home.”
His voice changed.
“Thai Y.”
I hung up.
Three days later, Grandpa Giang found me.
Not to force me back.
He simply sat across from me in a tea shop and looked older than I remembered.
“I’m sorry.”
I shook my head.
“You didn’t do this.”
“I brought you into that family.”
“I agreed to enter it.”
He sighed.
“Giang Than is looking everywhere.”
“That is his habit.”
Grandpa looked confused.
I smiled faintly.
“When Ta Vu Yen disappears, he searches for her.”
“Now I disappeared.”
“He can practice.”
Grandpa almost laughed.
Then his eyes became red.
“Do you still love him?”
I looked outside.
Peach blossoms were opening along the street.
“Yes.”
It was the truth.
Five years could not be erased because I packed a suitcase.
“But loving him became painful enough that leaving hurt less.”
Grandpa said nothing after that.
Before leaving, he asked:
“What will you do now?”
I thought about it.
Before marriage, I had studied landscape architecture.
I had once planned public gardens and restoration projects.
Then I married Giang Than.
At first I took small commissions.
Later I stopped.
There was always another Giang family dinner.
Another business event.
Another reason he needed me available.
I had recently contacted my former professor.
She had one question:
Can you start next month?
I told Grandpa:
“I’m going back to work.”
He smiled.
“Good.”
Meanwhile, Ta Vu Yen finally got what she thought she wanted.
Giang Than was free.
There was no wife standing between them.
No marriage to compete with.
No forbidden romance.
No need to disappear.
And strangely—
their relationship began collapsing almost immediately.
The fourth time she disappeared, Giang Than did not search until midnight.
He called once.
She ignored him.
He called again.
Nothing.
Then he went home.
At eight the next morning, Ta Vu Yen stormed into his office.
“You didn’t come looking for me!”
Giang Than stared at her.
“You were at your friend’s apartment.”
“How did you know?”
“Your assistant posted a photograph.”
Her face changed.
“That’s not the point.”
“What is the point?”
She started crying.
“You used to search everywhere.”
Something finally became clear to him.
“You wanted me frightened.”
“I wanted to know I mattered.”
“And every time I left my wife to find you, that proved it?”
Ta Vu Yen went silent.
That silence was enough.
Later, according to Uncle Vuong, she screamed:
“You always went after me before!”
Giang Than answered:
“Because Thai Y was always waiting at home.”
For the first time, he understood what those games had cost.
Ta Vu Yen had been testing whether he would choose her.
Giang Than had enjoyed being needed.
And I had paid for every test.
Our divorce became final five months later.
On the day the judgment arrived, Giang Than was waiting outside my workplace.
I almost walked past him.
He looked thinner.
“Can we talk?”
“Ten minutes.”
He laughed bitterly.
“You used to wait all night for me.”
“Yes.”
“That woman doesn’t exist anymore.”
We sat beneath a row of young trees my team had recently planted.
He looked at me.
“I ended things with Vu Yen.”
“That’s your business.”
“I found out something.”
“What?”
His hands tightened.
“She admitted that sometimes she disappeared because she wanted to see whether I would abandon you to find her.”
I nodded.
“I know.”
“You knew?”
“Not the details.”
I looked at him.
“But after the second time, the pattern wasn’t difficult to understand.”
His eyes reddened.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
I almost laughed.
“Would you have believed me?”
He opened his mouth.
Then closed it.
Exactly.
He whispered:
“I thought you would always be there.”
“I know.”
“I thought the divorce paper…”
“Was just another performance.”
“Yes.”
I looked at him.
“That was your mistake.”
He stared at me.
“You used our marriage as a prop in someone else’s love game.”
“I simply stopped acting.”
His face crumpled.
“Can we start again?”
“No.”
Immediate.
Clear.
He lowered his head.
“I still love you.”
“I believe you.”
His eyes rose.
“But love that only becomes urgent when someone leaves is exhausting.”
He had no answer.
Then he asked:
“What happened to the peach trees?”
“I removed them.”
“You loved them.”
“I loved what they represented.”
I looked toward the small public garden beside us.
“That changed.”
He followed my gaze.
Rows of newly planted peach trees stretched along the path.
He smiled sadly.
“You planted them again.”
“Yes.”
“For us?”
I shook my head.
“For everyone.”
Three years later, the riverside restoration project my team designed opened to the public.
Thousands of peach trees bloomed that spring.
Children ran beneath them.
Elderly couples sat on benches.
Young people took photographs.
Nobody knew that years earlier I had planted my first peach forest because a man said he wanted a paradise belonging only to us.
This one belonged to no marriage.
No promise.
No Giang family.
It belonged to the city.
Grandpa Giang came to the opening.
So did Uncle Vuong.
Giang Than stood farther away.
He did not approach until the crowd had thinned.
He looked at the blossoms.
“They’re beautiful.”
“Thank you.”
Then he handed me a small box.
Inside was the concentric jade pendant.
I stared at it.
“You kept it?”
“You left it behind.”
“Yes.”
He closed the box again.
“I thought someday I would return it when you forgave me.”
“I have forgiven you.”
Hope flashed across his face.
I continued:
“But I don’t want the jade.”
The hope disappeared.
I smiled gently.
“Forgiving the past does not mean rebuilding it.”
For once, Giang Than did not argue.
He nodded.
Then put the box back in his pocket.
Before leaving, he said:
“I finally understand why you uprooted the trees.”
“Why?”
“Because the forest wasn’t dead.”
His voice became quiet.
“We were.”
I looked at him.
Maybe that was the first completely honest thing he had said about our marriage.
I nodded.
“Yes.”
He left.
I stayed.
Above me, peach blossoms moved in the spring wind.
Five years earlier, I had believed being given a home meant I would never be an orphan again.
Later, I learned something better.
A home was not the red book with my name.
Not the villa.
Not the jade pendant.
Not even the man I had loved since childhood.
A home was any place where I did not have to beg someone to return to me.
The third time Ta Vu Yen disappeared, Giang Than handed me a divorce petition to make another woman feel secure.
He thought my signature was part of their game.
He thought I would wait until he came home and explain that none of it was real.
But he came back too late.
The divorce was real.
The empty house was real.
And the woman who had spent five years waiting beside the door—
was finally gone.
